After The Storm: Postnatal Depression and the Utter Weirdness of New Motherhood

by Emma Jane Unsworth

Six months after the birth of her son, Emma Jane Unsworth finds herself in the eye of a storm. Nothing - from pregnancy to birth and beyond - has gone as she expected. A birth plan? It might as well have been a rough draft! Furious and exhausted, her life is the complete opposite of what it used to be. She's swapped all night benders for grazed labia and Whac-a-Moling haemorrhoids. How did she end up here? In this brave, vital account of postnatal depression, Emma tells her story of despair and recovery. She tackles the biggest taboos around motherhood and mental health, from botched stitches and bleeding nipples to anger and shame. How does pregnancy adapt our brains? Is postnatal depression a natural reaction to the trauma of modern motherhood? And are people's attitudes finally changing?After the Storm is a celebration of survival, holding out a hand to women everywhere.

Genres: Nonfiction, Parenting, Memoir, Feminism, Mental Health

176 pages, Paperback

First published May 6, 2021

About the author

Lives in Manchester, England.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) The author’s son was born on the day Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. Six months later, she realized that she was deep into postnatal depression and finally agreed to get help. The breaking point came when, with her husband* away at a conference, she got frustrated with her son’s constant fussing and pushed him over on the bed. He was absolutely fine, but the guilty what-ifs proliferated, making this a wake-up call for her.

In this succinct, wry and hard-hitting memoir, Unsworth exposes the conspiracies of silence that lead new mothers to lie and pretend that everything is fine. Since her son’s traumatic birth (which I first read about in Dodo Ink’s Trauma anthology), she hadn’t been able to write and was losing her sense of self. To add insult to injury, her baby had teeth at 16 weeks and bit her as he breastfed. She couldn’t even admit her struggles to her fellow mum friends. But “if a woman is in pain for long enough, and denied sleep for long enough, and at the same time feels as though she has to keep going and put a ‘brave’ face on, she’s going to crack.”

The book’s titled mini-essays give snapshots into the before and after, but particularly the agonizing middle of things. I especially liked the chapter “The Weirdest Thing I’ve Ever Done in a Hotel Room,” in which she writes about borrowing her American editor’s room to pump breastmilk. Therapy, antidepressants and hiring a baby nurse helped her to ease back into her old life and regain some part of the party girl persona she once exuded – enough so that she was willing to give it all another go (her daughter was born late last year).

While Unsworth mostly writes from experience, she also incorporates recent research and makes bold statements of how cultural norms need to change. “You are not monsters,” she writes to depressed mums. “You need more support. … Motherhood is seismic. It cracks open your life, your relationship, your identity, your body. It features the loss, grief and hardship of any big life change.” I can imagine this being hugely helpful to anyone going through PND, but I’m not a mother and still found plenty to appreciate (especially “We have to smash the dichotomy of mums/non-mums … being maternal has nothing to do with actually physically being a mother”).

*It took me no time at all to identify him from the bare facts: Brighton + doctor + graphic novelist = Ian Williams (author of The Lady Doctor)! I had no idea. What a fun connection.


Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Jana Walshe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, honest and overdue.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emma Jane Unsworth's memoir is searingly honest, and she writes about the most difficult time of her life with such insight. This is a resource which could surely make an enormous difference in the lives of new mothers, whether suffering from post-natal depression or not. I really hope that it gets the attention which it deserves.

[anarres. · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the end, when Unsworth reveals she is about to have a second baby, I burst into tears. This book made me feel so seen in the dark, confusing, invigorating, devastating, beautiful hell of new motherhood. Essential reading.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Jane Unsworth’s fiction is the most hilarious and humane I’ve ever read and her non-fiction is even more so. Her experience and depiction of Post Natal Depression is an honest and bare all account. Reading as a single, non-Mum I found it so interesting and relatable from a mental illness point of view, but also as a female point of view. The examination of how we are conditioned to juggle and then ultimately have to decide which balls we have to drop is one I can relate to even as someone without the same dependants as Emma.
The honesty as wicked sense of humour she brings to this book is so refreshing. The length of the book also makes it an easy read and an unputdownable one at that. Thanks so much for sharing your story, I’m sure it will help many many other Mum’s and non-Mums at that.

[Jemma Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Jane Unsworth is the most fantastic writer. I don't have or want children, but I read this book because I'll read anything she writes, especially if it's breaking taboos about women's lives and bodies. It was absolutely fascinating. She perfectly balances mind-blowing facts with tales of her own experiences. And in telling the latter she is courageously honest. She totally explodes all society's preconceptions about birth and new motherhood, and suggests ways we can start fixing the issues around them. Unsworth also writes brilliantly about mental health - having struggled with depression, I could relate to quite a bit of what she talks about, especially the 'I'm fine' dance and the inability to understand what's going on with yourself. It's so important we keep having conversations and sharing our experiences about women's mental health, because it's so easy, as this book shows, to blame yourself and wonder why you're not coping when everyone else is.

The book definitely gave me a new appreciation and understanding of how hard birth and motherhood can be, and that will hopefully make me a more supportive friend when the people closest to me start doing it. But I'd definitely tell anyone to read this book - man, woman, mum, dad, whoever - because it holds such an important message about valuing women, acknowledging our experiences, and allowing us to be imperfect.

[Rachel O Keeffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes a book comes along in your life at the perfect time and this was it for me. I laughed out loud, I cried and I cried some more. It was an absolute tonic for me. The words ‘it was not me, but something that happened to me’ will stay with me a long time. I have shared this book with all my new mum friends as I think it should be prescribed on the NHS for first time mums not just people who have experienced PND. Thank you for writing this Emma Jane Unsworth ❤️

[Sorrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really very difficult book to read. Not because of the main subject matter of birthing, PND and post natal experience... but because of a lot of clashing view which myself and the writer hold.
So instead of writing a review on my phone as usual, I got my laptop as I have A LOT of stuff to say about this book.

N.B Previously to this book I had read 'Animals' by this author and I had the feeling at that point, even though this was a fiction, that the author thinks romantically of tragic alcoholism.

So....here goes:

Great things about the book:
It's really important to be honest and transparent about the billion birthing experiences that are out there, but also the relative normal occurrences. PND being one of them. Post natal depression is something that we consider a rarity, yet actually 1 in 4 women are touched by this mental illness. It doesn't have one list of symptoms and can appear differently to each of us. Yet it is really important to strive to get the help you require to see your way through it.

Pregnancy and birthing is often promoted as some glowing, beautiful phase of life and if you don't enjoy it or you have anything other than a smooth, hippy birth...then you've done it wrong.
Unsworth speaks wonderfully about the feelings of shame and guilt that come with having anything other than a golden time whilst dealing with the whims and wants for a newborn baby. On top of your own healing and attempting to figure out who you are, you are yearning for the past and aching for the future. Time is elastic and feels both short on sleep and long on times of wandering and nothingness. I feel that this book dealt with those matter with great depth and honesty.

Things that weren't so great:
I understand that when you are a teenager you want to experience everything, be hedonistic and enjoy the dangerous things in life. Alcohol, drugs, parties etc etc...
Yet this writer talks about smoking and alcohol intake as if it is one of the only ways a mother may connect with her pre-baby 'wild' self. This is both trite and boring. Why do people romanticise alcoholism as something that creates their whole personality? Many times the author talks of drinking A LOT and even supports drinking while pregnant. At one point she mentions someone telling her that drinking wine while pregnant is a neurotoxin... to which the writer responds that living next to a road and inhaling exhaust fumes is a neurotoxin. This is just a stupid retort. You're not going and huffing directly on an exhaust pipe to get high are you???

When I was pregnant I got very tired of being treated like a 'baby house' by medical staff, I know that it is important to have your autonomy, but why does that always come back to alcohol?
I also find it highly strange as a society that we're totally up for a blackout weekend of drinking alcohol yet we are adverse to going to the Doctor and therapist, potentially getting anti-depressants or supportive medication and taking responsibility for our progression.

I found a lot of this book very contradictory.
Unsworth says that she understands that women, especially post natal needs exercise, support, therapy, good food, rest and relaxation. Yet STILL mentions going drinking after meeting with a friend that goes to rehab and blacking out whilst coming to with a sprained ankle. I can't believe that at no point in the book does she realise, with all her insight, that she has a real problem with drinking. Maybe that is just something I can see from the outside having experienced and been close to alcoholism.

At large, I thought that this book was honest and raw and deeply written, but very very confusing, unguided and off target considering that it is that the author keeps saying that she is trying to achieve.

[carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. A great insight into the mind of a woman traumatised with birth and the exhaustion of unrelenting sleepless nights.
How much pressure we put on ourselves as we pretend to be fine.
Honestly at its very core. A brave remit of how we want to be the perfect mother, wife, housekeeper, breast feeding.
The keeper of holding things together, afraid to be judged by even those close to us.
Written by a woman who has survived PND and is willing to share to help other who may be in the same position.
Breaking the taboos of motherhood….

[Professor Weasel · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was fine, I would have liked to read more about how she reconnected to her writing career etc. seems like the main way to cope as a new mom is a) put the baby on formula and b) get them on daycare/get help ASAP.

[Kelsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a memoir and one about the postpartum is always a bonus. I love British humor so this was funny and so well written

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so real. I cried.

[Dārta Kalmuka · Rating 5 out of 5]

It helped me to take a deep breath, the deepest I have taken in eighteen months (that’s how old my son is now).

[Cathy Hayward · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as part of my research for my third novel (which features a character with post-natal depression). But on a personal level, I’m so glad I found it. My kids are 11,13 and 18 big I can still remember the utter weirdness of new motherhood and the black cloud that sat above me at times. Emma Jane Unsworth writes incredibly movingly about those first few weeks, months and years. She describes so beautifully her journey back to herself as she recovers from PND and becoming a new mum. Every pregnant woman should read this book.

[Dani Ringrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly quick read that felt like you were continuing to fall down the abyss of motherhood. Just when you think things couldn't get worse, etc etc...

An articulate, soul-searching look at the author's experience of PND. I admit I picked it up to read for inspiration for my novel's protagonist's experience - and found fodder that I hope would do Unsworth honour in sharing her stories. I was delighted to find that I had some of her fiction on my shelf, ready to be read.

"But I must write it, I think, for all the women who are at breaking point or who think they are monsters because they feel the violence rising. You are not monsters. You need more support. I must write it because it's the truth, and if we're going to move this conversation forwards we have to stick our necks out if we feel we can. So there it is."

"My rate compounded by the fact that, as a man, he has no idea what I am going through. I hate him for not having his body ripped apart during childbirth. I am angry he isn't ravaged by hormones. I envy what I see as his male privilege; his freedom from the situation. But he is terrified. I can't see it, but he is terrified. He doesn't know what to do. And terror is not a feeling often found in love.

"I am dragging myself around in a dead sort of dream. A dying sun in a cold universe. Every time I turn, I spit out the odd fireball."

"Sinead Gleeson describes caring for a newborn as being 'static but non-stop'. It is exactly that. A place of paradoxes. Of night and day. Dark and light. Exhaustion and high alert. You feel simultaneously destroyed and reborn."

"People say that with postnatal depression you feel numb, nothing, towards the baby. But I didn't feel that way. I had an instant urge to protect him, but it wasn't what I'd call bonding...
I called him 'the baby' instead of his name for the first six months or so...
'Bone-tired' is the closest I can get, but my bones felt like they'd dissolved - along with my frontal lobe... I was so tired I kept repeating sentences. I was so tired I kept repeating sentences. At night, in bed, I got flashes of bright white behind my eyes - bursts of adrenaline, I learned - the split second the baby started crying."

"I do not breathe right whenever my baby is upset, which means I often do not breathe right because babies are often upset."

"Breastfeeding didn't bond me to my baby. It made me hate my baby. Everywhere I turned, there it was, his mouth, yawning before me like an abyss: the terrible, insatiable need of him. I started to see the ridged, red chasm of his mouth as THE ENEMY. I became a contortionist. I was so desperate to quieten him, I hurt my back by raising my leg a little off the floor to tilt him at the right angle. I pulled a neck muscle craning my neck to kiss him while he was feeding.
'Mother Nature is a misogynist,' I told my friend Jean."

"Breastfeeding becomes just one of many things I hate myself for hating. I hate the fact that I can't get on with my work. I hate the fact I keep eating entire packs of biscuits just not to feel tired. I hate the fact that most of my shoes don't fit and probably never will again. I hate the way that there's such pressure to breastfeed and yet there's nowhere clean and private to do it anywhere in town. I hate the way I am not fierce enough to just get my tits out and think fuckit. I hate all this fear and guilt and fretfulness that has sprung out of nowhere. What else? I hate my telescopic nipples, my mashed fanny, and the fact that there is no running away from any of this. Quite the opposite: I am inside the problem...
I hate Ian; the way he doesn't have to stop at a few glasses of wine when he doesn't want to. How he can go out for the whole day without planning it. How he sleeps deeply because he can still completely shut down without a small part of his brain left on, even when he's asleep, poised to detect a stir amongst the blankets in the crib, or the tiniest tentacle of a wail."

"Alex is a good mother. Not just of her baby, but of her friends. You don't have to have kids to be maternal. You can mother everyone around you, even yourself."

"Get up. Is he crying? You heard something, that's why you woke. Must be. Or energy. Sometimes you think you still share a pulse. You wake, he wakes. He wakes, you wake. There is no lonely. No reprieve. You pick up your socks. Don't put your socks on yet, you'll slip on the floor. These are not your socks. No these are your socks, it's okay. Put your socks on...
Nor is it the fact that everyday things were starting to feel alien - even my own socks. No, it's how they show me drifting away from myself, like someone having an out-of-body experience. I do not know the woman who wrote these words, and yet I was her."

"There are two great underlying fears for mothers, I think, and these ultimate fears inform every attempt to avoid shame and judgement: your baby is going to die, or your baby is going to be taken away."

"'He's a lunatic,' I say to Ian. 'He just wants to stay up all night. He's like some nocturnal maniac.'
I am talking about the baby. Ian looks at me. Because I am, first and foremost in life, a hedonist... You think party girls would be good at late nights, at days without sleep. But no...
I hate him for getting out of all this scot-free, or so I see it. His body isn't injured. His brain isn't rinsed with hormones."

"I have daymares, too. Wicked walking fantasies. I think about letting go of the buggy at lights, and letting it roll into the oncoming traffic. I hate myself for those thoughts, obviously, but I cannot stop having them."

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reached into the depths of my soul and lit up some dark dark corners filled with guilt, shame, rage and fear.

My son turned 8 years old recently and I have only just realised that I experienced postnatal depression following his birth (and it has turned me into a person I haven’t recognised multiple times over those years). I have been trying to get my hands on everything I can read about it and this book spoke to me on a really deep level. It was like Emma Jane Unsworth was in my head and able to articulate my experiences and emotions in a way that I find impossible. Her journey mirrors my own so closely that it is uncanny - the only difference being that she realised and sought help about 7 years earlier! I have lived with the sequelae of birth trauma and postnatal depression for 8 years without being able to articulate why I felt so shattered and broken since becoming a mother.

I reached the end of book feeling seen, heard, and hopeful. The part that really stuck with me was about trying to separate my relationship with my son from my relationship with motherhood.

I don’t know if authors read this reviews but if you do then thank you Emma, you have helped me on my journey to restoring myself and finding peace again.

[Isa Vico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recomiendo a mamás y parejas que estén atravesando el posparto y primer año de crianza de sus criaturas… Este proceso puede suponer un gran duelo que hay que atreverse a reconocer y transitar. Cuidarse para poder cuidar a ese ser indefenso y completamente dependiente que ha venido para revolucionártelo todo, llenarte de dudas y miedos, arrastrar cansancio, pausar tus días, acelerar tu corazón y tu mente, empañar tu yo anterior, encontrar nuevos placeres y mantener algunos de los viejos y sobrios en un intento de sentirte conectada con la antigua cotidianidad de tus días anteriores a parir o incluso concebir, colmarte de ternura y de amor, de trabajar la paciencia y la confianza, en tu bebé, en tu pareja, en ti… Es un currazo para el que creo que nunca se llega preparado o realmente consciente de lo que implica, de lo que es. Un currazo que hay que desear y hay que afrontar con compasión, valentía, serenidad y mucho amor. Pero poco a poco, hay que darse tregua y transitar todas las emociones, sentimientos, pensamientos y actuaciones que aparecen y suceden, aceptar, perdonar(se), lidiar y disfrutar. Se puede caer en un pozo muy oscuro, pero también se puede salir de él y vivir tan solo asomándose de vez en cuando a él. No pasa nada. Todo está bien.

[Amy Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. It was so, so healing for me. I've been wondering if I'm still, or again, suffering with post natal depression. The world feels so heavy, and it's feeling hard in all the areas I'm supposed to be enjoying the most - mothering.
The entire chapter titled "The Cracks" particularly spoke to me. I've recovered from depression before, and I've got moments of light and joy now too, so I know I'll be ok, and this book was exactly the right thing at the right time.
"As for that storm - I have metabolised it. I have brewed it in my pot, and the steam rises up and up, past the mountain tops. Surviving an illness is a transformation. It is also a love story, played out by you and your body."
"If you can add your voice, add it. If you can't, cling to us. We can carry you. We can carry all of us."
Beautiful.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words can't describe how much I'm in love with this book.
I came home a few weeks ago after 4 months in a mother and baby psychiatric unit. When trying to piece together what on earth had happened to me I went to the library, and looked through the books about post-natal mental illness, and immediately recognised Emma's name from having enjoyed her fiction.
I loved it. Never have I needed a book more. Reading it felt like having a drink after being lost in a desert. I feel so seen. And feel hope in a way that I didn't before. If Emma could claw her way back and find herself again, then maybe I can too?

[Katelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

British author Unsworth tells of the terrible postnatal depression she fell into after her son was born. She writes honestly about the immense difficulty of postpartum motherhood, and the grief of losing her identity as it is subsumed by motherhood. "How did this happen? I am tough. I am smart. I have built a career. I have lived alone. I have spent decades carving out a life for myself that feels right and fulfilling. Now I am cracking, right down the middle." Unsworth's writing is raw, smart, and funny. My slim, 146-page copy is heavily underlined. A necessary book in conversations about early motherhood.

[Nicola Mostyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant, wonderfully written and important book. Raw, funny, heartbreaking and inspiring - a call to arms for women to have autonomy and just plain honesty about their own bodies, minds and lives. And of course, Emma Unsworth's poetic, candid writing style means that this is an unputdownable read. I think it will help a lot of women come to terms with feelings they might have struggled to express about their real situation and emotions, when the pressure to be the 'perfect mother' is still an issue, even in 2021.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would have read it in one sitting had I not an 8 month old to contend with. The guilt, the shame, the isolation and world shrinking - I feel it all. Sobbed my way through the book and I’ve recommended it to other new mums, although really - anyone who knows anyone who has a baby or might have a baby or wants to understand, would get something out of this book. I’m self employed like the author and it’s the first account of a self employed mum that I’ve read and related to.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest memoir breaking the taboo surround the idea that every motherhood is magical.
At the beginning I was somewhat put off my the too-vernacular style which read like a blogpost but I quite enjoyed the second part of the book (approx. after page 70) - which was less autobiographical in a sense of setting the scene and more argumentative in the sense of discussing the situation. Would definitely recommend it to women who struggle with mental illness during pregnancy.

[Charlotte Procopio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an important book!

I read this when I was approx. six weeks postpartum. Although my situation wasn’t half as difficult as the authors, I related to so many of the feelings in this book. Reading someone else’s experiences massively helped put my mind at ease and confirmed that it does get easier. It is the most honest account of being a new mum and having mental struggles that I have seen. Kudos to Emma Jane Unsworth for this brave book.

[Emma Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was incredible. Learning about postnatal depression at university made me very interested in reading this book. Hearing Emma’s story of experiencing postnatal depression and how she acknowledged and overcame it was truly amazing. It’s hard to imagine what it is like to experience it firsthand and there is only so much you can learn from a textbook so reading this further opened my eyes. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant, beautiful, honest and humorous account of the early days of motherhood, sleep deprivation and pnd. A must read for all new mums and mums to be. I loved how relatable this was. Full of thoughts and feelings that aren't spoken about enough. PND affects so many women and this book highlights the importance of speaking out about our struggles and how normal it is, despite feeling far from normal. I would definitely recommend this book to others.

[Rhiannon Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like every parent needs to read this, whether or not you have PND. I started when I was pregnant and it made me a bit wary, but picked it back up again 2/3 months in. I’m lucky that I don’t suffer from PND, but there is still so much of this book that is heavily relatable. Just read it. I’d read anything Unsworth writes anyway tbh.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book.
Emma is such a funny, insightful, and fearless writer.

[Robyn Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audible

[Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

god I recognised these feelings start to finish