What's in a name?

When I started this blog, there were three reasons why I called it Post-Apocalyptic Publishing. The first was because I was convinced I was never going to find a publisher for 20 Years Later, and I was on the brink of self-publishing it – the blog name was my reaction to the apocalyptic thought that no-one was ever going to make my publishing dream come true.

The second reason was simple; my debut novel is in that genre. Well, it could be argued that it's more dystopian, as it's set twenty years after the apocalypse, but that's just splitting hairs for this purpose.

And the third reason is one I have never written about. Oh I've alluded to it, and talked about it in a roundabout way elsewhere, but I've never told you the third reason why this place is called Post-Apocalyptic Publishing.

Now I think I'm ready to talk about it.

Post-natal depression

My son is now three and a half years old. When I go to bed at night, I look in on him, asleep in his little bed and I feel a tsunami of love for him. It builds and crashes inside me like warm waves. I marvel at how much love I can feel for a little person.

Nothing new there. Parents all over the world feel that every day. The reason why it still bowls me over now is that I never had that for the first three years of his life. Why? Because I was in the grips of a nightmarish thing called post-natal depression, something I believe my American friends more often refer to as post-partum depression.

But post-natal depression isn't just depression

It's a whole lorry load of other awful things. Guilt is a big part of it, but I think guilt and motherhood are inevitable bedfellows. For me, the overarching emotion in my illness was anxiety.

No surprise there, I've talked about my struggle with anxiety before, but the anxiety beast that came in the same cart as the post-natal depression one was bigger and uglier than any I've ever had to deal with before.

Whenever I looked at my baby son, I felt terror. That's no exaggeration, it was gut-wrenching, mind numbing fear, twenty four hours a day. It destroyed me. My own personal apocalypse.

There's always hope

When you look most post-apocalyptic fiction – and I mean books and films here – there is usually some element of hope. The heroes may be left in an appalling shadow of what the world used to be, but there is the chance they'll survive. Even in the films where the hero might die, there is usually a sweetener – a child survives, a boat is sighted on the horizon, whatever (I won't give specifics in case it spoils one of them for you!) and life goes on.

That's what this blog is.

Yes, of course, it's also a place for stories and ramblings about writing and occasional bouts of madness, but its essence, for me at least, is hope.

If you're one of those people that hates anything to do with post-birth stuff, look away now.

When my son was three days old, I broke. The birth had been fantastic (at home, idyllic, no complications) but then things started to go wrong with my little man and we found ourselves in the hospital I had done everything to avoid for the birth. He wasn't gaining enough weight, he vomited severely, and I was struggling to establish breastfeeding. That night they put a pump on me to try and get some milk for him. The bottle began to fill with my blood.

It was like something out of a sick horror movie. The doctor simply raised an eyebrow and said "Ah, that's probably what made your baby ill; blood in the milk."

I have fragmented memories of the rest of that evening. They start with me screaming that I had poisoned my baby and crying hysterically. Believe me, I rarely cry hysterically, let alone in public. Yes, I cry at films, but for me to lose it in front of others, well, that's never happened that severely before or since. And I really lost it. I know the hormonal surge on day three, something people call "the baby blues" can be overwhelming, and I know that made it worse. The thing is, it never stopped.

I didn't sleep for two days and nights, on top of the usual new baby sleep deprivation that had preceded it. I watched my baby in the cot, terrified he was going to die any minute. And I thought it was all my fault. On the fifth day, I couldn't speak. And that hit on and off for weeks. It was like a light inside me went out. I was a shell, an echo of myself that cared for my baby as best I could, but was living in a different world of greys and shadows to everyone else.

There's a lot more that happened, and I could write a book on all of the contributing factors relating to the care he and I received in the hospital that I am sure deepened and worsened the PND. I have a lot of biased, emotional opinions about the way motherhood is dealt with in England, and the gulf between media portrayal, societal expectation and the actual experience of thousands of new mothers.

But I don't want to go into those now, because what I wanted to talk about was that hope thing.

I wrote 20 Years Later a year before my son was born. When he was six months old I almost got a publisher – it had taken them a whole year to pass the book higher and higher until the top man rejected it. That didn't help the depression either.

For months and months I didn't write a word. More than that, I didn't have a single thought about writing. Waking up, moving and giving my son all I could was challenge enough.

I will never stop feeling guilty about that time. I will never stop feeling like I was robbed of what so many others have effortlessly from day one. I suffered from an illness, I know that now, but at the time, when I was in the grips of it, not a sane thought passed through my mind.

It destroyed friendships. I withdrew, I moved hundreds of miles away from dear friends to live closer to family to find the support my husband and I needed. It really was apocalyptic.

Looking back to look forwards

Why am I writing about this now? Well, a couple of weeks ago I sent a letter to an old friend who I hurt very badly during those dark years. I was awful to her, but I know now that it was the fractured me, the broken bits of glass that walked in my body that did that to her. I have no idea whether our friendship will recover, but I know it will never be what it was. That's the first of many letters I need to send.

And I've been thinking about how wonderful the last eighteen months have been, how I am finally doing what I should be doing; writing. How all of you, dear readers, have carried me through that doubt and anguish until 20 Years Later finally found a home. I've been realising how much I hold myself back, and learning how to reduce that.

But I also know that there are lots of people out there going through post-natal depression, or healing after it, and a whole host of other personal apocalypses we call life. And I wanted to say "You know, there is some hope. It's not just a cheesy platitude. It can get better."

My Dad told me that a friend of his has read this blog and said "She's a great writer, but she's too open." I guess he meant all the times I tell you how I am really feeling. I'm more open here than in some parts of my real life, it's true. But you know what? Every time I write a post that's truthful about anxiety and depression, fear and envy, I get a flurry of private messages from people saying things like "Thank you. I've been through that and it helped" or "I'm struggling with that too, I feel less lonely now."

And that feels good. Hello. My name is Emma. I've recovered from severe post-natal depression. Most things terrify me. Some days I struggle to do tiny tasks because my anxiety is too strong. But that's ok. How are you?