Laura Belbin - No Shame: How to drop the guilt ... from some whos learned the f**king hard way

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First published by Ebury Spotlight in 2022

Copyright Laura Belbin, 2022

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover images: Dimples and Daisies
Cover design: Emily Voller Design

ISBN: 978-1-473-59767-9

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To you, to us, for all survivors.

Hello, my name is Laura, and in 2021 I experienced the biggest mental breakdown of my life. I am writing this book because it feels like something that will feed my soul, heal some wounds and hopefully help some of you realise your own strength. Some of you might not know me, but I am a public figure/entertainer/comedian/realist who frequents social media channels like Facebook and Instagram as Knee Deep In Life. My main goal is to poke fun at the ridiculous life expectations that are plastered all over social media while also speaking passionately about mental health, female empowerment and how fucking shit life can be sometimes.

I have suffered with mental health problems for all of my life; I have lived with anxiety and undiagnosed PTSD, which has been incorrectly labelled as depression. I have been forced to face a lot this year and accept something Ive denied myself for the whole of my life: help.

In January 2021, I was like most parents, struggling like fuck to cope with the pressures of homeschooling children. I was struggling with the level of entrapment life felt like back then, and I really, really fucking needed a break. My husband, Steve, would bugger off to work each day, something I resented him for because it seemed like a trip to the Bahamas in comparison to teaching my 10-year-old his 7 times table when even I didnt fucking know my 7 times table. I was like most people, well and truly at the end of my rope, but I just didnt realise. I didnt realise, in my ignorance, that we were all feeling it, because it felt and looked like everyone else didnt mind staying in, teaching their children and doing Zoom parties with their mates. I thought I was the only one who felt like real life was so far off that I just couldnt stand how slowly everything was going. I spoke to people, hoping they could offer some kind of reassurance, but they all seemed to be trudging along, and I felt like I was four steps behind them, being dragged along backwards by my toenails.

I had put the expectation of being a mum, wife and teacher so high in the sky, I wasnt actually able to get onto the ladder to reach it. Id set my standards so high for what was personally achievable that even if Id been the shining example of a mother and wife, I still wouldnt have managed it. I was, in short, drowning but felt like I couldnt admit that because then Id really be failing at everything.

Then Steve had to self-isolate and I thought, YAY, he will be home, he can help me!! We can do this together. He might have Covid but fuck it, that surely seems easier than living with our children all the time on my own with no adult to talk to. Well, I spent the 10 days he isolated for with a rat up my arse. I thought he was doing a better job than me, I thought he was trying to get one over on me whenever he taught the kids as I sat on my arse staring at the carpet, and I cried A LOT for no real or good reason.

Two days before he was due to go back to work, I thought, I am fucking done!! I couldnt do this any more, juggling my own job, the kids, trying to make some kind of money and also being funny for everyone on the internet when everything in my life didnt feel particularly funny.

I realised I needed something to help. I went to the doctor with a stomach ache, and left with a prescription for antidepressants because I realised I couldnt go on like I had been.

That night, I didnt sleep. I panicked and took a migraine tablet; logic told me that was the only thing in the house that would make me sleep. NOPE. Didnt sleep. So, the following morning I declared to Steve, I am definitely starting the antidepressants. I took them, and Steve fucked off to work. Great. I am now taking something thatll make all my problems disappear!! HAHAHAAAAAA, I know; I can already hear you all saying, WHAT THE FUCK?? Tablets just take away all your problems?? Short answer is no, they dont, but back then I honestly thought any mental health issue is fixed by taking a tablet. No other work required.

I didnt sleep; in actual fact, I went into full-blown shit-level stations.

This is bad, I thought. I am going to die in the space of 48 hours.

I can remember well the moment where everything changed. I was driving my kids out to take them for a walk, and I realised 30 minutes in I was going in the wrong direction. I asked them if we could just go home because Mummy didnt feel good. They obviously did the kid thing and said, Shit no, we want our walk!! I felt too weak and broken to even argue the toss over it. So I took them. I arrived in the car park, turned off the car and messaged Steve, saying, I need you. I cant do this alone this time, you need to take some time off from work to help me.

I had suffered with postnatal depression after having both of my children, in 2011 and 2015. I had taken medication in 2015, which had had the worst side effects, but since then, Steve had continued to go to work and I had continued to manage life at home, but only by a thread. That day in the car park I felt like the thread had finally pinged and I wasnt going to manage it this time.

Steve organised to be at home from work for a week, but I steadily got worse. I lay in bed, unable to sleep, completely exhausted and totally alone, crying, as my children slowly lost their mum into an abyss of panic. On the Friday I contacted my doctors surgery, begging for sleeping tablets something I had previously been given when I had suffered with postnatal depression. They played down my situation and said it was because I was close to my period. They reluctantly gave me three tablets and told me to space them out because they were highly addictive.

I didnt.

I took the maximum dose; I didnt sleep.

Over that weekend I called out of hours, spoke to mental health nurses and was prescribed different medication to help me. None of it did.

I was given something designed to help with anxiety and make me drowsy.

I slept for an hour.

It was 11.30pm on a Sunday evening on the last weekend of January when I came downstairs to Steve and said, I cant do this any more.