I feared my mental health struggles would hold my son back, but I'm starting to see they could help him | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

In my lower moments I have been haunted by feelings of shame, yet some of the best parents I know have lived with anxiety and depression

I've been having a tough time with my mental health lately. Anxiety and low mood have been compounded by my son's repeated night wakings, and after settling him I have been lying wide awake, heart racing with adrenaline. Averaging three hours of sleep a night, it was inevitable that I would burn out with exhaustion eventually, requiring time off work.

Just typing these words, and the thought of you reading them, makes me feel shame. Shame that I haven't coped better, shame at the burden it has placed on others, and shame that I'm feeling this way, when, considering the pain and trauma others are facing, I am lucky. That feeling of shame always creates in me an impulse to write. When I first started this series, mere weeks after giving birth, a female journalist I have known for years suggested that I was too vulnerable to be doing so. Yet if we never create work from a place of vulnerability, I am not sure what writing is for.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

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