Former Married at First Sight star Zoe Hendrix has penned a candid account of her ‘darkest moment as a mother’.
Opening up to her 93,000 followers on her Instagram page, in a bid to open up the discussion about post natal depression, Zoe said that sadness and despair is often linked with PND – but anger is less so.
‘I want to talk to you about anger… I want to talk about that simmering, unexpected overflow of rage that happens in those silent lonely spaces and results in bitter words,’ Zoe wrote in the piece, which originally appeared on Mamamia.
‘The rage that took over me that in my darkest moment as a mother, riddled with the pain of mastitis and weak in body and soul – I envisioned throwing my tiny baby across the room. Into the wall.
‘Angry like I had never been before. Who had I become?
‘Instantly followed by the guilt that would leave me shaking, shocked and in pain.
‘The guilt. The shame.’
Zoe – who welcomed her first child with Married at First Sight husband Alex Garner in November of 2016 – urged anyone suffering from post natal depression to contact the support group PANDA.
It’s not the first time, the MAFS star has opened up about her own struggle with motherhood.
‘5 MONTH sleep regression your f*cking killing me,’ she wrote in an Instagram post last year alongside a photo of herself looking exhausted in the car.
‘This is me getting some rest whilst Harper is asleep in the car. She has been waking every 2 hours (night and day) and just wants to be held.
‘I’m parked outside our house. I haven’t showered today and let’s not even get started on my hair situation.
‘Interestingly I just came from the post office where a lovely old lady smiled at Harper and asked me how motherhood was going.
‘I cheerily replied “it’s great” but what I really meant was… It’s been a tough week.
‘Motherhood can be at times exhausting. It is constantly worrying about not being good enough, doing enough and not being present enough.
‘It is that moment at 2am that makes you wonder if you can keep going and wondering if anyone else ever reaches that point too?
‘It is missing your husband and that carefree quality time together.
‘It is the relentless lack of sleep, the littering of half drunken cups of coffee all over the house and the constant selfless attentiveness to this little needy, gorgeous human. That’s motherhood right now.
‘But other than that, yeah it’s fantastic!’
This article originally appeared on New Idea.