I thought I was happy with my life. Married to my teenage sweetheart. Two great kids and a career as a Child and Family Mental Health Nurse. And to be honest I was probably happier than most.

So when menopause hit (literally) in my 50th year and I suddenly became depressed, anxious and panicked. I just didn’t get it.

As a young 19 year old mother, parenting came naturally to me … until I started to listen to everyone else. Everyone had a point of view about how a parent should be. How to get it right. How to avoid being wrong. And amongst a litany of judgment, I checked out all the parenting books just to be sure, and before I knew it, I was I was doing everything I could to be the perfect mum and avoid being a bad mum.