And the greatest irony of experiencing extreme loneliness, as anyone who has felt its full force will tell you, is that it is an impossible feeling to talk about, even with those closest to you. “I found it really difficult to say that or to verbalise it,” offers Michelle, talking about the time when she was a new mother. “It’s kind of a conversation killer, right? It’s that weird thing where everyone looks and feels a bit panicked, and wonders if you have postnatal depression.” Then there’s the other ironic thing about feeling lonely; if it hits you when you are expected to be in the blissful period of motherhood, that only compounds the sense of isolation. “There’s a stigma attached to it, and I think I found that quite hard and quite challenging” continues Michelle, who even found it hard to tell her husband how she was feeling.