Kimberley Nixon, best known for her roles in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging and Fresh Meat, opens up about her harrowing experience with perinatal OCD in her forthcoming memoir, She Seems Fine to Me. The book, out on 7 May, details the obsessive, disturbing thoughts that plagued her after the birth of her son, and her journey toward recovery.
"Is it really brave or is it really stupid?" Nixon asks. "In my head, I've written a book about what a horrible person I was and put it out in the world – and I have to keep reminding myself that's not it. I've written a book about a mental health condition and trying to fight it."
Nixon's candid account comes during maternal mental health awareness week. She explains the deep stigma surrounding perinatal OCD: "The nature of this – the content, the detail – is so taboo. You don't want to share it. You keep it hidden, and that made me worse and stopped me getting better for a long time."
The actor describes her pregnancy and early motherhood as a rollercoaster of infertility, IVF, and a pandemic birth with little support. After years of trying to conceive, Nixon gave birth to a son during lockdown. Her husband was only permitted to be present from 5cm dilation and had to leave one hour after the birth. "If I'd given birth in this cafe, I could have had five friends with me," she quips bitterly.
Soon after delivery, Nixon's son was transferred to a special care unit with possible sepsis. Separated from him while receiving a blood transfusion, she spiraled into obsessive fears: that her son had died, that she might harm him, that his milk was poisoned. Her thoughts became suicidal.
"What I didn't know then was that the thoughts themselves don't matter – it's how we react to them," Nixon says. "Your brain is sending false emergency flares all the time."
Today, her son is a happy, curious five-year-old. Nixon hopes her story will help others: "If I can say it out loud and let it wash over me, it'll be the biggest step in my recovery yet. Fingers crossed!"