The stairs of my Edwardian home are steep and the tiles at the bottom, hard and unforgiving. My 10-month-old squirms in my arms as I stand at the top of them and I see myself drop him, his tender head smashing as he strikes the ground.

Sleep-deprived and in chronic pain, I am riveted to that top step, but my 3-year-old’s downstairs, calling. With one hand on the banister and the second clutching my baby, I sit and twist so that he’s safe against the stairwell before slowly inching down.

Cast from “Little Disasters”—(L-R) Ed Carrisford played by JJ Feild, Kit played by Jago, Jess Carrisford played by Diane Kruger, Baby Betsey played by…

Fast forward 16 years and Diane Kruger stands at the top of a flight of stairs she sees tipping and swaying. She grips a newborn, sits on her bottom and shuffles down. The scene opens episode five of Little Disasters, in which Kruger plays Jess, an affluent mother-of-three plagued by intrusive thoughts and a dark secret. When I watch the edits later in my study, I start to cry.

Little Disasters, which drops on Paramount+ this week, was inspired by my experience after having my second baby. A perfect storm of circumstances—being unable to walk during a difficult pregnancy, quitting the job that validated me, moving house at 30 weeks pregnant which left me socially isolated—triggered my rapid unravelling and a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder called perinatal OCD.

My postnatal experience, during which I effectively gaslit myself, was extreme and so ripe for dramatization. But motherhood in general is a fertile area for psychological drama, and in particular, suspense as “mom-noir” crime writers and now TV execs are realizing. After all, which other common experience begins with blood, pain and terror and is so freighted with intense emotions? And which other relationship can ricochet violently between panic and joy in its first moments and hold the potential for elation and fear?

While Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, with its depiction of uber-competitive parenting, led the way and Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere followed, I’d argue that recent TV adaptations—from Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman is in Trouble to Andrea Mara’s All Her Fault to my own Little Disasters—are increasingly unflinching in their portrayal of motherhood.

In part, that’s through a willingness to depict the extremes of emotion it provokes. The opening of All Her Fault thrusts us straight into this when a tremulous, tear-welling Marissa discovers 5-year-old Milo isn’t at a supposed playdate and tears through her home searching for him. Little Disasters’ Jess’ terror peaks when 8-year-old Frankie goes missing at night, at a vast holiday house with a pool, and she notes that he can’t swim. She’s so fraught, her running becomes uncoordinated, limbs flailing, voice escalating, face contorted. Any parent who’s lost a child will recognize that visceral panic and heart-stopping moment: They’re lost and you should have been vigilant. It’s all your fault, so to speak.