Olivia Bowen has provided an update to her followers on her mental health after speaking out about the trials and difficulties of being a first-time mother.
The Love Island runner-up, 29, gave birth to her son Abel ‘Jacob ‘AJ’ Jacob last year after finishing second on the reality show in the summer of 2016.
Olivia married former Love Islander Alex Bowen in 2018, who was also a runner-up in 2016 after being paired up with her during their time in the resort.
Olivia and Alex celebrated AJ’s first birthday in July, over a decade after placing second to Cara De La Hoyde and Nathan Massey.
Now that her first year of parenthood is through, Olivia has provided a heartfelt update with her followers about her experiences.
Earlier this week, she posted a loving family snap on Instagram, sharing it with her 3.1million followers, captioning the post ‘La familia lo es todo’ (family is everything).
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It was a statement that thrilled her fans, with many of them going to the comments section to give their support in the aftermath of Olivia’s tragic year.
‘He is [the] perfect mix between you both, I can see both resemblance,’ one person said, while another commented on how ‘grown up’ AJ looked.
On her Instagram story, she shared a quote from author Vex King, which said to ‘give yourself more credit’ and remember ‘you’re doing the best you can’.
The update comes a month after Olivia shared an Instagram post on the difficulties of being a first-time mother.
‘Being a mum is overwhelming emotionally in general but I’ve really been struggling recently with catastrophic thoughts,’ she wrote at the time.
‘I see so many horrible, scary, devastating things happen to people or in the world & it just scares the s**t out of me, so much so I just feel sick constantly.’
She ended up in A&E earlier this year after breaking her wrist, which looked to happen when she fell from a horse during training.
‘A broken wrist. Gutted doesn’t cover it,’ she said at the time after falling from Express Yourself, a racehorse, after a ‘wobble’ in a practise session.
