I'm stopping all of the pressure and enjoying life again...

TOWIE star Georgia Kousoulou talks to HANNAH STEPHENSON about motherhood, the heartache of miscarriage and why she wouldn't want her son to do reality TV

IN typically direct fashion, TOWIE star Georgia Kousoulou confesses that she didn't take to motherhood quite as she expected.

"When I became a mum I lost my identity a bit," the reality show star reveals in her first book, I Wish I Knew, written after the birth of her son Brody, which charts her journey to motherhood and how she found herself again, offering advice on what she has learned along the way.

She dreaded nights and the prospect of 2am feeds, struggled to connect with her baby, and felt incredibly lonely.

But Georgia, 32, who is married to footwear entrepreneur Tommy Mallet, who she met on TOWIE, has found great solace through her 1.5 million Instagram followers, asking questions, and finding kindred spirits.

"I love Instagram. I've used it as a tool to connect with people. I have a lot of questions and don't know a lot of stuff, especially when it comes to (being a mum).

"I'd never changed a nappy before Brody. I used Instagram to ask for tips and it's become a community. I say how I feel and maybe I'm a bit too honest, but then other mums have done the same and it's become a lovely space." Happy snapshots of her life are played out on social media - cute pictures of Brody, her marriage to Tommy in December, out on the town with friends and family - but in the book she also charts the tougher times, her parents' divorce, the panic attacks she suffered when she was on TOWIE, and the pressure her appearances on the show put on her body image, leading her to take up the gym obsessively.

"I was 22 when I started TOWIE and I was very skinny back then.

Then I got obsessed with the gym, then it became like a competition in my head about who had the best body and who wanted to get the headlines.

"You think you'll get more work if you're in the headlines," says the reality star.