The Monster Of Motherhood

It’s been a long time, a really long time, since I’ve written anything at all. A grocery list, you ask? Not even. As a writer, that’s a hard thing to admit, but as a 27 year old mom of a toddler with a baby on the way, well that’s just a fact of life. So many things change when you become a mom. Recently, I read an article that talked about the changes in hormones that ACTUALLY change a woman’s biological make up during pregnancy and after birth- no wonder the baby blues exists. These ideas are something I’ve wanted to put pen to paper about for over a year now. I’ve alluded to friends and family, and the general public who maybe catches a glimpse of one of my random Facebook posts, about the struggle I faced with postpartum depression and anxiety but I’ve yet to delve into the whole kit and caboodle. As baby #2 gets closer and closer to getting here, so does the worry about how I’ll feel emotionally and I’m starting to think one of the most therapeutic things I can do to prepare is to tell my experience to the world.

My career in writing has centered around testimony. I hold a lot of stock in personal storytelling because, not only is it a great way to cope, it’s real and raw and ignites fire for topics in ways that nothing else can. My first published work was a research-based testimonial on my military-connected PTSD. My final thesis in undergrad featured the literary theory surrounding testimony and the effects it has had on big picture problems in America such as racism. There are tons of stories from moms like me shared on the internet regarding what they went through with postpartum depression. My biggest pet peeve about most of them is that they almost always end with some cliche sentiment about how “it was all worth it”. Of course my child is “worth” everything but the factors surrounding this mental health crisis and the lack of help is most definitely not worth the lost life of a mother. So I’ll preface with this note about help- it’s only helpful if you actually give it. If I told you how many people gave me empty offers of help we would be here all day. One of the hardest things, about any mental disorder, is asking for and accepting help. I’ve learned to simply give the help to those I know are struggling because I know how hard it is to say yes or make a phone call. The feeling of burdening others or shackling them with your emotions can sometimes be the most difficult symptom of all. 

This is how I feel when I get depressed. I’ve always had clinical depression and anxiety. I can remember feeling intense sadness and worry throughout my entire childhood, though I never opened up about any of it or was properly diagnosed. The military was the first place where I was able to discuss these things with a psychiatrist after an unfortunate traumatic experience that left me with another layer of mental illness, PTSD, a silent battle that rears its ugly head at random moments within my day to day. Going into pregnancy with my first son, I was warned by my physician about the likelihood, based on my background, that I could develop postpartum depression and I distinctly remember them handing my husband a pamphlet about it at the first appointment. 

I tried to read about the stressors and symptoms of PPD prior to birth. I chalked most of it up to similar feelings I already had and wrote it off as something I could easily face since I’ve “been there before”. The thing about PPD, and why storytelling in this instance is so important, is that you have absolutely no clue how you will feel when motherhood hits you, no matter how many books you read on the subject. Motherhood is subjective, different for everyone and yet somehow threaded with the same obstacles as everyone else. Becoming a mom is a release from your previous identity into a new one, in the blink of an eye, without a mourning or adapting period. “Here ya go, good luck”, and they hand you a crying newborn and expect you to not only care for this thing but somehow do it through sleep deprivation and a loss of self that’s all encompassing anytime the baby is quiet. “Sleep when the baby sleeps”, a stupid cliche any mom with any sense can tell you is damn near impossible. Not only do you have other responsibilities in life to tend to, like literal basic hygiene and the health of yourself, you also spend sleepless hours worrying about sudden infant death syndrome and pumping milk for the next feeding or prepping bottles and trying to make sure baby has enough diapers, wipes, clothes and clean burp cloths at the ready. 

Those first few weeks turn into a whirlwind of desperation only overcome by time. Time, with a baby, is a blessing and a curse. You want to cling to the smallest moments, the skin to skin and new baby smell, sometimes because you want to and other times because that’s what all the movies make you believe. It’s meant to be magical, they tell us. We are meant to feel a dreamy sense of love on a cloud-like float through the 4th trimester as we package up all the beautiful memories to one day tell our kids about when they ask how they were as a baby. How do you live like THAT when you haven’t slept in 3 days and he’s inconsolable at 2am? You don’t. It’s just another falsehood that society places on the backs of mothers to make them question and second guess their experience if it’s anything other than a Pampers commercial. 

This my friends is where postpartum depression takes hold and where my story enters the chat. I had these same grandiose ideas about the baby-mommy dynamic that hit me like a freight train. Slowly but surely I doubted my ability to be a mother because nothing was going as perfect as I expected it to. I was exhausted. I was scared. I didn’t feel like myself and I had more worry than I knew what to do with. Google was NOT my friend. I’d spend hours feverishly searching for answers and asking questions like “when will he sleep through the night”, “why can’t I produce enough milk”, “what are the effects of baby formula”, “can I spoil my baby”, “what kind of blankets are safe”, I mean if you could think it I was researching it, trying desperately to do all of the “right” things with my child in a sea of scholars and doctors and other moms giving fifty thousand contradictory takes on what they think is “right”. I was drowning in it all and I started to believe that because I couldn’t figure it out I was less than. After all, mothers have been mothering since the dawn of time and never felt as hopeless as me. Grandma raised multiple children on her own while her husband was away and if she could do it, why can’t I? 

The main lie I was telling myself is that all the other moms did it without struggle. That’s what the pictures lead us to believe, but I know now that pictures can’t speak. If they could they would have told me about how grandma was coping with drugs in the 70s, how the neighborhood women would spend everyday together while their husbands were away and raised their children in a pack so that the moms wouldn’t be doing it alone. Or the reality that I myself was raised as an infant mostly by my grandparents, who dedicated their free time and retirement to their grandkids, helping their children with childcare in a world becoming increasingly more reliant on a two-income household. I was not alone in my feelings because the struggle was always there. I was alone in the physical sense, with little help and a lot of doubt placed upon me by these notations of being picture perfect. 

I wish I had realized this before I fixated on the knife set. Late one night, feeling at an all time low, my husband was working night shift and I started panicking with hopeless thoughts that my baby was better off without me. Through hot tears and rocking on the floor, I envisioned grabbing a knife from the block and slitting my wrists. I pictured it all in my head. My husband would come home to find my lifeless body, while my 6 month old cried in his crib, covered in his own tears and urine from being unattended for so long. I somehow thought that this outcome was better than staying alive and sharing love with my family. I truly, in my heart, thought my son would grow up to be a better person if I wasn’t around and these are the kinds of tricks a sick mind can play. Luckily, I was able to dial the phone and call my husband. I distraughtly tried to explain to him what was happening and he called a friend of mine to sit with me as he rushed home. We did breathing exercises and talked about the weather and I sat in a warm bath as I tried to connect logic and reason with my physical body again. A week later I failed yet another depression screening at the pediatricians office and had a long, emotional chat with my sons doctor that resulted in a call to a clinic specializing in PPD. I was diagnosed right away and started medication that changed everything. I was able to think clearer, be more vocal and, because my son was getting older, I got some much needed sleep. 

I dropped the perception that everything needed to be perfect. I now do my best to remind myself that perfection doesn’t exist. I still have bad days, but I know that I am much better equipped to overcome my own demons should the time come that they arise. I want other moms to know the truth, the real truth. Absolutely nothing about motherhood follows a certain path or direction and anything you think you know about another mothers story is false. The best mom for your child is and will always be you, no matter how flawed you may be. It’s ok to ask for help. It’s ok to be overwhelmed. It’s ok to mourn the person you used to be. It’s ok to be ok with all of this. If you have a bad day please remember that tomorrow can be a better one and if it’s not that’s ok too because days come and go and you’ve made it too far to give up now. 

From one struggling mom to another, I see you, through the tears and the laughs and the mess. You are not alone- don’t let the monster convince you otherwise.