Motherhood & Anxiety

I’ve thought about writing this for months, and I always felt like I couldn’t distill everything about my experience with anxiety and how it affected my parenting into a blog post. But when you become a mother, you have a newfound understanding of a collective experience that so many of us are going through : that being a mother can be deeply, deeply hard.

It recently being Mother’s Day, I finally felt the need to share my story — in hopes that even one mother feels more normal, more seen, and holds herself more compassionately through her own struggles. So, here’s my story of my battles with anxiety as a mom.

I have always been type A. This worked well for most of my life. It helped me find success within my work and careers, kept my home organized, and allowed me to tackle a hundred things at once, with relative ease. My schedule was packed, and I liked it that way. Then motherhood came like a tsunami into my life. It turned nearly everything I knew upside-down. It made things that came with ease so much harder. It weakened my bandwidth, scrambled my brain, and very early on, it set an enormous weight of pressure onto my shoulders.

One I know most mothers can relate to : the pressure to “do it right.”

I became obsessed with researching and implementing systems and ways of doing things that had me convinced would result in a “great baby” -- and thus, make me a “great mom.” I quickly started down the infinite wormhole so many new moms find themselves in…

I researched swaddles, bassinets, cribs, sleep training, baby-led weaning, the right mattress, the best way to introduce solids, which diapers had the least irritating chemicals in them, which lotion would solve his baby acne, which formula would be best for his belly, the best blackout curtains, sound machine, and pacifiers. The best parenting methods. The psychology of baby’s development. The best preschools in town. The ideal wake windows. Remedies for teething. What to do when they have a fever. What the best organic food options were. What are the best ways to encourage crawling? Walking? Running? Talking? Sign Language?

My phone became an endless avalanche of information around how to raise my son -- information that felt not just important, but ESSENTIAL, to digest and reproduce. And then alongside this obsessive researching and learning, came the intrusive thoughts.

What if I dropped him down the stairs? What if our nanny kidnapped him? What if he threw up in his sleep? What if the monitor ran out of batteries while we were asleep and didn’t notice? What if I traumatized him that one time I yelled at him? What if he’s watching too much tv? What if he’s not developing appropriately? What if he grows up to hate me? What if my mothering makes him a terrible person?

They got darker than that. Way darker. And so, this was my brain. All day. All night. And it never stopped.

I was in a perpetual battle with my own mind, one that I was desperately losing. I turned angry, impatient, and ridiculously stringent. My partner bore the worst of it because all my unchecked anger released itself once the baby was asleep, onto him. I was always irritable because my head was a nightmare to live in. I was cracking the whip endlessly on myself and my husband, and both of us were feeling the damage. I had no outlet, and I wasn’t telling anyone how much I was actually suffering.

Until one day, it finally came to a head for me.

It was a little after our son turned one. I was dealing with non-stop racing thoughts, obsessions, lack of sleep, and at this point, chest pain and dizziness. I was holding on by a thread. My husband and I had gotten into a bad fight that started because he set the baby down for his nap thirty minutes after I had told him to. It devolved into a lengthy argument, one we couldn’t see eye to eye on. Yet again, here we were, already exhausted from a long day of parenting, and having to deal with yet another disagreement. He finally asked me, “Why did a 30-minute difference bother you SO much?” I immediately started crying and said, “I wish I knew! Don’t you think *I* hate that it bothers me so much?! I hate being this way!” 

That’s when all the veneer of the strong, tough mom who could do it all fell crumbling to pieces. Sobbing, I started to explain to my husband how difficult it had been to live with my anxiety the past few months. I told him about my intrusive thoughts, my obsessions, and how I was now feeling physical symptoms (heart palpitations, feeling dizzy and faint) that were terrifying me. I finally admitted to him, and myself, that I needed help. That this amount of anxiety wasn’t sustainable, despite the fact that I had normalized it and chalked it up to simply being a part of motherhood. I decided to finally drop the Perpetually Strong Woman act -- one that my mother and generations before her had instilled in me.

But unlike them, I had a choice. I had resources. I could help myself not feel this way anymore.

I made the decision to start therapy back up, and the even harder decision to talk to a doctor about getting on anxiety medication. This is the part that I know is so hard for most mothers -- most humans -- to do. To admit that we might not be able to ever really feel sane or happy without the aid of something outside of ourselves. We might inadvertently buy into this toxic, limiting belief that one should be able to manage and solve all her problems herself, and that asking for help, or taking a pill every day is a sign that you’re weak, or that you couldn’t have possibly done enough to help yourself. I know now that this is total and utter bullshit. It’s also keeping so many good, strong mothers from getting better, and the help they need.

If any of this sounds like you, and you’re a mother that is on the cusp of asking for help via therapy, medication, or both, this message is for you: BOOK THE APPOINTMENT TODAY.

As a therapist myself, I can confidently say that the best treatment for nearly every severe mental health issue is a combination of therapy and properly prescribed and dosed medication. As a human being who has ultimately reached for both in her darkest moments, I can confirm this.

After doing her due diligence, running bloodwork, and checking to make sure my body was healthy, my doctor prescribed a low dose of an antidepressant that helps with anxiety and sleep. A week or two into taking the meds, I felt a noticeable shift. No more intrusive thoughts before bed. No more heart palpitations. The obsessions and compulsions around my son dwindled down to manageable concerns. I stopped having dark thoughts about his safety (well, not totally. As a mom, you accept these will arise sometimes as part of the job). My patience and bandwidth for stress, mistakes, and daily hiccups increased dramatically. I was able to let things slide, to say, “I’ll just do that later” or “it’ll be fine.” I was able to be silly and relaxed and MYSELF, even on chaotic days. Which if you’d known me when my anxiety was at its worst, is basically the equivalent to having a brain transplant.

Alongside the meds, I went back to my incredible therapist (also a mama, who is able to hold such wonderful space for me), and leaned deeply into my mom friends and community. I opened up more to them about my struggles, and the echoes of “me too!” and emotional validation came like a big, warm embrace. But the most impactful and important change? I was finally actually able to be a better mother.

And this was when I realized that I had had it all wrong.

It wasn’t getting his sleep schedule or meals down to perfection that would make me a good mom. It wasn’t reading more parenting tips, or making my home non-toxic, or putting him on a waitlist for the best Montessori preschool. It wasn’t obsessing about whether his protein was organic, or if he was getting enough outdoor time. It was showing up for him every day with patience and warmth, able to regulate myself and be there for him in the best way I could be.

And I was able to do this when I gave myself permission to put MY peace first. THAT’S what made actually me a better mom.

So, if you’re a mother reading this and any of this resonates, please know you are not alone. You are part of a constellation of millions of us who also feel consumed at times by this thing called parenting. Who were sold the lie that this should be easy, natural, and fun. And while it can be that, at times, many, MANY times, it is not. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It simply means you're entering a chapter in your life that is asking almost all of you to change. And that is fucking hard. Because one thing we’re not told enough is how insanely powerful, strong, and resilient mothers are. And that this intrinsic strength -- that mama bear energy that would rip apart anyone who dared try to hurt her child, the one who went through the gauntlet of pregnancy, birth, and labor to get here -- always lives inside you.

AND. And, and, and!

It’s also okay to not do it alone.

Make the appointment. Reach out to your loved ones. Find a mom community. Ask for help. And please remember, my sweet mama, that what that baby needs most in this world, above all things, is a well taken care of mother.