Alternatively titled: Mom Rage…Single Mom Rage…
This post may need to come with a trigger warning: anxiety, postpartum, rage
A brain dump post, if you will.
I have struggled with anxiety and intrusive thoughts and overall mental health issues for my entire life, so I have a lot of practice in managing them and utilizing the tools in my “imaginary backpack” (as Shaun T. says). These “tools” are all that I’ve learned and earned and practiced to keep me sane. To keep me coping. To keep me moving forward.
I found myself in a mentally challenging situation before I had my baby, and I feel that the momentum of it all, the adrenaline and stress, kept me going until I was able to remove myself from the situation and get to a place that felt safe and healthy. Somewhere I could be myself, and feel comfortable in my own home.
Yet I often feel I am still holding my breath, every moment waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I have traveled the last few weekends and been dealing with a whole lot of inner turmoil, so I really planned to have this weekend spent at home alone, just Kai and I. I planned to wear my comfiest clothes, deep clean the house, catch up on work things, tackle the massive (and growing) pile of clean laundry, and wash my hair. You know…one of THOSE weekends in the best of ways.
One of the things I did this weekend was order an Instacart. I had a free delivery and to order from the closest natural foods store it’s a 30 minute drive each way, so I have decided that sometimes ordering groceries is well worth it. So I order these groceries and go about my chores.
As I am going outside to dump the mop bucket, I see a car in the driveway. Temporarily forgetting that I was waiting on cookie dough and HOPE cashew French onion dip among other delicious things, I felt my stomach drop. My heart started beating quickly and I felt myself tense up. Of course, very quickly I realized that these were just my groceries and someone was kind enough to pull into my drive and bring the groceries to the porch for me.
As I unloaded groceries though, this anxiety stayed with me.
In fact, I feel this anxiety is always with me, it’s just sometimes I am more aware of it.
When I was a child, of course I couldn’t control the vibe or the energy in my house or what it looked like or how the space felt. As I jumped in and out of roommate and boyfriend situations, It got better but not always. I never knew when someone would show up or something traumatic and chaotic was going to happen. Even the “good days” were unpredictable to the extreme. Yes, I know this sounds like a dramatic way to describe a perfectly normal scenario but for me, it was days of trauma strung together.
As a new mom, they tell you to set boundaries, but how is that possible if you seemingly have no say in the matter? How is that possible when you have chosen to live in a house full of unresolved trauma? In my last housing situation, there were also a lot of things that felt dirty, toxic, and unsafe, both externally and internally. Eventually of course I removed myself, but for my entire pregnancy and 10 months post partum, I was in a toxic place. Not to blame anyone, I had chosen to be there, but it was a deeply painful experience. As much as I nested, there was nothing I could do short of leaving to fix it or make it feel safe and peaceful.
Of course, I still had access to all basic necessities (usually – there were a few situations where this was temporarily untrue) and I can only imagine being a new mom (or a mom in general, or any person honestly) if you are unhoused or living without a roof over your head or food to eat.
If you are close to me, you probably know some of the shit I was going through during pregnancy and postpartum, and all that I was responsible for. I also had to immediately jump into work afterward (my work would have let me take a break but I needed desperately to work because I am the financial provider and I did not have any paid maternity leave). I was beyond lucky to work from home, but financially I couldn’t afford to take a day off. I worked the day I gave birth, and the day after. It wasn’t much, but it was necessary and I was glad to be able to do it. If I ever have another child, I plan to take time off both in pregnancy and for at least a year postpartum, as that would be a healing situation all around.
Kai’s birth was an absolutely incredible, empowering experience for me. I have heard “oh you got lucky” which I did, but I feel like that’s not exactly giving me credit for all the work I put into it, before, DURING and after. I spent hours of research and time before doing everything in my power to prepare mentally and physically.
Between jumping right back into an overwhelming life (perhaps only leaving mentally during the hours of active labor) and needing the fuel to stay afloat, I didn’t notice a big change in my depressive or anxious symptoms. Yes, I had extreme anxiety and bawled my eyes out a few times, and had other days where I felt completely disconnected from any emotions, but this wasn’t anything new. This somewhat surprised me because with all the mental health stuff I have dealt with, I was deeply afraid of that part of it all. I thought I had made it out scot free. (I have never typed scot free before so I just googled the definition of it and it’s origins.)
So what of it?
Here I am now, in a safe, clean, supportive environment and my baby is healthy, my cat is healthy, I am healthy. My job has been incredibly supportive and I’ve been able to continue working from home. Beautiful things and people are all around me. I miss the ocean, sure, and will be grateful for each new chapter in its time, but overall I am living a very abundant, fulfilling life.
Most moments and days, I feel a deep sense of peace and ease when it comes to everyday tasks, even though I am working or doing something that I consider productive basically 24/7. (Yes, sleep is productive in my opinion.)
I do feel the mom rage of never having a single second alone, to myself.
I do feel the single mom rage of feeling completely alone, by myself.
I also know that both of these feelings will come and go and change and evolve and that my experience is deeply personal, as is yours. Being a single mama now is MUCH easier than the situation I was in before, so I think it prepared me in a lot of ways. Everyone’s experience with pregnancy and postpartum is completely unique and relative to their own journey. I do hope this doesn’t offend anyone for me to share or undermine anyone else’s experience. Everyone struggles with different things to different extents and what is traumatic for some may not be traumatic for others.
I am a full time employee, a full time stay-at-home mom, a yoga teacher, and someone who considers themself to have a thriving social life, a *mostly/sometimes* decently well kept home, and dedicated time to hobbies and personal endeavors as well. When I say full time mom I mean Kai is going on thirteen months old and he has never stayed alone with anyone for more than a few minutes unless I am in the same building. (Okay he once went with his dad to the grocery store for two hours but that was a terrible situation all around and was dramatic for all three of us.) Besides his dad when he was a teeny baby, I have never left him with anyone else unless I am in the same building. He has never had formula, and has never even had a bottle of breastmilk. I am beyond grateful to be able to breastfeed him and stay home with him while I work. What an absolute gift.
I made it past the one year mark. My fourth trimester was what feels like a lifetime ago.
I find myself in a steady, calm, fairly peaceful life. For the first time in my life, I feel closer than I have ever been to living in a way that I truly choose. I hope of course to move to a different geographical location (no hate to MO but it is not my forever state). Within the home, though, our vibe is spot on. Peaceful sounds and lighting, nourishing food, open windows, daily yoga, a sweet kitty cat and a floor bed in a loft bedroom where I co-sleep with my sweet, smart, one year old? Cooking over a gas stove, regular camping trips, good water pressure and a clean bathtub? What more could I possibly need or want for this season of life? I am so, so grateful.
I am so absolutely sure that this is where we are supposed to be right now. With each chapter that comes, I know I will be excited and do my best to welcome it with open arms, but I know that from the outside, this is exactly where I need to be right now. Where my baby needs to be. Where my cat needs to be!
I have been slowly limiting distractions and ways that I have numbed out for my entire life. Since I was a young teenager, I have been numbing with alcohol, relationships/attention, television, distractions of any kind. When it wasn’t these things it was controlling my eating, social media, or running so many miles and never seeming to make it far enough. Even beautiful wonderful things such as seeing healers, going to yoga, or spending time with friends – these things can help us to process and look at emotions, or they can be distractions and further numbing, depending on the work you have to do.
So here I am, in a safe, clean, home, with a stable job. I am not currently drinking, and absolutely not smoking cigarettes. I am allowing myself to eat what and when I want to, without numbing out through binging or “fasting”. I don’t have a TV, and I take multiple social media breaks throughout the week where I delete everything except for FB messenger and Pinterest. I am actively not chit-chatting or flirting or “talking” to anyone (This has been the hardest part as I tend to cling to old relationships even if it’s in a friendship way, and my attention seeking daddy-issues and mommy-issues side of me tends to find validation and worthiness in this type of attention…that’s a whole different bag to unpack though.) I don’t run right now and haven’t since my early third trimester of pregnancy, and although I move and sweat many hours each week, it’s mostly gentle and fairly easy movement. I live far enough away from most friends that it takes planning and intentionality to get to see them.
Life is steady. Calm. I would use the word “boring” except for it’s absolutely not that.
Maybe it’s a spiritual awakening. Maybe it’s the “magic dark”. Maybe it’s the start of something grand.
Maybe it’s just the fact that I am now still and quiet enough to deal with the shit that I haven’t ever stopped moving long enough to deal with. I have been asking my spirit guides and higher self and the universe to talk to me, guide me, to let me feel my feelings, then i’ve ignore the call or suffocated the feelings or put them in a box buried ten feet underground.
I have been justifying and masking and going to therapy and doing “healing work” and yes it is peeling away layer and yes it is important and yes it was where I needed to be at the time but at the end of the day all I was doing was circling around and around the issue. Like a marble or penny in one of those circle tunnel spinny things where you watch it go around and around until finally it disappears into the hole. I feel like my whole like i’ve been struggling to go around and around as long as I can and finally I have fallen into the hole, where maybe I am meant to be anyway.
If we are light beings at our core and that’s what we are trying to get back to and everything else is like layers of an onion that we try to peel away and get back to our center, I feel like I am closer to the center than I have ever been. I know I still have a long fucking way to go but let me tell you, at least a few layers have been peeled back.
Suddenly, I notice my urges to numb. Suddenly, I see how I had intuitive hits in the past and didn’t listen because of my ego, or my inner critic, or my pain body, or whatever was louder than my intuition. My still, small, voice, has gently become stronger because I have finally just begun to truly listen, and let it guide me. Now, it has only been 12 short weeks since I moved and not all of that has been all healing unicorn magic. Even with the limited distractions I have made mistakes, numbed out in different ways, etc. I keep myself incredibly busy, which allows limited time for feeling things.
I have also had a difficult time crying, like really crying. I have gone through phases of this before in life, and it appears we are back to it. I wish I could just schedule 15 minutes a day and really cry so hard. That’s not so easy for me right now though.
I keep telling myself feel it to heal it, honor all the emotions, don’t view them as good or bad. Then a wave of grief or anger or guilt or sadness comes and I try to fight it and get out of it as quickly as possible. It shows up and says “You called for me! Here I am. Finally surfacing.” and I say “No that was during my dedicated journaling time I wanted you. NOW my child is awake. Now I am working. Now I am busy.”
So my work apparently (annoyingly) is here. Letting the emotions arise and honoring them when they do.
How, though?!
How the fuck am I supposed to be a good mom, and a good employee, and a productive member of society, while also feeling these things?! I know I was supposed to do my healing before having a little one but I only did as much as I did, and now here I am.
I can’t take my anger out of my sweet kiddo. I can’t just start bawling in the middle of a phone call for work. It doesn’t help anyone if I am completely pissed off. AND it is true that for the most part, I feel I have a good balance of self-care right now.
I feel like mom-memes and mom social media culture are like “I only drink cold coffee now! I haven’t had a shower in a week!” and while some of those things can be true and they can be funny in a meme or reel on TikTok, I don’t necessarily think that telling ourself this narrative over and over is helpful or healthy. I think it only perpetuates or makes those hard moments when they ARE true normalized or romanticized to an unhealthy extent.
There is value in embracing these messy moments but there is SO MUCH MORE to life, to motherhood, to all of it. While we should normalize wherever we are at and remember we are not alone, I don’t think that we should just accept that that’s what it means to be a mother. In fact, I believe our children need to see us radically prioritize ourselves so they can follow in our footsteps. Yes, there are moments where I feel touched out or overwhelmed or whatever, but is it because I’m a mom, or is it because it requires intense presence?! Either way it’s hard, and either way it’s beautiful.
I am not 100% sure there is a right or wrong answer to any of this and again, I do not mean to undermine anyone’s experience. No matter what your situation is, being a mom is very hard, as hard as it is beautiful, and for some it is much harder than others. Also, knock on wood that I have gotten to feel a sense of ease even in the hard moments, I have no idea what the rest of life has in store for me, and for my kiddo. If I ever have another one, that experience may be completely different, and probably will be in a lot of ways, and that is neither a “good” or “bad” thing.
I am also so incredibly grateful to have Kai. He is truly the best thing I could have never planned, and I thank my lucky stars every single day that he made his way earthside exactly how and when he did. I might have never had a baby if I had waited till I felt “ready” and that is the honest truth.
So why then, if I have had such an “easy” time of it, and I am happy and grateful where I am, do I suddenly have to deal with all this absolute garbage, not fun, not sexy ANGER!
I suppose I don’t know how to explain myself well because I myself am still in it. I am still feeling confused. In fact, I am feeling all the things.
Suddenly memories of shame and embarrassment are popping into my head at all times and I don’t know how to deal with it. Things I have done wrong are bombarding me from all angles. Instances in my past where I was on the receiving end of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or trauma, feel like they are being unlocked from my memory and falling into my lap, and I don’t know what to do with them. Maybe I do, but I just haven’t unlocked the answers from wherever they are stored within.
What am I supposed to do with these memories? Look at them and be with them at the same time as I am changing a diaper, or meeting a work deadline, or teaching yoga? Are they just now arising because I am finally still enough and safe enough to hold them? If that is the case, I am so grateful. No matter what, I am so grateful.
I say I don’t know why all of this stuff is coming up right now, but I suppose it makes complete sense. I have already answered myself, haven’t I? They are here for a reason, to teach me.
I entitled this piece “mom rage…single mom rage…” before I wrote it, but this is a lot more than mom rage. All of this shit, and maybe postpartum in general, doesn’t just come from being a parent. It comes from a lifetime of not processing or looking at these things that we bury. It comes from grieving the past versions of ourselves, over and over. It comes from the fear of this new, unknown chapter we are stepping into, regardless of how we are beginning the first page.
Even if we did look at these learnings or process these feelings before having children, perhaps pregnancy and postpartum is the time that we experience these feelings in a new light, under new pressure, with more intensity.
We are more connected and less connected to our emotions, all at the same time. We are experiencing emotions we probably never have before. Of course, there is a chemical aspect to all of it too, so that’s fun (human brain type of fun). Synaptic pruning and such.
Maybe the reason I didn’t experience these things in the way I thought I would was because I was still so fucking busy being busy, and it was piled on to all of the other ongoing mental health issues I have experienced my whole life, so it didn’t feel much different. Living with C-PTSD is no joke. But even when I say that, my inner critic says “Oh stop telling a sob story. You are fine. You’re life wasn’t that bad.” I have imposter syndrome with feeling my own feelings and living my own experience.
I have imposter syndrome of literally being my own damn self.
Anger, RAGE, is a secondary emotion, right? So if we are feeling it, it is coming from deeply rooted sadness, pain, fear, or maybe all of the above that we are covering up, masking, and expressing through anger…
I very recently learned that postpartum mental-health related “issues” can come later, even a year later, for some. I am not entire sure that that’s what this is that I am experiencing. It may be part of it but it definitely isn’t all of it. I sure miss my placenta capsules that I ran out of many months ago now. Even if my brain chemicals are as balanced as possible right now, I think that these facts and feelings would still be here for me to deal with. It’s as if I am finally processing many, many little traumas all at once.
I feel like I have completely lost control over this piece, as I feel in many areas of my life right now, but maybe that is okay. Perhaps the goal was never to be in control, because that is an unachievable goal anyway.
Now here I am trying to control how much I control things…
Along with motherhood, I have learned that I have to completely accept that life, as a reality, is completely uncontrollable. This has been a lifelong learning for me, a lesson I seem to be learning over and over again.
I am struggling with surrender, surrendering to what is. I am struggling to release control and simply be. I am struggling with realizations and expectations and values and looking at details of my past. I am struggling with gratitude and being supported and feeling joyful and (be)coming back to who I am meant to be.
I am struggling with all of these things, and yet, I feel a deep sense of peace that this is where I am meant to be right now. I feel alone, yet more in communion with collective energy than I ever have before.
It is hard. It is easy. I am grateful. All are true.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading, for witnessing all that is tumbling out of my brain. Thank you for showing up every day to the world, for holding it all and for holding me. We can’t hold the whole world, but we can hold our little piece of it, and even that feels like too much sometimes. We are not meant to be alone, but sometimes we are meant to be in solitude. I could go on, but I will end this here.
Parenthood, ya’ll…humanhood…what a trip.