A very neurotic pregnancy
The complications of CPTSD & growing a second heart
During pregnancy, lots of people told me “You look really good!” and “You’re glowing!”. Usually, my response would be: “Really??! Because I feel like shit!” Looking back on photos, I did look good. Which is very annoying because I didn’t even get to fully enjoy my hotness while I had it. (gentle reminder to please ENJOY YOUR HOTNESS NOW)
I didn’t really care about my physical appearance though - I was more concerned about HOW THE FUCK I’D RAISE ANOTHER HUMAN when I still felt like a giant baby. When so many parts of myself didn’t feel “figured out”. And I had a very hard time connecting with the growing baby and pre-loving her because…I didn’t know her. Like…who was she?
I knew I wanted to parent differently than my mom and dad. And I knew I wanted a different relationship with my daughter than I’d had with my parents. But most of the images I had growing up of “healthy” pregnancy & motherhood were idealized - the beatific mother, in love with giving life to the world. Of course, I also heard of morning sickness and aches and pains, but they sounded like charming little blips in the “miraculous experience of pregnancy.”
I also noticed another model of more “honest” motherhood emerging on Tiktok and other online magazines - and that image felt more attainable, but soul crushing. I heard stories of smart, formerly sharp & radiant woman who found motherhood a depressing affair that dulled her shine…but don’t worry! Her kids are “worth it” (sort of???)
I don’t recommend reading anything in New York Magazine if you’re expecting a child and have any kind of independence, intelligence, or ambition. Ominous articles like “Why Can’t Our Friendship Survive Your Baby?” told me I’d spend my days in lonely playgrounds while my former friends dropped acid at music festivals. These writers warned me that the chasm between the childfree and parents is too wide. These articles set off my fear of abandonment, warning me that my life was about to turn into domestic solitary confinement. I searched social media and other pieces of writing for modern models of “motherhood”, because I needed community and someone in my generation to relate to. I needed to understand myself through the stories of other women. But these flattened stereotypes kept popping up over & over again:
The bitter, exhausted from unpaid emotional labor, mentally overloaded, “my husband is useless” mom - is pissed that gender roles are still SO FUCKED, lives in unwashed hair and sweats. Of course she loves her kids, but she doesn’t love her life.
The funny-haha wine mom - makes motherhood funny, and likes to say, it’s so hard =P So silly. She’s tired all the time and her life is pick ups, drop offs, kid music, mess & toys. “Where are my boobs?!” Loves her kids, but may be in denial of some deep-seated emotions she doesn’t want to look at.
The Millennial CEO mom - 10xed her business when she was pregnant and answered emails the hour after labor. She’s bored out of her mind with early parenthood. She loves her kids, but they’re just not that interesting.
The Soft, Woo-woo Millennial CEO Mom - She created a soft business that allowed her to take 4 months off, and breezily supported herself and her family through manifestation + tapping into divine feminine energy. She breastfed for 2 years and has a hot husband who does all the chores.
All-natural artist Mom - had a doula, midwife, and an orgasmic water-home-birth. Believes the medical industrial complex wants us all to have c-sections and reminds us that having babies is NATURAL!!! Didn’t need medication during labor. Views birth as sacred, and loves her magical children.
Effortlessly hot, happy, somewhat mysterious mom - somehow make motherhood look effortless. And hot. And happy. Shares just enough to look effortless, hot, & happy but not enough to know what’s really going on.
The real, contradictory, nuanced, loving, complex, deeply joyful and deeply grieving mom . The mom who tries her best, is conscious of breaking dysfunctional patterns, but is transparent about continued confusion & shortcomings, and has emotional experiences with pregnancy and parenting that don’t fully make sense- ??? WHERE IS SHE??????
I was terrified of becoming #1, #2 & #3. I felt guilty that I didn’t embody some impossible combo of #4 through #6.. I couldn’t find #7 (do y’all have any examples to shout out?) It was especially difficult to find stories of mothers with CPTSD, neurodivergence and BPD/disorganized attachment tendencies who desperately wanted to break generational cycles.
The thing is, when I was pregnant and “glowing”, I hid a lot of grief. And I didn’t want people to see it because I didn’t know what all my mixed up, difficult feelings meant about me as a mother. I didn’t want people to think of me as ungrateful or pitiful or a hot mess. I didn’t understand why something that is so “normal” for billions of women felt so fucking difficult for me.
What people couldn’t see was the uncontrollable exhaustion. I have a type of anemia that’s normally not a big deal, but during pregnancy, my iron levels dropped significantly, making me completely crippled outside of client sessions. Everything but fresh fruit nauseated me, but I had gestational diabetes so only eating fruit was NOT an option. It was so hard to choke down enough calories to sustain me and the growing baby. I was beyond tired - even 16 hours of sleep couldn’t lift the heavy fog of fatigue. As someone who really enjoys an active mental, social, and creative life, this felt like a death sentence. And it triggered the same feelings of powerlessness, suffocation, and entrapment I experienced in childhood. I remember coming home from a friend’s birthday at a park and sobbing to my husband because “*sniff* Even when I try my body just DOESN’T want me to do anything!!!”. And everyone kept warning me it’d get worse after the baby was born - “Enjoy your sleep now, while you can get it! You won’t be able to sleep in for 18 years ahhahaahahhahahhahahahhahahahahahhaaaaaaa” *(please please please don’t say this to expecting parents….PLEASE.)
What people couldn’t see was the uncontrollable, buzzing fears that relentlessly coursed through me, the same way I used to ruminate over a decade before:
Something bad will happen to the baby before I even get to meet the baby, and she’ll die
Something bad will happen to the baby when I’m trying to push her out of my body (think: umbilical cord wrapped around her neck)
I will bleed out during birth and die because the doctors don’t have the correct blood type for some reason
I’ll be so sleep deprived after birth that I’ll develop postpartum psychosis, lose all the progress I’ve made on my mental health, and NEVER FEEL GOOD AGAIN.
I don’t live near any family so we will somehow…die? In the process of raising a baby.
My marriage will crumble
I will lose my career
I will lose my creative spark
I will lose my community
I’ll be a loser
None of my childfree friends will ever want to hang out ever again.
I’ll become “just another woman” who gives up her dreams & only finds meaning in her kids & depends on her husband for financial security
We will lose all our money and become penniless
I will be a shitty mom who feels detached from her child
Not a fear, but why can’t I live in a country with a paid year of maternity leave?!?!?!? INSTEAD OF A COUNTRY THAT RELENTLESSLY FUNDS GENOCIDE WITH MY FUCKING TAX DOLLARS asd;lgkjasdl;kgjadls;kgj - Because if I did, maybe I’d have less fear. WTF IS WRONG WITH AMERICA?!!?
I didn’t want to share too much about the depressing, neurotic reality of my pregnant mind because really, I was fine! My husband and career were fine! My parents went through so much bullshit so I could live an easier life and not worry so much! I was just going through something “normal”, so what was the big deal?!
(*note: I’m working on a piece called “Pregnancy is a Psychedelic” because giving birth and becoming a parent is just as “normal” and *natural* as going on a psychedelic trip with plant medicine. It’s topsy turvy, neurologically transformative, spiritual AF, and can be a “great” trip or a “bad” trip - depending on the person. Natural implies a certain level of ease safety. A psychedelic trip is risky and isn’t easy for everyone. With psychedelics, there’s no judgment for what kind of “trip” each person takes". It’s just a matter of their own baggage/history and what the medicine is meant to bring out of them - we don’t expect everyone to be filled with “gratitude” and “joy” the entire time they’re journeying deep through a medicinal experience like ayahuasca. We should have a more generous, expansive view of how pregnancy can be experienced by women because the experience is just as similar and diverse).
Anyway. Prenatal depression & anxiety are real fucking bitches. And anxiety/depression seem like wayyyyyy too mild of terms for the SHEER TERROR and overwhelming sadness that so many women experience when pregnant.
And now that I’ve had some space from my pregnancy + labor - my baby is 8 months old - I’ve come to realize this boiling hot pot of emotion wasn’t mine alone.
The primal fear and constant crying didn’t make logical sense at face value. But when I considered generational trauma and how it transforms our genetic code - when I grasped the spiritual energetics behind bringing life into the world - my feelings made perfect sense.
Because my feelings were not just my own. My pregnancy viscerally connected me with my great grandmother, grandmother, and my mother. And they’d passed their terror & grief in motherhood into the marrow of my bones. None of them experienced the romanticized “village” of support. None of them nurtured their voice or their own passions after having children. Turns out not having a village wasn’t just a modern American problem - in my family, abandonment & isolation during motherhood started over a century ago.
Part 2 coming next week - subscribe to be the first to read when it comes out!