It sounds like basic math: chronic anxiety plus surprise pregnancy equals disaster.
I’ll admit, I about dropped my glass of wine in the toilet when I saw the test results. Let’s just say proverbial crap hit the fan.
I understandably blamed hormones for the ultra-fragile mess I was the first few months of pregnancy. But in retrospect I see my instability for what it was: all the little dams I’d feebly built to protect myself from any unnecessary flood of emotion had suddenly flown open.
I was having a baby. And I could control absolutely nothing about it. But one year into this whole parenting thing, and I’m a different person. I’d argue a better one.
Here’s the thing about anxiety—it can twist healthy cares into unhealthy self-focus. I wasted so much time surviving that I could never really live, let alone sustain another life. I was landlocked by my own fear, frantically attempting to outsmart death and pain, robbing myself of a life of love.
It helps that as a parent, I literally don’t have time or energy to entertain my anxious thoughts. But the real change has happened in the trenches of daily life as a mom, in the little moments where I’ve chosen to take faith-steps beyond the horizon of myself into a wild and furious world. A world that will likely hurt me.
I will be the first to say parenting is certainly not without pain. One year of motherhood has gifted me some of the most heart-wrenching moments of my life: a sick child my hands can’t heal, a tired child my songs can’t coax to sleep, a hungry child my breasts can’t feed. But these little twinges of pain, the times I must come to terms with my own weakness, are worthwhile. Because they invite me to a life outside of myself.
Motherhood has revealed my depths—the depths I never wanted to deal with. Another failed round of sleep training. Another ear infection. Another meltdown in the grocery store. A million reasons every day to worry, to resign from the potential pain of one more day, to hide from the doldrums of the mundane. A million reasons to survive.
A million opportunities to choose. Will I put my armor on and power through life to avoid pain or stress? Or will I face myself in the mirror, waving my flag of surrender and say it’s okay to be weak, mama. It’s okay not to know how to fix things. It’s okay to rest. Because I am my best mom when I’m not so worried about being the best mom.
Enter crocodile tears. The opposite of pretty.
But also kind of awesome. Because loosening my grip on life means I get two free hands for doing things that matter.
Little by little, I have learned how to harness the anxious thoughts that once speckled my life—to think about someone, something other than myself. Not because I have to, but because I get to. Suddenly, the most precious, breakable things in my life have crystallized into the very force that frees me.
Love is absolutely worth the loss that threatens it.
That’s the heart-wrenching magic of being a mother.
Mamas with anxiety: how has being a parent affected you emotionally? I’d love to hear your story and learn what’s been most helpful for you on your journey. Let’s support each other!
