The Spiral
Being a mom means holding it together.
Being a woman means holding it together.
I am usually good at holding it together. People have told me that I seem like a bastion of calm and a person who has it figured out. Probably because I did well in school (“gifted and talented” represent), I excel at my career, I have done fearless things, and in a way I’ve always been unapologetically myself. The child I’m raising is thoughtful and intelligent, taking after both his dad and me. He’s also very stubborn and clingy, and has a variety of conditions and behaviors that require management. Many of those are probably inherited from one or both parents too. This is not the place to catalog his medical and behavioral issues, but suffice it to say they have a disruptive impact on our everyday lives. I do most of the work to manage the practical aspects—researching, making doctor and counseling appointments, buying different combinations of medicines and supplements, trying to impose order on the household to ensure psychological safety. A burden of worry sits atop all of that, a heavy, spinning ball of beating myself up and wondering if things will ever get better.
The attendant stress comes in waves, at the crest of which I feel like I can’t handle it anymore. A few months ago, I took my son to a birthday party and almost broke down. It was a party for our next-door neighbor’s youngest daughter. My son is friends with the neighbors, but didn’t know any of their friends, so he had a hard time integrating with the kids. He also politely turned down the host’s offers to set him up with an activity. He just wanted to be near me, as usual. (Cue the worries about antisocial behavior.) I got him a plate so he could grab some food from the snack table, and he ignored the fruit and cheese in favor of crackers only. (Here come the worries about picky eating and malnutrition.) I sank into the living room couch and watched the other kids, many of them my son’s age, playing with each other and leaving the adults alone. I created stories in my head about the tension-free lives of these other families. I fretted that my child wasn’t developing normally.
It was too much. Holding back tears, I texted my husband and asked him to come take over. The birthday girl’s mom, a friend, texted me later to ask if I was okay. She had seen me looking miserable on the couch. I’m not so good at hiding it when my emotions become overwhelming.
A couple of weeks later, I saw my doctor for a routine follow-up. After we finished talking about my mammogram results, she let a quiet moment settle in before asking, “Is there anything else?” I immediately started crying. She had seen that something was wrong, despite my physical health being good. She gave me space to talk about my son’s issues, my anxiety around them, and the weight I carried. As a mom, she understood; as a medical professional, she asked if I wanted to increase my antidepressant dosage. I had been on a lowered dosage for several years, and often forgot to take my pill in the morning. I agreed to bump it back up to where it had been most of my adult life. This was clearly not a time for me to tough it out.
Awaiting my updated prescription, I left the doctor’s office and cried some more in my car. With the tension broken, everything spiraled out of me like a busted metal spring, including some buried resentment at my husband for not doing more to share the burdens of parenthood. Fair or not, it’s what I was feeling. I think I texted him from the car that I was not okay. He replied that I should come home. I wanted to argue against it, but couldn’t. Inevitably I need to pull it together, get back to my responsibilities, and hope for some comfort to eventually creep in.