“Sometimes I’m still hurting.
I know how far I’ve come, but I also know I am still in the thick of it.
Motherhood is hard. It’s really hard.
I stay up at night wishing I was better at it.
I give myself migraines from forgetting to drink water and feed myself, because I am trying to cook, clean, and be a children’s entertainer.
I have three children under six. And sometimes I just cannot cope. I can’t. I wish I could. I get angry with myself because I am not acing it.
I sometimes get angry with myself because I know without antidepressants, I’ll be impatient and angry with them. I hate it.
We are in a society which teaches us to strip all the layers of ourselves to give it to our children. We are in a society which belittles mothers who work, who don’t work, who use childcare, who feed their kids takeaway, who have messy houses, who aren’t children’s entertainers, who aren’t maids, who aren’t cooks. We ridicule them. We do! I get it all the time. Constant abusing comments every time I ‘slip’ up.
It’s exhausting.
But doing it all? Being so perfect? There are no awards for that. No gold star, no big trophy. No, there’s exhaustion, there’s resentment and burnout, that’s our reward.
So, mothers everywhere, I implore you, f*ck what anyone else says. Who gives a flying f*ck if your house is messy, who gives a sh*t if you use childcare, whether you work or not, who cares if you hand your kids iPads. You cannot do it all. You just cannot. You are not a robot.
Ask for help, use an online village, send your kids to someone else to look after.
You cannot do this alone, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
When my thoughts spiral with guilt about whether I’m good enough, about whether other people think my parenting is good enough, I end up in a real dark place where I feel utterly alone and like no one is going to save me.
I love my children, but this is me.
I need antidepressants to be a better mother.
My house will sometimes look like a bomb site. My kids get takeaway, TV, and iPads.
That’s how I survive.
And in order to keep surviving, I must remind myself that is good enough.
Today I cried, and that’s okay, too.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Laura Mazza. Follow Laura on Instagram here. Do you have a similar experience? We’d like to hear your important journey. Submit your own story here. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
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‘She’s not broken’: To the man whose wife or partner has anxiety
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