Uncovering the Unseen Anxiety of Motherhood: My Journey of Reparenting and Reflection

I never knew I had anxiety until I became a mom.

Looking back now, as my first baby is closer to leaving me than he is to diapers, I'm really angry that no one saw it. Instead of compassion and empathy, I was met with judgment. People judged the way I raised my baby and judged me for my inability to handle his crying.

This is something we often overlook when we see stressed and overwhelmed mothers - we judge them for their parenting style without thinking about the underlying reasons for their choices. For me, I had no idea how triggered I was going to be by my baby's crying.

I entered motherhood with the belief that it would come easily to me. I had spent my teenage and college years caring for other people’s kids. I had been a teacher for over a decade. I loved babies and kids.

But when the baby was my own, the crying just hit differently.

I did everything in my power to prevent my baby from crying. I wore him in a carrier, stuck my boob in his mouth, bounced, rocked, and shushed him. I had ridiculous rituals for transferring him from his car seat to the bed, all in an effort to avoid his cries. As he grew older, I couldn't say "no" to him when he cried for a toy or anything, for that matter, because I just couldn't handle his crying. I would avoid it at all costs.

Although it may have appeared as though I was a permissive parent with loose boundaries to outsiders, that wasn't my intention.

In my mind, this was about him, about meeting his needs, about responding to his cries in a loving way. But in reality, it was about me, yet no one saw the struggle behind my giving in to his cries.

I was even in therapy, talking about how hard being a mom was for me. It wasn't just the baby; it was the mess in my house, the dog hair on everything, and my inability to manage everything while caring for my child. But no one saw that. No one saw the anxiety that was controlling me.

I didn't know at the time that I had anxiety, but now I see that I've had it my entire life.

Of course, everyone has anxiety to some level, but for some of us, it impacts our ability to function in this world.

I had my baby at the age of 36, and until then, I had just figured out how to avoid my anxiety triggers. I had set myself up in the world so that I never had to face the things that caused me to feel anxious. But when you have a baby, you just can't do that anymore. It's right in your face, and it's overwhelming.

I began therapy a couple of years into my parenting journey, but even then, no one ever suggested that I might have postpartum anxiety. It wasn't until three years after having my child that one of my therapists suggested that could be the case.

It breaks my heart today, and that baby is nearly 14 years old because I know that he did not get the best of me. I was so unable to be present with him and enjoy him. I have so much guilt about it. If only someone could have helped me see what was going on and helped me deal with the crying and see why it was so hard for me. Today, that kid doesn't cry when he's sad. He goes straight to anger, just like his mom used to do. My actions squashed his ability to cry and express his emotions, and I fear that no amount of therapy will ever help me work past that guilt.

I thought I was doing the right thing by responding to his tears, but they just never stopped.

Because I never let them flow. I never let him get his feelings out because I was just too uncomfortable with it.

Isn't this what so many of us have dealt with as children? We just want to share our emotions, but our parents don't let us. Then, here I was thinking I was breaking a cycle, but I was holding my child back from expressing himself. Even though I was trying to do better, I did to him what was done to me. He wasn't allowed to cry. He wasn't ignored, but he still wasn't allowed to cry.

The unseen anxiety of motherhood is real. We need to provide more support and understanding for mothers who are struggling. This is not always about their parenting style, but the underlying anxiety that may be controlling them. This is why it is so important to begin the work of reparenting yourself before your baby is born.