I became a mother a little over a year ago,and one thing I noticed that immediately changed about me after having my son was my ability to understand how I felt and why I felt a certain emotion. After child birth and once the reality of having a child truly set in, I completely lost it! I could not keep myself together to save my life. I felt so down and out of whack. I talked to my doctor (and also watched documentaries about post-partum depression) to understand why I felt the way I did. my doctor said it was completely normal to feel a little off emotionally after having a baby, “it takes time for you body to get back to ‘Normal’ ” he said. So I gave it try.
I hopelessly waited for the day I did not feel so miserable, always obsessing over the idea that I was a young, black, single mother , who realistically speaking, now had to change the course of my life to find a place for this baby that I now had. That day never came… It’s a little over a year now and I still feel down in the dumps and endlessly imagining my life kid -free and all the things I would have been doing with it. I decided that this would not be for me, so now I am on a journey to understand the root of my feelings. What I mean by that is, starting out by asking myself “why I feel like having a child is such a terrible thing? ” Now I have a start, then we begin to peel back the onion to uncover the not so fun thoughts and feelings and to confront them. Once I thought about my issue in that way I realized I lacked motivation and goals in my life, something that I had always had in mind were the things that I wanted to achieve and succeed at. Once I had my son I no longer thought about myself, it was always him. Neglecting and failing to see myself as still being an individual actually forced me into a more negative selfish depression.
I wanted to have “Me” back so badly that I stopped caring as a mother a little. I started to slowly feel myself slip mentally away from my son. I was not engaging with him as much or having a great amount of patience with him. There was a moment that my patience was so thin, that I screamed out of pure frustration, anger, sadness and resentment in front of him. When I looked at his face and saw confusion mixed with some fear. I knew I had to change my ways! I did not want my son to fear me because of my inability to overcome whatever this thing was. So now I write I pour all my negatives out in the openness of my solitude. The way I see it, is these thoughts and feeling are better out than in, I always make sure I am alone when I release, that I may not influence or plant negativity in the heart of another person. My three word mantra I live by is ” Be present today”. Understand that the more you negatively think of the past or the future (of which you truly know nothing about) you get caught up in the mental trap that will eventually starve and deprive you of your happiest and most peaceful thoughts/moments.
My last thoughts to leave you with is live in today, take care of who you are today because that person is different than the person you were yesterday and will help structure the person you will be tomorrow. Take the time to understand YOU.