One Face by Sarah McDugal

Author:Sarah McDugal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Published: 2016-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

ONE FACE

When our private internal identity matches our external identity, we have the power of authenticity and integrity at our disposal.

—Jane E. Stevenson

I threw up the entire time I was pregnant. Both times around. With my first child, I had to stop driving because I kept blacking out behind the wheel. With my second child, complications landed me in the High Risk Antenatal Unit on weeks of bed rest. I’d find myself hugging the toilet until I thought I’d puked my toenails up. People would ask, “Are you okay, honey?” Because my eyes were so bloodshot from violently vomiting. And also because we lived in Atlanta, Georgia, where random strangers still call pregnant women “honey.”

My hormones and emotions went crazy, and I felt completely out of control. I’m not talking normal pregnancy mood swings. I’m talking deep, dark depression. Blackness that pulled me down so low I wondered if life was still worth it.

For months during my first pregnancy, I teetered on the edge of an emotional abyss.

Part of my challenge was caused by my very rigid and narrowly defined idea of “good motherhood.” Good mothers never work outside the home. They don’t travel the world or let anyone but the grandparents babysit. They abandon all personal interests. Good mothers pour every waking thought and dream and shred of energy into nothing but forming the characters of their children.

Right?

I felt like my identity was a rug being yanked out from under my feet. Without the collaborative team I’d invested in for the previous several years, I didn’t know who I was or who I could become.

I also didn’t realize that much of my depression was chemical. I’d never before encountered an emotional obstacle I couldn’t conquer with “mind over matter.” It didn’t help that my severe insomnia kept me awake day and night. I often clocked less than 8 hours of sleep in a week.

My family worried about the baby’s health because I was uncharacteristically morose, but they had no idea what a mess I was inside. I didn’t have the courage to tell my husband either, and every night I would lie awake jealously listening to him sleep, while a vicious cycle of negative mental talk dragged me deeper into despair.

“I’ll never be able to work with an amazing production team again, because now I will be a mother.”

“I’m not ready to become a mother.”

“I hate myself for not being thrilled about this gift of life.”

“What kind of awful woman doesn’t want to be a mother?”

“If I’m honest with my friends about this, will they still love me?”

I battled all these emotions, and then battled shame for feeling them in the first place. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t “snap out of it.” Six weeks before my son was born, I finally opened up to my husband. Anger, desperation, and discouragement poured out, and he listened beautifully.

Then he asked why I’d carried this weight alone for so long.

Why?

Because most of my adult life I’d been terrified of displeasing others.

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