Since my mom passed away, I've been doing a lot of thinking, especially about motherhood. Unfortunately, my motherhood is tainted by fibro. When I think about my mom I often feel inadequate as a mother. But I've come to the conclusion that most mothers feel that way at some point--and that feeling is one of the things that makes us good mothers. If we are always striving to improve it is a sign of our deep and unending love--even if sometimes we want to hide in the closet with a bottle of wine. Fibro adds an extra layer of difficulty and a couple extra layers of guilt to motherhood. Here is my experience as a mother and FibroMIGHT:
My first recognizable fibro symptoms appeared as soon as I became pregnant with Big Red. It wasn't until much later that I was diagnosed and came to understand that the first rush of hormones was the likely catalyst for my fibro journey. Flares were few and far between at that point, and my biggest problem was the standard sleep-deprivation that comes from having a newborn. I still chalked my periodic muscle pain up to viruses since that's what the first flare was declared to be. Unexplainable, all-over muscle pain every few months didn't spark questions for me at the time.
After Monkey was born I developed post-partum depression. PPD is awful. I knew that what I felt was wrong. I knew that I wasn't being fair or reasonable. But I couldn't change it. I was terrified that Big Red was going to seriously hurt or kill Monkey. I was a terrible mom to Big Red, bordering on abusive. I can see that now. I wanted to run away with Monkey and hide, just the two of us. I hated letting my husband or anyone else take him. Tension bloomed in my marriage. I knew I needed help but the idea of asking for it was scary. Telling the OB/GYN that I was having trouble is one of the hardest things I've ever done. But I put on my big girl panties and accepted the meds. It helped and I gradually began to feel like myself--which meant coming to the realization that I had been treating my first-born like dirt. It still brings me to tears to think about and I wish more than anything that I could take back much of what I said and did. Depression made me a monster. Antidepressants made me myself again.
As the boys have grown, so has my anxiety about being the right kind of mom. I have to work full time. That has made me worry about whether or not I'm spending enough time with my boys. The chronic fatigue makes me so tired that when I do have time I sometimes can do no more than be in the room with them. It also means that I don't do a lot of cooking, so I feel like I'm not feeding them properly. I don't even want to talk about cleaning. My house is consistently a disaster and if it weren't for my live-in father-in-law it would be filthy, too. I can't do it all, or even most of it, on my own.
But that is okay. Let me say that again. IT IS OKAY. All moms need to go a little easier on themselves, but definitely FibroMIGHT moms. You know why? Because it's the small moments that matter. I remember all of the ways my mom was a good mom but my inner child remembers the love. And that, my friends, is the point. I may not have the most energy, cook the most meals, or keep a tidy house, but I love my boys fiercely. Gentle hugs.
