Click the link below the picture
.
When news of the U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents hit my feeds in late August, I clicked on Dr. Vivek Murthy’s story in the New York Times with the mix of curiosity and skepticism I typically feel when I open my kids’ report cards. On one hand, I’m always hopeful for some unexpected revelation that might help me connect with them in a new way. On the other, these are my kids we’re talking about. I’m with them all the time, including every evening as they labor through homework, so there should be zero surprises.
I dug into Murthy’s piece like it was the teacher comments section, on a familiar hunt for whatever nuggets of insight he might have to offer. At the same time, as a mom of three young children who finds herself naturally and constantly in touch with all aspects of his thesis, I was doubtful I’d find anything I didn’t already know.
Murthy argues that parents exist in an unsustainable state of overwhelm. That our stressors are big and plentiful, from economic concerns to basic safety, and that this chronic stress threatens the whole ecosystem — parents, kids, and by extension, all of society. To this, I thought, respectfully, Duh?
I quickly realized, though, that this report wasn’t intended to solve the state of modern parenting, but to establish the extent of the problem. And I recognized myself there, in the tricky, heavy business of raising kids and running a household in the face of fearfulness and uncertainty. But what happens when there’s more to the story?
Sudden, unexpected trauma as the primary source of parental stress is touched on only briefly in the report, despite the fact that many of us have experienced something like this, or will: a tragedy so random and out of bounds that it leaves not only our hearts shattered, but our belief systems, too. For me, it was the death of my older sister in a bicycling accident, seven years ago, that turned my whole system on its head — an epic loss that made every assumption I had held about life feel flimsy and foolish. In an instant, everything became dangerous; nothing was safe. My generalized, dare I say “normal,” new-mom worries escalated immediately into a stubborn, all-encompassing anxiety and habitual hypervigilance, snowplowing in the extreme. Except it didn’t come from a place of wanting my kids to get ahead — honestly, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I’ve operated this way because I genuinely believed that’s what was needed to keep them alive.
Parenting from this mindset is a disaster. We know this, and yet it’s helpful to understand how many of us have landed here: about 5 out of every 100 adults (or 5%) in the U.S. has PTSD in any given year.
My anxiety didn’t come from a place of wanting my kids to get ahead — honestly, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I’ve operated this way because I genuinely believed that’s what was needed to keep them alive.
The year Maureen died, my oldest, Scotty, was almost 3, and his sister Caroline had just turned 1. I’d read enough Janet Lansbury by that point to know, intellectually, that it was healthy and necessary for them to explore and experiment. But if I had been a bit of a hoverer before, the post-traumatic shift happening inside my mind brought an alertness I couldn’t turn off. It was like living inside of a split screen: one side showing my kids doing typical kid things, the other with a night vision overlay that revealed lurking almost-accidents in every direction. I couldn’t get out of my own way. So I got into theirs — barking out dire warnings of coffee table corners, too-high climbing branches, and tricky playground obstacles. If I had a dollar for every time I shouted some variation of “Be careful!” I’d be very, very rich.
I’ve often wondered if, within a year or two, I would’ve eventually found a way to mellow (or, another word I love, integrate) on my own, but life had other plans. Our youngest, Will, arrived prematurely at 28 weeks and six days gestation in November of 2019 after a horror show of pregnancy complications. His three-month NICU stay and subsequent post-discharge health crises dovetailed with the dawn of Covid, so things continued to be not only scary and stressful, but infinitely more complex.
For a solid year, Covid shutdowns did a lot of the work for me. It was easy to decline play dates and outings and limit visitors, and everyone, to my great delight, became as obsessed with hand-washing as I did. But as life opened back up, I started to feel like the person time forgot. I didn’t yearn for socializing or in-person alternatives to Zoom. I was fine sending the big kids to school in masks if it meant keeping Will healthy. A controversial stance, I realize, but one I was glad to take after the common cold had landed him back in the ICU.
Turns out it wasn’t just the germs. My split screen came back online with all manner of calamities unfolding on the night vision side — truly the most random, micro-level stuff. Stairs and curbs freaked me out. The stomping sound of the kids running in the house. S’more making (marshmallow spear could poke someone’s eye out), popcorn eating (you’ll choke on an un-popped kernel), and standing near a tree for too long (Google “sudden limb drop,” it’s a thing). Halloween (a kid’s dream day!) was haunted not by witches and goblins but by my own ghastly hollering at anyone who stepped outside the painted confines of a crosswalk, or, God forbid, into one without a firmly lit WALK signal beckoning. With each small freedom granted, the instinct to retreat grew. One day my Instagram algorithm correctly served up a meme that read “Actually, all my systems are nervous,” and I thought to myself, Umm, yeah. I should have shirts made.
n the choice between fight, flight, or freeze, I was certifiably frozen. In thought and in time, unable to acknowledge what could not be more clear: my one-size-fits-all safety strategy no longer worked, if it ever did. The kids (even Will!) were growing bigger, stronger, and more capable in all the ways, which made my hypervigilance the increasingly limiting factor in their lives.
.
I was already an anxious mom, but a sudden death in the family made everything seem dangerous.
.
.
Click the link below for the complete article:
.
__________________________________________
Leave a comment