Pain, self-care and motherhood.

Image by @alyssainthecity

The new year has well and truly set in, and this newsletter was meant to happen a fortnight ago but I have held off. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe I felt too busy. Too rushed. Too lost myself to offer anything worthy to you.

I've never been one for new year resolutions, (often a string of broken promises) but this year I am focusing my energy where it is needed – on taking care of myself – physically and emotionally, and I think you should too...

Yesterday, after two straight weeks of living in pain, I finally went to see a new chiropractor. She asked all kinds of questions about my life, my health, my history of pain—and I couldn’t help but cry. I had been in pain for the better part of a year, and on and off for over a decade. I’d been in pain for so long now that I had forgotten what it was like to be pain-free. My tears were not only for the physical pain I was in, but it was the realisation that I had allowed myself to get this bad. I’ve been so busy taking care of my family, juggling work and domestic duties, that I, like most mothers, had forgotten how to take care of myself.

For many years I’d suffered from migraines, combined with severe upper back and neck pain said to be caused by the curve in my spine (scoliosis, I was once told). Since giving birth to my son, who is now one, I found myself in more pain than ever—and it’s no wonder why. The diagnosis I was given also felt like a metaphor for my life since becoming a mother: that from my head to my toes, my body was being pushed and pulled in opposite directions, each part overcompensating and suffering in the process. Again I thought, how could I let myself get this bad? The sad thing was, I knew I wasn’t the first—nor would I be the last—new mother to put her own health to one side.

Pre-baby, the pain caused by the curve in my spine, and poor posture (an occupational hazard from years spent hunched over working at a desk) were manageable through regular exercise, massages and treatments. Back then, though, I had the freedom, the luxury of a full night's rest, a guilt-free mindset, and the time and the money to do it.

I used to be my own number one priority, yet somewhere over the first 12 months of motherhood, I let myself slide lower and lower down the list of what I considered important.

I recall a conversation I had with a friend and mother of two, who recently resigned herself to the fact that she may always be in pain. “Do we as mothers start to normalise our pain as being part of the process, to the point where we begin to wear it as a badge of honour?” she asked. Tired? Stressed? In constant pain? Welcome to motherhood! Here’s your free T-shirt.

For all our cultural talk of ‘self-care’, it often feels like it is nonexistent for new mothers, despite it being desperately needed. In fact, 50% of mothers suffer from postnatal depletion, a term used to describe the sheer mental and physical exhaustion that accompanies birthing and then raising a newborn, first coined by Dr. Oscar Serrallach. This should not come as a surprise (I thought it would be more) and it often feels like the term ‘self-care’ is too vague to cover the expansive, complicated task of responding to something as all-consuming as postnatal depletion, considering self-care is now associated with innocuous things, such as candle-burning and Goop branded rose quartz.

As a new mother, taking a shower is a “good day” and one should feel so lucky if she washes her hair too—anything more can feel like an act of indulgence. As such, your expectations of products and potions sky-rocket. Now, a face mask has the impossible task of reversing weeks, months, or years of terrible sleep, a salt bath is expected to undo the nine months of carrying a child and 10,000 plus hours of hip holds. Shopping for groceries now feels therapeutic, heaven on earth. 

I’m still very much a work-in-progress but what I do now understand is that ‘self-care’ is something I define myself. It is not a tangible object or a quick fix, but a practice that I’m building into my life as a non-negotiable, to better myself and my entire family—no matter how uncomfortable the change is, or the level of discipline required. Because taking a shower, washing my hair, indulging in a facial, a glass (or bottle) of wine, or running errands, child-free, is simply not enough.

So, mothers, I urge you, don’t let yourself get so bad that you too are breaking down in a stranger’s office. Listen to your body, and don’t treat acting upon what it’s telling you as an act of selfishness. Learn how to take care of yourself, ask for (and, most importantly, accept) help, rediscover what makes you feel good, and do it ritually. We deserve to care for ourselves—no matter how many times we have to remind ourselves.

@Jaderachelefox
@dear_dilate

This essay was originally published by After Work Drinks.