My dear Conquering Mommas, I promised to be honest and to share my struggles. Here is a glimpse into how I started down the road of conquering momma and the struggles I deal with as I fight to re-claim the conquering woman I am.
On the car ride to work on writing, once again I am questioning everything. I have doubt, I can’t tell my head from my heart most days, I feel like my intuition has been playing an elusive game of hide and seek. I do know that with each step past the fear I feel my confidence re-building. Will this blog be my passion in life? Will I return to the science that calls me, and if so, in what respect? I think I will find my way with this blog by getting my heart and feelings out there, to be able to move on from the box I put myself in over the last couple of years.
Let’s be honest for a moment, losing my self started slowly I did not even really see it happening. At first the sacrifice was my career, because at that time it made less sense to work full-time than stay at home for both financial and family reasons. I tried in vain to find a part-time job to fit our family and life and quickly learned that day care and our society are not set up to get women into the work force part-time. This was frustrating. To protect myself emotionally I put my career and my family into two boxes. They could no longer mesh. I could not have both, or this is what I told myself so I could survive the loss of my career in which my identity was so deeply tied to. I succumbed to this, but not without consequences. I look back and think that I was given such a gift, but it didn’t feel like a gift. It felt like the biggest loss of my life, the loss of me. But if I look at it in another light it has forced me to find out who I am outside of work. I am now starting to feel like me again, bit by bit. It is a slow process and self-doubt creeps in, but at the end of the day I am enough. I am starting to look at moments with more gratitude and beauty.
Oh, those damn boxes! My survival mode kicked in, if I put work in a separate box, then I felt like I needed it less because it became a choice in my head of either my family or work and raising my children won out every time. This was a very dangerous thing for my mental state. I am not meant to be a full-time stay at home mom, this was never my full calling in life. I envy women that from the time they were little all they wanted was to be a stay at home mom, raising babies would make them fully content. I have never been that woman; I get frustrated with myself that this can’t be enough for me. Then I feel guilt that it should be enough. I have always craved the working life and I denied a very essential part of myself, creating a very miserable person. While having struggled with depression on and off for years, these last three have been the worst. Not only has there been depression, but anger, self-loathing, and a type of isolation and loneliness that has had me broken lying on the floor screaming I can’t take another moment of this. I would wail and shout to God to just help me, because I could not find the strength to make my way out of the miserable maze.
This was not the woman I was created to be. This was not the woman I wanted my girls to see and though I tried to hide it they would pick up on it. As I start to crawl out of the boxes and mesh my life again allowing my writing to lead me back into the world where I am can be the whole woman I am supposed to be it is scary. But I can already feel the positive effects. I have to hold out, for this journey may touch just one woman who is wailing on the floor at their current situation. Whether you have been down for a moment, or what feels like an eternity there is hope, even when it feels like there is none. I lived in my circular reasoning of standing still for over 2 years. I don’t recommend staying there for long, because the longer you stay the scarier it is to get out of the damn boxes we create.
I have succumbed to the fear in the past, but conquering momma is moving me toward facing my fears so that I can be the confident woman I used to be and grow into the woman I am meant to be.
Charity