The Exhaustion of Motherhood

Oh the exhaustion. I am just so tired all the time! Sleep deprivation is certainly nothing new to me (or any mother for that matter), but every time I reach a new peak of fatigue, I wonder when I will arrive at the oft-promised “easier” phase of parenting nirvana.

(Experienced mothers can stop laughing now.) While the early days and weeks of Bode’s babyhood were certainly the most intensely sleep-deprived ones, I didn’t actually “lose it” until he was 6-8 weeks old, ironically coinciding with him consistently sleeping for much longer periods through the night. By then the cumulative effects of sleep deprivation were eroding my sanity and the increase in my activity levels fuelled by my expectations of what I “should be able to do by now” were taking their toll physically. 

I was dancing on the cliff-edge of postnatal depression. Occasionally, I fell.
 It is a dark and scary place where body and mind throb and ache 24-hours a day, happiness and joy cannot be grasped and sleep is impossible (day or night) amidst the terror and anxiety that subsumes your every thought. It has a downward spiral effect that is extremely difficult to comprehend for anyone that has not suffered from it.

As a naturally positive and optimistic person, I found it baffling that I could not talk myself into a better mood on those days when I was affected. After all, I had everything to be happy for. But in my life, getting enough sleep has always been the number one most influential variable which determined my moods, energy, tolerance for stress and overall health. (Followed closely by food, exercise and chocolate.)

For me an instant cure from PND came from one or two decent nights of sleep in a row when I would magically become myself again. For many other women, even good sleep is not enough to help them out of the dungeon. As a result of this intimate experience with a very frightening imbalance of the body and mind, I guard and defend my sleep time with even more gusto than before. But the older Bode gets, the more activities I want to re-introduce into my life – more working hours, additional clients, ambitious fitness goals, new creative projects; more complexity on every level.

So I am just as weary at the end of every day as I was when truly deprived of sleep, and when the established daily routine is upset by the slightest margin, the line between exhilaration and exasperation becomes wafer-thin indeed.

It must be a built-in tendency of all mothers to continue taking on more and more until we are positively brimming with exhaustion. If there is a spare minute in the day, or a spare burst of energy that fuels us, we scan the room furiously for things that need doing: emails, clutter, laundry, phone calls, bills.

I do try to relax, enjoy the moment and just be. Sometimes it works. But it doesn’t happen easily because it requires me to ignore the drumbeat of tasks banging on in the background of my conscience. So I will carry on my merry way, joyfully raising my son and continuing to take on too much in my life until I crash and burn from exhaustion, drag myself from the ashes and rise to do it all over again. :)