"But since my theme will be the good I found there,
I mean to speak of the other things I saw.”
Dante, Inferno Canto 1
This week the call came. The call every parent dreads: social services. Someone had raised a concern about my blog – being negative and unloving about my daughter and using photos of her and the village we live. It is such a horrible feeling – the last few days I’ve mostly wept, had a sinking hole in the pit of my stomach and been reluctant to leave the house alone, especially with my little girl. I can feel the eyes of nameless crowds, boring into me, assessing my parenting and finding me wanting.
I cried and I cried. But in between bouts of sobbing I spoke to the people I love and trust and started to make some sense of my situation and to see a way through. I have reflected that of course I wouldn’t want to damage my daughter by expressing myself. I also acknowledge, in a world of Facebook and Instagram, we have become blasé about sharing our children’s image – something they can’t and don’t consent to.
It wasn’t the first time I have been involved with social services. When I was in a psychiatric hospital 6 weeks after the birth of my daughter my family was assessed by social services. They telephoned other members of my family to see what support they could offer. I didn’t particularly mind their presence then – it was part of a much bigger surrender: of my liberty, my daughter, my ability to judge, decide and care. At the time it felt necessary – my own mental health had deteriorated so much that I couldn’t care for either myself or my child.
This would be a huge violation of anyone’s autonomy – but it felt particularly poignant for me because as a children’s nurse I made a living caring for children. Where once I supported parents with feeding, bathing and their psychological struggles, now I was the patient – shown ways to bath, bond and care for my baby under constant supervision and my razor under lock and key. As I was taken into the hospital, strapped on a stretcher in an ambulance I surrendered myself into other people’s care – at first without hope for myself, just wanting my baby to be cared for.
As I found some tiny fragments of hope, eventually I came to see the interference as a good thing – a route to treatment, help and maybe even recovery. Social services were just part of a long line of professionals who assessed, reported and discussed me, just another pair of eyes in a meeting room full of people discussing me. Just another witness in a string of witnesses to my fitness to mother my child.
Over the last 20 months I have accepted a lot of help and understand as much as anybody, the need for state intervention to protect children. I wanted them to take her off me back then – I was convinced I would never be the mother she deserved and maybe she could grow strong and happy without me.
But over time the help made me stronger. The Happy Mums Foundation held my hand every step of the way. Not promising to fix me or solve my problems just being there with me. Seeing me not just as a mother but as an individual. I went from service user to volunteer to paid employee in just the space of a few months. The foundation gave me the confidence to share my experiences: first on Comic Relief, then via a blog. The blog became particularly important for me: tapping into long forgotten skills, articulating my struggles both for my own and others’ benefit. I was overwhelmed by how many people contacted me or my husband to say how my honesty had helped them. Old and young, male and female, parents and non-parents, suffers from mental health problems or those who have never struggled that way, all had found something to relate to. I grew in confidence, and carried on blogging in furlough, as a way of occupying myself and making sense of these crazy times. I expected negative comments but none came. Thousands read the posts.
I suppose that’s why it was such a shock getting that call. Something I had come to see as a force for good and hope not just for me but also for my family and readers was painted as a harmful thing. A threat to my daughter’s wellbeing. The social worker said the person who contacted them was concerned my posts were negative about my daughter and “not very loving”. The last point is a particularly brutal one – it strikes at the heart of my fear that I am not cut out for motherhood, that I am somehow broken and can’t emit that glowing light of love a mother should.
My blog does indeed deal with some difficult themes. Feeling suicidal, especially when you have a child, is still a massive taboo in our society. When someone succeeds we can all see missed opportunities to help but it is harder to confront the subject with the living. To give airspace to their unthinkable thoughts. And I wanted to acknowledge this, and the fact that even though I am much, much better I still have plenty of negative thoughts about my child. It was this aspect of the blog that sparked the most heart-warming responses. Men and women who’d struggled years ago, and always blamed and chastised themselves were able to find some peace in the knowledge they were not alone.
This is at the core of what I write. For too long we have cried in silence. In darkened rooms, behind closed doors. For too long we have hidden our darkness in shrouds of shame and guilt. For too long our voices have been muted, frightened how the world will judge our struggles.
My initial reaction to the call and the complaint was to stop the blog, limit the damage I was doing to my child and the world. But more and more I have come to realise that it is now more important than ever to carry on. So many people have said my words are brave and I never really felt they were till now. Now I am frightened. I am afraid people will question my parenting. My profession, my very being. But if I don’t carry on I will be just another voice silenced by the judgements of nameless others.
There must be a reason why suicide is the leading cause of death in the first year of motherhood. I suspect fear of asking for help is a massive part of this. Women lose their channels of support, become isolated and fear admitting problems because they think their children will be taken away. In my time at Happy Mums I’ve heard the same story in so many different mouths – “but what if they report me”, “what if they take my kids away”. And I am lucky enough to have a loving family who support and understand, an employer who has struggled with the same conundrum herself and friends who know what kind of a mother I really am. I am white, middle class and educated. I was able to speak to the social worker in a way she understood and defend my position. I know many aren’t able to.
So mothers start hiding their darkness deep inside, where it festers and grows. I believe that mothers start to act more like men – unable or unwilling to talk about their problems and ask for help.
This is why I will carry on. Only in facing my demons and holding their gaze will I be able to beat them. The beauty and goodness and hope the world can hold only have meaning if you have looked into the abyss. I have found hope on the brink of despair. And that hope is more powerful because of its fragility. More real than a thousand clichés.
Maybe we need a broader definition of loving: to include having the strength to confront your problems, the bravery to do so while being afraid, and the humility to accept help. If I can teach my daughter these things, maybe by showing her my blogs when she is older, they will help her navigate the challenges of living. Maybe if she has children the world won’t expect such a lofty ideal of motherhood, a pure glow of self-less love. Maybe she won’t have to choose between self-fulfilment and love of a child. Maybe she will see the power that comes from vulnerability.
If we live our lives according to fear, we teach our children to be afraid. If we act according to the judgements of others rather than our own, we teach them what others think is more important than what we know. If we turn away from our vulnerabilities, our anger, our tears and our sadness we teach them the biggest monsters lie within.
So I will continue to document my struggles and to tell my story. I have reconsidered the use of my daughter’s image – it is true we cannot know how our pictures will be viewed and reused. I had included her beautiful shining face as a window of joy and hope, but perhaps that is too big a burden for her to bear. I have always struggled to take and see images of me and her – my gradual inclusion of them had felt a positive thing but I can see how it might be a violation of her right to privacy.
But when it comes to negativity I believe an uncomfortable truth is better than a comfortable lie. Not least because the lie cannot be sustained: cracks open and grow, the darkness seeps out at the seams. Better a raging torrent of real tears than a dried-up river-bed of forced smiles and false laughter.
At this point my emotional rollercoaster has brought me to the unlikely conclusion of gratitude. Gratitude to the unnamed caller. Gratitude to the social worker. I am indeed grateful for the chance to reflect on my words and the meaning behind them: to think why I believe they are necessary. And to begin again with a renewed purpose and hope that my little girl can live in a world where women don’t have to choose between self-fulfilment and motherhood.
“One of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things”
Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse