A Women's Empowerment Blog.
As a society, we need to do better about separating new mothers from the stigma that asking for help somehow also makes them bad caregivers, perhaps by providing a more thorough mental health education, accessible counseling, and available resources during such a vulnerable time, especially to those of us who are more susceptible to the hormonally induced “lows.” We shouldn’t have to sacrifice our mental health for childbirth in the 21st century. Period.
I was right when I thought I could never outlast grief, but nowadays, it is not the emotionally inundating atmosphere that it once was. Over the years, I’ve learned that pain is not one of those things you can conquer either, but instead (and only through the grace of time and distance) achieve a deeper understanding of. It is like how winter transitions to spring and then into summer. One day, you’re walking around, and it’s warm outside, but you can’t quite distinguish in retrospect which day was the last cold day.
These days, good mental health means allowing my worth to act as the gatekeeper to staunchly and devotedly oversee what thoughts and whose opinions I allow myself to internalize. It is the identity, the firm voice that drowns out all the others and says, “If it negates my worth, it has no place inside.”
My thirties have brought about a new sense of calm—an acknowledgment and understanding that rebuilding after trauma takes time and patience. How anxious was I in my twenties to answer every single question life threw at me, and how irrelevant having to label everything seems from the proximity of my thirties? To ask “who I am” is like asking me to describe a moment in time. I am a fleeting compilation of ever-changing factors—a living, breathing, evolving composition of my experiences and what I have learned. My identity is the confluence of all these things and regenerates from day to day.
Copyright © 2025 Today I Asked Myself By Tess Bates · Theme by 17th Avenue