Motherhood is nails on my nervous system's chalkboard
Nobody told me my nervous system would be a tuning fork for everyone else's need.
Before I got pregnant, I had this vision.
A toddler. Full head of hair, bright olive skin, big lips. Looking up at me and saying mommy in the sweetest voice, and it filling my heart so completely I could barely stand it.
I remember being a kid and calling for my mom — mommy! mommy! — and she’d answer with whaties?! Every time. And I was so confused by that. Why wouldn’t she just say yes? Why the deflection? Why the edge?
I get it now.
The mommys never stop. They do not stop. Every single one is a need, a want, a desire, a touch, a poke, a jab, a complaint, unrequested feedback on something I did or didn’t do or should have done differently. Relentless. Never ending. Always demanding. Never satisfied.
And my body knows before my brain does.
My head goes fuzzy. My nervous system crackles — actual electricity, running through it. My stomach fills with tense, black, drooling butterflies. My pelvic bowl becomes a literal bowl of iron. Weighty. Weighed down. A weight to drag through the rest of the day.
The tears — theirs and mine. The fatigue. The drain. The need to just be alone. Untouched. Un-needed. Out of sight, out of mind. Unburdened.
This is what no one told me about. Not the books, not the classes, not the other moms at pickup who seem fine, who are probably not fine. Nobody said: your nervous system will be a tuning fork for everyone else’s need. That you will be on-call in your own body. That the word mommy — the word you dreamed of hearing — would one day land like nails on a chalkboard and you would feel guilty for every single second of it.
You’re not broken. Your nervous system is doing exactly what nervous systems do under sustained, relentless demand. It’s telling you something true.
What it needs is a cocoon. Quiet. Repair. To dissolve, briefly, into liquid — until the wings are dry and the parts are reassembled and you are ready to return.
Anew.