There is a kind of exhaustion that sleep doesn’t always fix.
It comes from trying to be present with your children while your mind keeps pulling you toward everything that could go wrong. From wanting to enjoy an ordinary afternoon while feeling responsible for anticipating every possible danger. From loving your children deeply and struggling to live with the uncertainty that comes with raising them.
Parenting with obsessive-compulsive disorder can make that uncertainty feel especially heavy.
Motherhood already asks us to make decisions without knowing exactly how they will turn out. We choose schools, set boundaries, allow more independence and hope we are giving our children what they need. There is no way to check our work at the end of each day and receive a guarantee that we got everything right.
But how I wish there were.
I want to know that they are safe. I want to know that I made the right decision. I want to know that something I overlooked won’t become something I regret.
The difficulty is that wanting an answer can become an exhausting search for certainty.
OCD can involve recurring, unwanted thoughts and compulsions, including things a person does mentally. That means some of the struggle may be invisible to the people around us. A mother can be having a conversation, helping with homework or sitting beside her children while fighting a battle no one else can see.
And when children depend on you, it can be hard to admit how much you are struggling.
There is guilt in feeling distracted when you want to be engaged. Guilt in being impatient when you are overwhelmed. Guilt in realizing that a moment you wanted to enjoy has passed while you were caught up in your own thoughts.
Then comes another question: What kind of mother does that make me?
I am trying to give myself room to answer that question with compassion.
A mother who is struggling still deserves support. She deserves to be able to say that something is difficult without having that admission become a judgment of how much she loves her children.
I think many of us have become skilled at appearing capable. We keep appointments, answer messages and make sure everyone has what they need. From the outside, the day looks handled.
Inside, we may be worn out.
That is why I want to talk about this honestly. Someone can be functioning and still need help. Someone can be devoted to her family and still find parts of parenting incredibly difficult.
For me, one of the hardest parts is recognizing where reasonable responsibility ends.
My children need guidance and protection. They also need opportunities to grow, try things and experience a world I cannot completely control. As they get older, I have to keep learning how to give them that space while working through my own discomfort.
I don’t expect that to become easy simply because I understand it.
Some days, understanding something and being able to do it feel very far apart.
Still, I want my children to see that asking for help is allowed. I want them to know that taking care of your mental health belongs alongside taking care of your physical health. I want to model the willingness to apologize, learn and try again.
That includes acknowledging when my own stress affects the way I respond to them. An explanation can help me understand what happened, but I still have a responsibility to repair the moment.
Motherhood gives me plenty of opportunities to practice that.
I am learning that I can care deeply without having every answer. That I can make a thoughtful decision and still feel uncertain afterward. That I can seek support before I reach the point of having nothing left to give.
I want more room in my days for the ordinary things: listening to a story all the way through, laughing at something silly, enjoying time together without mentally racing ahead.
I know there will still be difficult days. I also know I deserve help navigating them.
So does any mother reading this who recognizes something of herself in these words.
Our struggles deserve attention. Our children deserve our care. Making room for both is part of the work of being a mother, too.
(Paige Gurgainers is a mom of three girls, digital journalist for Webster Parish Journal.)