“Being a Mother is learning about the strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.” — Linda Wooten

I came across that quote on an anxious night, and its words resounded in me over, and over. Quickly after becoming a Mother I tried to appreciate all the aspects of this season as the greatest gift I could have ever been given. I tried, but at the same time there was a constant ache in my chest from overwhelming feelings I had never felt before. 

In my postpartum days, I found fulfillment, reward, and gratitude at being able to wake up each day to that small smiling face looking up at me from her crib, or being able to rock her every night while I sang to her as she was drifting to sleep. I wouldn’t trade any of those memories for the world, but I would be lying if I said that constant ache wasn’t loud.

When I was diagnosed with Postpartum Anxiety, Birth Trauma & PTSD my world shook. It felt so validating for there to be a reason behind that ache, but also isolating because I had never known anyone else to have gone through this. Now, I know perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) affect 1 in 5/7 women, which is a lot more common than we’re led to believe.  

I also knew I did not want these terms to define me, but I embraced them as flowers. Ones I had knelt down & picked up, meaning to or not, and that are now forever a part of my story. 

It was a struggle from the start, as irrational or hard as it is to admit. For example, one night, when my daughter was about 2 months old, I woke in a panic, completely convinced the right side of our home had sunk deep into a sink hole. I was afraid to look at the baby monitor in fear that my daughter had been swallowed into the dark abyss, and I would have to figure out how to jump in and save her on my own since my husband was at work, and I would have to make sure to carry my phone across the house with me and be on the phone with 911, and then have them call my husband’s work and let them know what had happened, and so on… 

I share this for a couple reasons. Those ‘irrational’, ‘unbeliebable’, ‘crazy’, ‘over the top’ stories and fears we may have as early Mothers are much more common than we think. They also can hold so much more power than we want to allow. More importantly, they can cause so much shame, guilt, and even more fear that can show up in other ways too. 

Fear that you are not a good Mom. Fear that someone is going to break into your home and take your child from you like they are Rapunzel. Fear that you are making bad imprints on your small child that will last forever. Fear that you will forget to turn the gas stove off before bed. Fear that your partner won’t love you anymore now that your body & soul have changed from the version of you that they met years/months/weeks ago. Fear that the sky will fall, our world will end, or you won’t get enough to eat or sleep the next day and will start to wither away.

No matter what I did on my own these fears held firm, like roots to parts of those flowers, and caused me to doubt, cancel plans, and live in a constant state of fear. Therapy taught me to organize my thoughts, reset my nervous system & validated that silent constant ache without it having control. 

Now, I can look back and confidently say what was true during that season; I am & was a great mother, no one is going to take my daughter away from me, I have locked the doors turned off our gas stove, and safely put my daughter to bed each night, the sky won’t fall, the world will end one day but not today, and my husband loves me so unconditionally. It also makes me a great Mom to take care of myself properly while I care for others.  

I decided to keep those flowers early in my journey, smell them, admire what they brought to my life, and that I chose to set them down along the way. I also learned to give myself grace for the ache, and grace for the days it still returned, even in the slightest bit. Grace that these flowers were meant for me, because they allow me to see strengths I didn’t know I had, and to face the fears I never knew were there. They have mingled together to fuel a fire so bright inside me, that will always motivate me to better myself, to never burn out, and to keep going. 

The best thing about flowers, I’ve recently been told, is that they are meant to be temporary. They are meant to remind us that life has simple fleeting moments that will pass us by if we choose to let them. I think they can also be a reminder that tough times are often just as fleeting. Maybe that’s why we give flowers in happy and grieving times. I’ll never truly understand the reason my flowers found me during those painful, exhausting, and so vulnerable first moments of motherhood. Maybe I never will. 

All I know, is that they led me to a garden I didn’t know existed, where other mothers, just like me, tend to their own flowers. We talk about the beautiful ones, the fragrant ones, and the ones with thorns that made us bleed. We share seeds of hope and grace with each other, knowing that some of those will grow into the most beautiful blossoms we’ve ever seen. We tend to our gardens together, sharing our fears, our joys, and our stories. We are finding the strength we didn't know we had, we are learning to face the fears we didn't know existed, all the while admiring the flowers that we planted along the way.  

-- Jordan O'Brien | Owner of Carnation Counseling LLC | September 1, 2025