The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Suzie Booth

My first baby was born at over 42 weeks after I “failed to progress” in induction and ended up with a distressed baby in an emergency c-section. I felt a failure and that ‘my body didn’t do what it was supposed to do’. Little H was tongue-tied and couldn’t latch and so I had to (alone in hospital in 2020 – covid!) give him formula. I didn’t have the energy or support (covid!) to navigate expressing milk and when we got home I developed mastitis and ended up back in hospital. I remember vividly the midwife asking me “do you want to carry on trying to breastfeed?” and me just bursting into tears and saying “no!” And so, I felt again that I wasn’t able/strong enough to do what I was supposed to do.

Can you see a narrative already building?...

He suffered badly with his tummy, his sleep, his skin and with reflux. At 6 weeks he choked on some reflux in the night and stopped breathing. My husband sprang into action and got him up, heroically banging his back to get the reflux out. And while he did that, I just stood totally frozen watching him turn blue. When we got to hospital the nurse asked me “why didn’t you call 999?” And another piece of evidence was collected, ‘I didn’t do what I was supposed to do’.

At 8 weeks he was diagnosed with a cow’s milk protein allergy (something I blamed myself for because he was a c-section and formula-fed baby). And by that point, my narrative had been well and truly formed. And when I went back to work at 3 months (both necessity and choice) I felt again that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do.

What I felt from this series of events was that I ‘just wasn’t very maternal’ that ‘nothing about mothering came naturally to me’ and that ‘I didn’t have the same emotional instincts or inner strength as other mum’s’. So, I started to withdraw from parenting. In the mornings I would get all the stuff ready and would leave my husband to get Little H ready. I would wash up while he bathed. I would clean while he played. The tasks became my safe space; they were where I felt comfortable and good enough.

But this behaviour and avoidance drove the narrative further. ‘Why did I prefer to wash up than bath my child?’ Little H naturally became a Daddy’s boy and so again, the narrative was strengthened by my own behaviour – ‘6-month-old children shouldn’t be more attached to their Dad’s than their Mums’ I told myself.

And I ‘laughed it off’ – “oh he’s such a Daddy’s boy!” And pretended it was fine, but it wasn’t. Every time it was me on bedtime duty and he’d scream I felt a knot inside and embarrassment and shame flood over me.

I completely resigned myself to it and this narrative lasted almost 4 years!!

Then, someone contacted me to be a part of a local parenting event; they were gathering together local businesses all of which support parents and I was invited along as a counsellor and couple’s therapist. In talking to all the local parents I realised that lots and lots and LOTS of them were struggling and feeling like they were failing. And this massive passion for and interest in helping parents was born in me. I started seeing more parents in the therapy room and realised that parenting is the SAME as our early years. How it starts is how it continues, unless we DO something about it! (Cue shame and embarrassment that it took me so long to realise that – I’m a bloody therapist for goodness sake!) Amazing how you can’t see the woods for the trees when you’re in it.

I decided to really focus my energy on parental mental health – seeing clients, researching, reading, listening and unpicking my own story. Only by sitting and picking apart those early months and years have I been able to uncover this hidden narrative of my own.

And so now I am able to identify when that narrative is driving my behaviour and I am able to choose to behave differently. I can notice when those thoughts and feelings come up and I can dialogue with them. And I can finally look back on my early parenting experience with compassion and love for myself. It was a tough start and I did the best I could. And I now know that I will always do the best I can for them (we now have 2!) – it won’t ever be perfect and at times it won’t feel enough for them (or enough for me) but it doesn’t mean that I’m a ‘bad’ mum or that I’ve ‘failed’.

The same way that our early years of life shape who we become, the early days, weeks, months, years of parenting shape the parent we become. The early stages develop a narrative that we (unless challenged) will carry with us unconsciously. It will drive our thoughts, behaviours and emotions throughout our parenting lives.

Please think back to those early days and understand how your parental narrative might have been formed. You don’t have to continue it; there are ways to unpick, understand and resolve those beliefs about yourself. Let’s all leave behind these skewed narratives we’ve been carrying and move forward in a more conscious and empowered way.

Suzie is a qualified and accredited counsellor/psychotherapist and couple’s counsellor. She has almost 15 years’ experience. She’s a Mum of 2 boys (4 and 1) and live with them and her husband in West Sussex. She is also a rainbow baby and infertility specialist. She loves understanding how people work and helping them to make sense of themselves and their stories. She believes strongly that making our experiences and processes conscious, means we are able to choose to do things differently and move forward in more considered and empowered ways.

From her own difficult start to parenthood, she has found her passion is in helping parents to thrive. She knows how hard parenting can be and feels that we aren’t given the support, knowledge or tools needed to be able to actually enjoy it! So, she’s on a mission to support parents and help them to understand the experiences they are going through and to make life so much more gratifying.