So I’m kind of selfish. I struggle with depression (read: not always a bag of laughs). I sometimes get lost in the vortex of my anxious thoughts.

Perfect candidate for motherhood, right?

When one writes a mental health blog while suffering from said mental illness and in the midst of mothering, it’s hard to write a post that doesn’t make it sound like you hate your job and/or children.

For the record, I don’t.

I love my children.

My mother told me that I must be doing something right because they [the children] adore me. I replied, Well, they won’t have an overinflated sense of ego, that’s for sure.

How much do we put away? How much rubs off on them? How much can you vent/piss/moan/complain on posts and not have people call family services, Samaritan lifelines, EMTs, etc.?

I don’t know how much this blog is my release valve or an incubator for my negative thoughts. Scratch that. They’re there anyway. It’s like denying the existence of the devil.

I wonder how much I look like an agitated, anxious, depressed mother on the outside. Or if no one knows. No one can see. I wonder how many of us are walking around wearing a camouflage coat. It may the woman sitting right next to you. It may be the face staring back at you from the mirror.

Is it possible to separate our maladies from the little being that grew inside us? Will they be able to thrive outside that shadow?