There Are So Many Levels of Guilt

That we don’t even have words to describe them

This week I’ve been drowning in a tornado of guilt. It’s nothing to do with being away from my children or being a working parent or any of the other things we’re well documented—as mothers—to feel pangs over. Fortunately for me, I’ve managed to close those neural pathways down. Instead, it’s guilt about my eldest boy’s earliest months, flashing back and demolishing me all over again.

The trigger has been coming for a while. It’s sometimes difficult to talk experiences as a parent without encroaching on your children’s right to privacy, so please forgive the vagueness about the present day prompt for this guilt explosion. What I can say is the current challenge we are facing is likely absolutely nothing to do with the challenges I faced in early motherhood. But no matter what the spoke in the road, I always conflate the two and find myself privately crumbling. It is post-traumatic in shape, but for a trauma we don’t have a name for.