Writing fiction has always been therapeutic for me, an expression of my own experiences or a way for me to explore why people think, feel, and act in the ways they do. My forthcoming debut novel, Goodnight Monsters, is no exception — my book explores a woman dealing with the fears of new motherhood, which was inspired by my own dark days postpartum.
I didn’t look like that postpartum depression screening questionnaire you get handed at the OB-GYN office. I was full of indescribable joy while interacting with my babies and never thought of harming myself or my children. No, I didn’t feel sad. I had no problem getting out of bed in the morning—there were a million things to do in addition to keeping the children alive. But what lurked underneath was anger. It surprised me. No one had explicitly harmed me. I was confused by this newfound emotion. But I harbored so much rage that I didn’t know what to do with it. It sat inside me like boiling cauldron. At first, I didn’t understand the source or the reason behind it.
But eventually, I realized I was angry over my loss of autonomy. Loss of my own identity outside of being a mother. Loss of support from my then husband. Loss of rest and sleep. Loss of communities I’d had before children. Loss of my career. Adult conversation. Mental sharpness. Bodily integrity. Agility.
And then there were expectations for how I should show up as a mother. Pressure to thin my waist. Snide comments how it must be nice that I didn’t have to work anymore. Comparison to friends who were having sex again mere weeks after childbirth.
What to do with those feelings but push them deep down inside and be sure to show up as a good mother? But the anger continued to bubble. It compounded during those dreary postpartum months and years, and I subconsciously began writing it into the story of Goodnight Monsters.
The loss of my own identity turned into a fictional woman with fears over becoming a mother. A woman who has been told how to act and look by social standards, who has been told not to act upon her sexual desires and fantasies. A woman whose childhood trauma has stayed in her body and begins emerging as fantasies about murder. Like my own trauma emerging as fiction.
I was taught that anger is a negative emotion and that nothing good comes from it. But once I tapped into the feelings, I created a piece of art. And not just an entertaining story: a statement about society, human behavior, and the unrealistic, damning expectations of women and mothers.
And now I tell my kids that all feelings, even the hard ones, need to be felt. Once they are allowed, they move along. And mine moved along onto the pages of Goodnight Monsters.
