For some reason, I have always been my own harshest critic. When I make any kind of mistake I feel like it is the end of the world because I have disappointed myself. My therapist helped me figure out that my core OCD fear is disappointing myself. I have lived with this fear my whole life. Anytime I made a mistake, I would get really down on myself for days/weeks depending on how big the mistake was to me. Every human makes mistakes, but I could not forgive myself if I made one. I could forgive anyone but me.

Now that I have my second daughter Emmi, I am learning even more to try to stop judging myself so harshly. Looking back on my newborn experience with Caia compared to Emmi’s, it is like night and day. I was not prepared to handle motherhood when Caia was born, plus I was obviously dealing with postpartum OCD. I couldn’t do anything with Caia without my worst fear of me hurting her playing out in front of my eyes on a daily basis. Despite that happening, I tried my best with her everyday, but I couldn’t forgive myself for those struggles.

Being hard on myself during my postpartum OCD struggles with Caia never made me a better person. If anything, it made me struggle more. I kept thinking how much other moms had to be better than me and that I didn’t deserve to be Caia’s mom. In my mind, hurting my own baby would be the worst mistake I could ever make and would be my biggest disappointment to myself. My therapist explained that when someone is dealing with OCD on the level I was at the time, that our minds go to worst case scenarios like that.

Now that I have Caia and Emmi, this time should have been how I experienced motherhood the first time. I am struggling with sleep, constant feeding, and the typical newborn worries, but I am not concerned with being a murderer. I will never forget what I went through the first time, but I can’t live in that space forever, or I would never move on with my life. I also can’t go back in time to change it, but I can just be a better version of myself. If I think about it too long, I will start thinking about the mistakes I made with Caia, but I know in my heart I tried my best.

If you are a mom who struggled like I did, please do not be so hard on yourself. I lived in that space for my whole life of self-punishment. All I did was make myself miserable for years. Forgiving others can be a lot easier than forgiving ourselves. As moms, we are going to make mistakes no matter what. No human being is perfect. What is important about the mistakes we make is how we handle them. I want to teach my daughters how to forgive themselves and that mistakes aren’t the end of the world. I never want them to feel how I felt.