The following is an excerpt from Marian Schembari’s new book, A Little Less Broken.
I thought I would get postpartum depression, but I didn’t expect that I would love my daughter so wholeheartedly and yet not be able to be around her for more than a few minutes without losing my mind. I couldn’t bear the feeling of being a mother. Constant climbing and clawing. Requires bounce and rock. Crying, lack of sleep. My body was like a guitar string that was too tight and ready to snap. I did this, at least once a week, for two years.
Just before June turned one, we were sitting in the dining room, she perched like a Renaissance aristocrat on the high chair at the head of the table, and I half-asleep in the seat next to her.
“Mom, baby shark. Baby shark!
“Honey, we’ve listened to ‘Baby Shark’ seventeen times. I can’t listen to it anymore.
“Baby Shayak!” she complained.
The sound drilled into my ear tubes and the aching, tender parts of my brain. I could barely hear her because of the static in my head. My hand twitched. I longed to slam my palms against the table and feel the sting of the wood against my skin. Mother Shark is about to collapse.
“Baby Shaaaaarrrkkkk!!!!!”
I closed my eyes. focus on your breathing. Breathe in, breathe out.
“Baby! Shark!
I took a step back, the sound snapping me out of my fragile meditative state. I must not be breathing deeply enough.
Just adjust it! I shouted to myself. i remember elizabeth gilbert eat pray love Despite being surrounded by biting mosquitoes, she successfully meditated at an ashram in India. “In the silence, I watched myself being eaten by mosquitoes,” she wrote. “The itching was maddening at first, but eventually it just settled into a general burning sensation and I got a slight sense of euphoria from the heat.”
Where is my euphoria? I closed my eyes again and imagined a bubble surrounding my body, protecting me from the sound. Every time you inhale, the bubbles shrink, and every time you exhale, the bubbles expand.
“Baby Shark Baby Shark Baby Shark!!!!!”
The bubble burst.
keep Calm. Just let her scream. It won’t change anything. She has to learn that she doesn’t always get what she wants. Remember, your anxiety will feed her anxiety.
I turned to June with my most motherly, compassionate face.
“I know, honey, you really want ‘Baby Shark.’ You love that song! As I speak, a pain deep in my body twists somewhere. I watch her face scrunch up, Turning red, like a dam about to burst, but I kept struggling to hold on to the feeling of control over the one-year-old who had me. I leaned toward her and touched her slimy hand lightly. While eating plums from the tree in our backyard, she yanked it away.
“Mom! Baby! Shark!
“I know, honey, I know. It’s so hard when you can’t get what you want.
Every word that comes out of my mouth is fire, but if I can’t do that, if I can’t empathize with my daughter who just wants her favorite song when she’s sixteen and I don’t buy it I What if she has a car? How am I supposed to continue spending seventeen years like this? I forced a smile. She held the plums in her hands and spread them on her hair. Great, now I have to clean it off in the shower, which also makes her scream.
On the sofa in the living room, Homer’s ears twitched and he raised his head. He barked once, a high-pitched sound. I chickened out. He rushed to the door and howled.
The doorbell rang.
I groaned and climbed out of my chair, the scent of plums filling my nostrils. Homer whined again and ran in circles by the door, his nails clicking like a tap dancer.
I open the door. Behind the screen stood two older women in ankle-length skirts and long-sleeved shirts, carrying black leather briefcases and a stack of brochures.
damn it. Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“Hello! Good afternoon! My name is Elaine and this is Mary. Can we—”
I have never been rude to anyone at the door in my life. I’ve had salespeople talk to me for thirty minutes about things like solar panels and fiber optic internet, but not today, Satan.
“I’m sorry.” I said firmly, not sorry at all. “I can’t stay with you now.” I closed the door in their faces.
I walked back to the table with purpose.
“You know what, huh? You want to listen to ‘Baby Shark’? Let’s do it. I grabbed my phone and opened Spotify in 0.3 seconds. The happy notes of ‘Baby Shark’ filled the room.”
“No!!!” June screamed. She leaned back in her high chair, her face a plum color. I can’t tell what is fruit and what is anger.
“What’s wrong with you?!” I snapped. “You’ve been begging ‘Baby Shark’ for fifteen minutes.”
She stiffened and grunted. Her face turned red. I panicked. Is she suffocating? I immediately untied the straps and lifted her out of the high chair.
“Are you okay, baby? Did something happen?
She screamed, now clinging to me. “Down, Mom! Down!
“Do you want to get down on the floor?”
“No! Chair!
“But you’re unhappy in your chair!”
Baby shark, do, do, do, baby shark, do, do, do
“Chair!!! No baby shark!”
The room spun. I was afraid I was going to knock her off, so I put her back on the chair and I bent over trying to figure out these damn straps, my lower back spasming. The song begins again, a horrific cycle from hell.
I turned to my phone and paused the song. Joan looked at me with her big eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. I reached up and wiped a little of the juice from her lips, spreading it only on her cheeks. She looked like a demon.
“Baby…ahhhhh!!
Not a thought crossed my mind, not a moment’s hesitation.
I grabbed the empty prune-smeared plate and threw it against the wall with all my strength.
The thick pottery crackled with a satisfying sound before shattering into three neat shards that scattered across the floor.
Joan’s eyes darkened, and then her whole face wrinkled. I slapped my hands on the table and rushed into our bedroom, where Elliot was getting ready.
“I threw a plate. I can’t do it anymore. Just take her away. I can’t.
“I know, don’t worry.” He rushed out of the room. Behind him, I closed the bedroom door as hard as I could.
Throwing a plate at my one-year-old daughter is the worst thing I’ve ever done, but it’s not completely out of character for me. I broke two souvenir glasses while traveling in Germany. I slammed the door more times than I can count. I have a sweet, perfect daughter who is unfortunately with me. Even though I was thirty-one, married, and a mother, I was still twelve years old inside and full of rage.
After the outburst, I ran away from Joan, ashamed to look at her lovely face. I would curl up in bed, hiding under my blanket, until the anger dissipated and my mind cleared.
A few hours after throwing away the dishes, I emerged from my bedroom and surrendered.
Joan was playing with Elliot on the living room floor, and when she saw me, she put down her blocks and waddled into my lap. I held her in my arms and she let me kiss her face.
“I’m sorry, Peanut,” I whispered into her wet ear, fresh tears falling from my eyes. I took a step back from her and said, “Mom should no Throw the plate. Don’t let anyone treat you like this. My behavior made me feel like an abusive boyfriend crawling back to her promising I would never do it again even though we both knew I would.
The thing is, before I knew I had autism, everyone kept telling me it was normal. I read my mother’s memoirs and tentatively talked to other parents, who all praised me for apologizing and “making amends.” They say being a mother is really hard. No one warns you how hard it is. You did a great job. I think, ok but tell me Specifically How do you spend more than ten minutes with your kids without seriously losing your mind?
I knew babies cried, obviously I knew they were going to cry, and I thought parenting would be hard, but if it’s so hard for everyone, how are they going to be able to walk away with a happy baby giggling in a stroller? If it’s so difficult for everyone, why do most families choose to have multiple children? I already know we won’t do it twice.
For the first two weeks of Joan’s life, as she snuggled silently in my arms, I couldn’t imagine doing anything to hurt her. She is perfect in every way and I love her beyond measure. I just didn’t realize she could potentially hurt me too.
Her cries hurt my eardrums and chest like knives. Her touch on my body was like fire. I couldn’t be the mother I imagined because her baby sounds and baby demands made me feel like I’d been permanently transported into an echoing, gooey nightmare of Chuck E. Cheese.
I hated myself for even thinking that, which of course added another layer of guilt and shame. She’s just a baby and that’s what babies are for! but if i can’t handle thisa normal baby with normal baby behaviors, then I would have failed motherhood before it really began.
Excerpted from Less damaged. Copyright © 2024 go through Marianne Schembari. Excerpted with permission from Flatiron Books, a division of MACMILLAN Publishers. No part of this excerpt may be copied or reproduced without written permission from the publisher.
