My child is struggling 
Now that my child has 
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Marianne said, “I make the majority of the decisions, too. It’s not that my husband doesn’t want to be involved, but he works all day. I work all day, too, but I work from home. My husband trusts my judgment.”
“That is a huge thing, a positive thing,” Helen said. “At the same time, it can bring on a lot of stress. It makes you feel that, ultimately, you are responsible. And sometimes I think, ‘Oh, my God, what if I ruin him!?’”
I turned to Marianne and said, “Earlier you described what you went through as having a bit of a nervous breakdown. How did that happen and what did you experience?”
“I think it happened because I was newly married, my son Peter was my first child, and I wanted everything to be perfect. I burnt myself out. I tried so hard to be Martha Stewart. I was a stay-at-home mom, so I always made dinner at five o’clock and had the house looking perfect, spotless. All of Peter’s food was organic at home and all his baby food was homemade.”
“Oh, God help you,” Helen interjected with a laugh.
“I know!” Marianne said. “It wasn’t easy. I joined a Mommy and Me play group. I read every book I could find about early childhood. I started to watch other people’s children so I could compare. I tried to be perfect, and part of that was because I was fighting the secret thought that my child wasn’t perfect. So if I tried hard enough to be perfect, no one would know that he wasn’t. They would think that because I’m the mom who has all the playdates, and I’m the mom whose house is always clean, and I’m the mom who makes the dinners. As a result, I burnt myself out.”
“You couldn’t keep up the facade,” I said.
“No. And that’s exactly what it was, a facade. I was always angry with my husband. He was working two jobs because we were newly married, with a new house and a baby, and he was stressed—but I was mad at him because he didn’t understand and because he wasn’t home. But he was working two jobs! I couldn’t appreciate that, because I had this kid who wouldn’t stop crying. It perpetuated itself and finally I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just shut down.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Everything fell apart,” Marianne said. “The facade crumbled. I wouldn’t clean. I wouldn’t get out of bed.”
“Did it happen suddenly?”
“Yes. One day I woke up and I realized I didn’t want to get out of bed and do that anymore. I never felt like I wanted to hurt myself or hurt anybody—I just didn’t want to participate in my life. I opted out. I stayed in bed. The house fell apart. The laundry didn’t get done. My husband became frustrated and angry, and that was certainly understandable. That was my job. He couldn’t work two jobs and then cook and clean and take care of the kids. He got angrier and angrier.”
“Who took care of your son?” I asked.
“I did. But that was all I was doing. I was going through the motions. I was the perfect mom for two years, and then I had my second child, Andrew—and that’s when it really started to decline. Having the second baby was just the final straw. I realized I just couldn’t be this fake, perfect person. I’d thought if I tried hard enough, Peter would get better, but he just never did, and I thought, ‘Am I going to be like this forever?’ It was an overwhelming idea.”
