Why Motherhood is Terrifying

''I’m Afraid My Children Would Inherit My Pain.''

She has this big fear of having kids. It’s not the change in the body—it’s the fear that they will come out with her mental problems. Because she does have them, maybe many. She doesn’t do enough therapy to name every demon inside her. But what a cursed life it would be for a child to carry the weight of having her thoughts, her symptoms, not knowing where the emptiness comes from.

The environment helps a lot, she knows that. She wouldn’t put a kid in this world without having the money for it and a safe place. But her mind is not a safe place for anyone, and when she saw the doctors, they asked about her parents. She doesn’t know. But she does think her mother is a narcissist, and she never measured the weight of her hand when she spanked her in childhood. For little things. For everything.

She wouldn’t do the same—she says that now. But how does she know? What if she breaks him in other ways? Her?

What if, even if she ends up in a healed place, her DNA affects their brain and one day they become like her, writing about their desire to die without knowing why?