When Maggie Gordon-Walker became a mum she felt isolated, lonely and like she was failing. She realised there were others who felt this way, who wanted to talk openly and honestly about their dreams and hopes, as women, as well as mothers.
‘When I gave birth to my first child, I felt like I was stuck in a big tunnel, cut off from reality, mind foggy after the epidural. The midwife said, ‘Let’s get Mum up to the ward’ and I genuinely thought, ‘my Mum’s not here, is she?’ I couldn’t get my head round the fact that I was ‘Mum’.
I cried every day for weeks privately, but gave the impression everything was fine. I felt invisible, lonely and like I was failing, but not enough to be flagged up with post-natal depression (PND). What would that mean anyway? Might my baby, that I loved so very much, be taken away from me?’
Just like entering adolescence, when entering matrescence a new identity emerges. Many women feel there is no language to describe the immense change they experience in their bodies, minds and role in society when becoming a mother. The existing term ‘post-natal depression’ paints this seismic shift in purely negative, medical terms.
