Once, not so very long ago, it was enough for mothers to keep their children fed, warm and healthy until they could support themselves. Fast forward to 2017 and motherhood is almost a battleground. From breast versus bottle to stay-at-home versus back-to-work, the “right” way to raise a child is now viciously contested and the vast majority of mothers feel inadequate.

But what is mothering like when you also have a mental illness? Grace Vaughan explains how her borderline personality disorder impacts on her perception of herself as a mother.

WE’RE OFTEN ASSURED that there’s no such thing as the perfect mother and that being a “good enough” mother is all that’s expected.

But what does a “good enough” mother look like? How do you interpret that? After all, one person’s notion of “good enough” might be another person’s “not good enough”. Finding that middle ground between idealism and realism can be very difficult.

Mothering can sound do-able. All you need to do is give your kids plenty of love, a stable upbringing and they’ll be fine. But what if you can only promise one of those things?

Loving my kids is something I can do in my sleep and under heavy blindfold. But guaranteeing them a stable upbringing? That’s a whole other ball game. Any mother who bears a child one day and is diagnosed with mental illness the next will know that stability isn’t possible for all of us, all of the time.

I want to give my children a happy childhood

Every mother wants her children to remember their childhood as a happy time, where the only monsters are the invisible ones under their bed. I want that too and I’ve undergone every therapy imaginable, hoping it would help get me to the land of “good enough” mothers.

The pressure goes beyond that which we heap on ourselves. Magazines and internet sites are all awash with tips on how to become the mother of all mothers, juggling homework books, ballet practice, birthday parties, date nights and everything else. Idealistic mothering has a seemingly endless to-do list.

Most of us try not to get sucked into that vortex of modern parenting madness. But we don’t want to feel left behind either. We don’t want our children to feel left behind and so we push ourselves.

You can’t explain mental illness to a four-year-old

Next thing, we’re in a tailspin, a continuous downward spiral until – bang – we find ourselves in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. This has happened to me. My ever-present anxiety sometimes finds my trigger and feasts on my quiet desperation to give my children the best childhood possible.

If you’re alone with the kids when that crippling wave of panic takes hold, you drop everything to selfishly go and have your meltdown elsewhere and spare your kids a ringside seat. On your pathetic return they ask: “What’s wrong with your eyes, Mummy?”

You’ll blame a cold, because how the hell else do you explain mental illness to a four-year-old? But it’s not just the panic attacks, it’s the dissociative state, where you lose complete contact with reality to the extent that you sometimes don’t recognise your own children. For a mother, that’s one of the cruellest aspects of mental illness.

Mental illness does have upsides

With mental illness comes a different kind of mothering, because it’s not so much about keeping your children out of A&E as keeping yourself out. Tired and tireless, you invent ways to self-soothe, some healthy, some not so healthy. Because if you can’t learn to soothe yourself then how can you ever hope to soothe your children?

Had I received my diagnosis for borderline personality disorder before having children, I would probably have thought twice about becoming pregnant. Children don’t get to choose what kind of world they’re born into and by default your world becomes theirs.

But everything has a bright side if you look for it – even mental illness – because one of the better side effects is the ability to see things more clearly from a child’s level. So start there.

I’m writing and abiding by my own parenting rules. I stay on my toes – actually, I try to stay on my bike. Because bikes have stabilisers and sometimes they fall off and have to be put back on again. And that’s kind of what happens to Mummy. Her stabilisers fall off sometimes and have to be put back on.

Grace Vaughan is a mother and writer, who lives in Co Meath.

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