Mother’s Day reflection – 2025
My first day back to work after the birth of my first child, in 2010, had me in a trauma bay recording treatments on a three-year-old with the same skin and hair tone as the infant I’d left only hours earlier. My first clinical experience as a mother was to picture my own child lying on that stretcher broken and fading.
Experience kicked in and I shoved the horror, sorrow, and fear deep enough to try to make a difference. And then to move on. Patient after patient, I smiled and nodded, listened, ordered tests, and offered advice. Then I went home, hugged my baby tight, and had nightmares of my child’s face on my patient’s body. For years.
Motherhood is many things, but easy is not one of them. For those us in the medical community, it can be especially difficult when we see parallels like that to our own families. Or when we witness the effects of injustice in this world, from either abuse or bad luck. Many of us want to help and fix and nurture because we instinctively need to for our species to survive. It’s often part of the reason we entered medicine in the first place.
But, experiencing that injustice also triggers the instinctual response to seek retribution, which we often cannot get for our patients. So, between the sorrow, fear, and anger, we often can feel incompetent as well. To mask that inadequacy, that discomfort, we might lean on our anger or hide from the emotions altogether.
We also tend to run from the potential of loss because we fear it for ourselves. Brene Brown discusses this in her work, illustrating how we push away the possibility of the same happening to us, often with a wall of anger and judgment.
These are defense mechanisms trying to protect us from pain, but often only prolong it. To truly heal, we must give ourselves permission to feel and process whatever emotions come up.
It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be scared.
And it’s okay to ask for help, from family or friends, but often professionals, if the feelings are so big or overwhelming.
It’s also okay to be grateful for whatever blessings you do have in your life. And it’s okay to be a combination of emotions at the same time.
However this most recent holiday affected you, I encourage you to accept your feelings as they are and be gentle with yourself.
Until next time,
Be kind and stay hydrated.