Through My Looking Glass

The other day, without warning, the stinging pain hit me again. Phantom reminder that it’s there. Still there. Months have passed since my excision. No one told me this might happen after healing. In the bathroom mirror, I pull down my shirt, back left shoulder exposed. There it is–my scar. A reminder of how fragile life really is.

Melanoma in situ. Back in April. An early catch…a lucky catch. Treatable, curable by excision alone. Who knows where I’d be if I had waited any longer. I put that appointment off for months.

They say it healed beautifully. And it did. My surgeon’s work is flawless. And still, I cried. I cried with the diagnosis. I cried with gratitude for catching it in time. “Oh God, please. I have children.”…

…Holy shit. My children.

And now all that’s left is a scar. My pink scar tissue. Haunting, sometimes stinging, reminder of what happened.

Just like with you.

There was nothing. Then something. Then gone. Left with this burning scar. As with my cancer, there is no trace of you.

Fuck me for not noticing.

Fuck you for your silence.

Scar tissue that I wish you saw.

I look at the computer screen, tears welling in my eyes.

“Your ACE score is 5,” it read.

I think I already knew what that meant: I am a victim of childhood trauma.

It feels strange to write those words, even now. When you’re in a toxic or unsafe situation, you don’t always realize what’s really happening—or how bad it is. That was true for me. I didn’t grasp the full darkness of it until I finally left.

When I went away to college, I didn’t stop to reflect. I just ran, without looking back. But even after leaving home, I couldn’t escape it completely. Flashbacks would creep in—memories of painful experiences from my high school years. I tried to push them away, to convince myself this was just how things were. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I realized my “normal” was anything but. That’s when I sought therapy for the first time and was told I came from a “dysfunctional family.”

Still, I didn’t call it “trauma.” Not yet. That word felt too big, too heavy. It wasn’t until this past year—at 32—that I finally allowed myself to name it. To face it. To start untangling what I had lived through and how deeply it had shaped me.

But what does an ACE score of 5 actually mean? I did what many of us do—I opened Google.

Here’s what I found:

• “People with high ACE scores are more likely to be violent, to have more marriages, more broken bones, more drug prescriptions, more depression, and more autoimmune diseases. People with an ACE score of 6 or higher are at risk of their lifespan being shortened by 20 years.”
• “If the ACE score is 1–3 with ACE-Associated Health Conditions, the patient is at ‘intermediate risk.’ If the ACE score is 4 or higher, even without ACE-Associated Health Conditions, the patient is at ‘high risk’ for toxic stress physiology.”
• According to BMC Public Health, most individuals experienced at least one ACE (57.8%). Roughly 42% had an ACE score of 0, while only 3.8% had a score of 5. My score wasn’t just a number—it put me in the minority.

So what exactly is an ACE score?

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard explains it like this:
“The Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ‘ACEs’ quiz asks a series of 10 questions about common traumatic experiences that occur in early life. An ACE score is a tally of different types of abuse, neglect, and other adverse experiences. A higher score indicates a higher risk for health problems later in life.”

The risk is real—but the score isn’t destiny. It explains why some struggles feel harder, but it doesn’t seal your future. Healing, therapy, and safe relationships make a difference.

Dr. Gabor Maté describes it this way:

“When children are traumatized, one of the ways they cope with it is to soothe themselves, and that is where addictions come in. But another way to cope is if you get the message ‘you’re not good enough.’ That you are not ‘worthy’ enough. Then you spend the rest of your life trying to prove that you are. And how do you do that? By being very nice to everybody. By never saying how you feel, because they may not like how you feel. By never expressing healthy anger when somebody’s crossing your boundaries. By working too hard to prove that you’re worthwhile.”

Reading those words was like looking in a mirror. For me, the ACE score was not just a number on a screen—it was a key to understanding my story, and a reminder that healing is possible when we finally give ourselves permission to name the truth.

So, why am I sharing all of this in the first place?

Like many other moms, when I used to imagine marriage and starting a family, I pictured a dream. I thought I would be an amazing mother who loved nothing more than staying home with my children, raising them, and caring for our home.

Instead, after having my daughter, I discovered something I wasn’t prepared for: my unresolved childhood trauma resurfaced. This past year, I struggled under the weight of motherhood while also grieving the lack of support—the “village” we so often hear about but don’t always receive. I suffered in silence, and because of that, I developed postpartum depression (PPD) as well as postpartum anxiety and anger (PPA). Old wounds split open. Resentment I thought I’d left behind bubbled back to the surface.

It felt like a perineal tear left to fester—purulence seeping out, infecting my mothering.

I fear becoming her. The anger. The gritted teeth. I always told myself I would never be like my mother—not in life and definitely not with my own children. Mine would feel loved, without question. I would cauterize the wound and break the cycle.

But after having my second child, I felt the slap of her hand again—not just hers, but the heavy shadow of others in my family, too. Postpartum is hard enough: the weight of losing yourself, your body, the pain, the sleep deprivation. The exhaustion and anxiety that come with every new issue. The emotional and physical toll of breastfeeding. And all of this while also caring for a toddler, a husband, and carrying the massive visible and invisible load that comes with being a woman.

When you don’t have many people stepping in to help, you begin to feel like you’re failing. Then, when my baby and I developed thrush, it all began to fall apart.

Maya Angelou once said:
“People will forget what you said,
People will forget what you did,
But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

That quote lives in me, because so does this memory…

The door slams open, crashing against the wall. My mother storms in—lips pursed, face red, eyes hard. My friends are sitting next to me on the couch. Did she even notice them? Does she care who sees anymore?

It’s all happening so fast, I can’t process it. Terror floods me. What did I do? What is she about to do?

In seconds, she’s in front of me. Snarling, she lunges. Her fist tangles in my hair, yanking so hard I wince and cry out, “Ow.” She doesn’t stop. She drags me from the couch, across the room, down the stairs—her hand locked, ripping at my scalp.

I don’t remember what happened immediately after. The next thing I recall is sitting silently back on the couch beside my friends. One asked softly if I wanted to talk about it. I shook my head no. We quietly—and awkwardly—turned back to the TV. It was never spoken of again.

That memory lives in me still. It resurfaces in moments when I feel overwhelmed, when I grit my teeth, when anger rises too quickly. Postpartum has made the shadow of those moments harder to ignore. But unlike before, I am naming them now. I am working to face them, to break the silence, to cauterize the wound.

Not just for me—but for my children.

February 2022

Again, she wakes up crying after napping for only 20 minutes. In an attempt to extend her nap, I’m sitting in my rocking chair with Elliett in my arms. It’s dark; static noise consuming the room. This is now the third time today where I’m trying desperately to get her to go back to sleep and it’s not even noon yet. She begins to wiggle and as I look down, I see that her eyes are wide open. Frustration and anxiety well up. She is going to be so exhausted. I’m exhausted. I have been at this all day. The back pain is searing. Rest is few and far in between. Feeding, changing, floor time. Then, I have to rock her to sleep, for what feels like forever, to only have her nap contactless for 20 minutes in her crib. Crying, more rocking (unsuccessful), repeat. Why won’t she just go to sleep? I sigh, lifting her to a sitting position and then onto my shoulder as I reluctantly turn on the lights, turn off the sound machine and put the nursing pillow on my lap. I lay her down gently and let her latch. After a couple seconds, I feel my let down. Then suddenly, a sharp shooting pain. One that I don’t recognize and a pain I haven’t felt before.

This would be the start of a long, dark next 5 months in my postpartum period.

I sit here on the couch, coffee in hand, fireplace on, soft glow of the Christmas tree off to my right. This is the first time all week I’ve been able to do this—sit. No babies running around needing attention. Danny is at school after almost four weeks off due to sickness and a holiday. Elliett is napping. Yesterday we ran to the store, Elle and I, after dropping him off at preschool, but today nothing was pressing. So, I get to finally just sit…during the day…with no kids around. This can be a rare thing in parenthood, especially motherhood. If you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about. Regardless of if you work outside the home, or inside the home, you are always going. So, when rare unicorn moments like these happen, I’ve learned to slow down and take the moment. 

I’m about to put on a show and realize I never responded back to my Mother-in-law’s text from two days prior. Letting me know she’s been thinking and praying for me daily. Asking how I’ve been doing? And as soon as I think about that question, emotions come pouring in. Clearly, I’m not doing as well as I have hoped and as well as I’ve been telling myself. When I think about everything that happened during my most recent postpartum, I feel it all over again. The pain, exhaustion, sadness, anger and loneliness are so intense. At first, I had been blocking it out not wanting to talk or think about it at all. A habit of my past, I was hoping suppression would heal the wounds. Then, as the holidays approached, it was clear I was struggling quite a bit still. The weight of breastfeeding was relieved back in October, but December was met with lingering feelings of anger and sadness. I came across this quote by Alex Elle, NYT Bestselling Author and Restorative Writing Teacher, “I stopped trying to force myself to ‘get over’ things. I don’t have to bypass my feelings because it’s been ‘long enough’. I am honoring myself and process by healing at my own pace, revisiting things when needed and not rushing to get to the other side.” What I took from this is that it’s okay to have seasons of pain and grief. That it’s okay to not be okay and to take time to sit with it. I decided to allow myself the space and time to do just that, however long that may be. With a heavy heart, we decided it was best for me and our family to spend the holidays with just the four of us. It was a season of grief for sure but was filled with joy as well. So many special memories were made with the uninterrupted time with the children.

During this time of reflection, I went through a period of metamorphosis. I was able to acknowledge and affirm what I have experienced since becoming a mother and also what I was no longer willing to tolerate in my relationships. I’ve never been capable of this before mainly because I was never taught those skills. For as long as I can remember my mother has always said to me, “Sydney, it could be much worse.” With a dismissive tone and eye roll, these were her words of comfort whenever I went to her seeking solace. I grew up feeling like I had a problem because I couldn’t always see the silver lining in things. Emotions invalidated and repressed. Then, this beautiful thing happened, where I stopped listening to that little voice in my head. The toxic positivity and negative self-talk that was gifted to me as a child. I started saying, instead, “This is hard: postpartum, thrush, motherhood.” All the things. Everything I was feeling, I gave myself permission to feel them for the very first time in my life. Amazingly, I felt very at peace. I learned something really important for myself: that I had to stop seeking validation from others who would not give it. I’ve done this my entire life and it’s made me subconsciously very unhappy. 

All of this to say that I have accepted and validated what I’ve been through, but the pain and anger weren’t going away. The question always running through my mind–how do I eventually heal? How do I happily move forward in my life? For my children, so that I may be the best mother I can be for them. For me, so that I may live a life that is a true reflection of myself.

I was waiting at an airport bar with my husband for our flight to NYC when I came across an old friend’s blog. 

Me: “Wow, I didn’t know [she] had a blog! Did you?” 

Jack: “Yeah…I did.”

Me: “What?”

Jack: “She writes about something awful that happened to her when she was younger.”

I won’t disclose what that blog post was about. Only that she said it was her therapist who advised that she “release it”. She felt like her entire life she was held back because of this thing that had happened to her. She felt like in order to move forward with the life that she wanted for herself, she needed to write about what happened in order to hopefully let go of its hold on her. It didn’t come at first, but at the end of our trip, I told Jack that her story really resonated with me, “I think I want to write about my postpartum experience. I feel a deep calling to do this. By staying silent, I’m holding myself back.” 

After much thought, and going back and forth countless times, I came to the realization that I couldn’t really tell my story…my true story without talking about my childhood. Part of my intention for writing is to explore my past in an effort to break generational cycles of trauma. Even if my voice shakes, it’s a part of me and very much still a part of my present life and current struggles. Although it will be painful, I will travel back through my looking glass in an attempt to heal my inner child by the process of reparenting…because just as I was deserving, my children deserve a gentle, kind, patient, present, composed and loving mother more often than not.

I believe my children were born to fly. My hope is that they’ll be prepared as possible to be kind, confident, self-sufficient, respectful and fulfilled young children and then adults. That when my children are older and they think back on their childhood, they will be met with happy memories. That they felt safe, seen and heard. More importantly, that they felt and knew they were loved. There’s this beautiful quote that was written down and given to me by my mother-in-law that goes, “Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly. And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly.” If I have any hope of teaching my children how to fly one day, I must mend my wings and learn to fly first.

---

It’s said that when flamingos are raising their young, they lose their pink coloring due to the intensive process. Much of their food and energy goes to their children, but that eventually…they get it back.

I’ve struggled, since becoming a mother, to make space for me in our life. It’s learned at a young age that a “good” mother ought to be selfless. If you look close enough, society still puts this expectation upon the modern mother. Once I had my children, I wanted to fully immerse myself into this new role and identity. I had little help or support system, so I found that outside of all the work that it requires I had little time or energy for hobbies or a social life. Quickly I found myself depleted, unhappy at times and unrecognizable. Where had my color gone? It went to my children–being their primary caretaker, making time for my husband and his professional, leisure and social life, organizing and planning our calendar, appointment scheduling, errand and grocery runs, laundry, cleaning/tidying the house and cooking/preparing meals. I had completely stopped taking care of myself. My ambitions. Things that used to spark joy and excitement in my life. My husband noticed this too. He felt he had lost his wife, or a part of her, and was grieving her. I missed her too.

We had a long conversation one night, and we both agreed I don’t take any time for myself or explore things that I’m interested in anymore. It became our goal to get my “pink back”. Both of us making an effort to find and carve out time dedicated to me. Whatever that may be. This happens to be one of them. Normally I would have an idea such as this, but wave it away because of the lack of time, how others would perceive it, or imposter syndrome would kick in–goading me. 

Steady, as she goes.

---

I’m sharing my story so other mothers who may be experiencing the same struggles know that you are not alone.

To the mother who had childhood trauma re-emerge once she became a parent whilst also trying to navigate the adjustment into motherhood.

To the mother who feels uncomfortable and has mixed emotions about her new body.

To the mother who is sleep deprived, exhausted and has little or no support.

To the mother who is physically healing and emotionally fragile.

To the mother who is overwhelmed and overstimulated.

To the mother who feels overworked and underappreciated.

To the mother who has experienced crippling guilt and intrusive thoughts.

To the mother who feels like she’s lost herself.

To the mother who developed postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety and anger–you are so not alone because I have been there.

I have felt it all.