Mutha Magazine Article Allison [ TRUSTED 2024 ]

For a decade, Allison had lived in a state of low-grade fight-or-flight. Her cortisol levels, she later learned from a functional medicine doctor, were comparable to someone being chased by a predator for eleven years. Her thyroid was sluggish. Her digestion had essentially given up. She had developed a nervous habit of clenching her jaw so tightly that she’d cracked two molars.

She wrote a piece for her local parenting newsletter—just a raw, unedited list of ten things she would no longer do. Number four was: “I will no longer pretend that ‘we’ decided something when ‘we’ means I decided and you nodded.” Number seven was: “I will no longer apologize for my body taking up space in my own home.” mutha magazine article allison

But something has shifted.

When Allison finally got home that night—after a neighbor picked up Mila, after her husband ate leftovers standing over the sink, after the kids were in bed—she did something she had never done. She opened a new notebook. On the left side, she wrote: For a decade, Allison had lived in a

“They needed a competent mother,” Allison says. “They didn’t need a dead one.” Her digestion had essentially given up

“I swore I wouldn’t be her,” Allison says. “But I just got a more educated version. I traded ironing for organic cold-pressed juice. I traded church potlucks for anti-vaxxer playdates. The performance was different, but the script was the same: A good mother disappears into her children. ”