Amongst humanities graduate students, especially literature students, there is a joke that grad school will kill one’s passion for reading. I always thought that I would be impervious to such a curse – that no matter what my Hispanic Literature programs threw at me, my love of reading would remain unscathed. I chose to study literature because, like most people who do the same, I loved reading from an early age. Further, I loved dissecting passages and plots, analyzing character motivations, and connecting works of fiction to larger societal themes. To a certain degree, I was right about my passion being steadfast in the face of the stresses of advanced academic training. There are numerous books from many different countries and eras that piqued my interest beyond them being required reading.
However, the greatest book in the world cannot fix the fatigue that a bloated reading schedule causes. I knew what I was getting into, of course, but knowing really doesn’t matter after having to read hundreds upon hundreds of pages of say, Garcilaso de la Vega or Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (real ones know!), as I had to do during my Colonial Latin American Literature survey course. For six years, I often felt as though I had one eye on a PDF and one eye on the clock, mentally calculating how long it took to read one page and estimating how quickly I could finish a book before moving on to the next one. However, In early 2021, I found myself free of the constraints of reading under pressure, as I had passed my preliminary exams for my doctoral degree the semester before.
Turning the page
With my attention now solely focused on crafting my dissertation and teaching Spanish language classes, I had won back something that had been missing during my time taking courses: an eensy, teensy bit of free time. Unfortunately for me, I had also been recently diagnosed with allergic asthma, so some of this free time was spent, once or twice a week, in my allergist’s office, on the receiving end of histamine shots that would (hopefully) reduce the severity of my allergies, while also not inducing anaphylaxis.
In that sterile and uninspiring room, far from the creaky, imposing library shelves I had been dwarfed by for so long, the pressure to read for the purposes of writing papers and bolstering class discussions melted away. Accompanied only by my ancient iPad, loaded with the Libby app, I would spend hours waiting in that office, interrupted intermittently by my doctor checking my airways and the injection site on my arm. At my fingertips was what seemed like an unending catalogue of books whose publications I had missed for the last six years. What’s more, I soon discovered something about me that I never expected: I loved reading horror fiction.
All my life I have hated horror movies. I have only seen one, The Strangers (2008), and even that was against my will. The Halloween of my fourteenth year saw me crowding into my friend’s basement with the rest of our social group, which consisted of teens who were not scaredy-cats like me. Due to a combination of peer pressure and shaky confidence, I agreed to watch the aforementioned horror flick while thinking, “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”
Boy, was I wrong.
Despite my rejection of slasher films, I wouldn’t consider myself an overly sensitive person, but my anxious personality is not well-suited to the anticipation and gore of the horror genre. There are some days I refuse to watch even an episode of The X-Files as twilight approaches. So to have been, suddenly, breathlessly waiting for books to come off hold that featured content aimed to terrify was very surprising to me, though I embraced it all the same.
My reading reawakening that began beneath the stale, fluorescent lights in a random medical building in north-central Indiana led to a years-long obsession of reading (when I wasn’t writing my dissertation, of course) anything horror- or thriller-adjacent that I could get my hands on. I devoured litfic that centered around body and/or psychological horror, crimes being committed, anything that boasted showcasing the darker sides of humanity.
I didn’t exclusively read horror and thrillers, but I found myself gravitating back toward such works, desperate for the illusion of control while living in a political landscape that was (and still is) trending anti-woman. In these fictional worlds, women could act on their impulses– something we’re very rarely allowed to do in reality. They may be committing crimes, sure, but aren’t we, as women, allowed a little rage when we’re losing our rights to medical care? Can’t we cheer for women doing exactly as they wish when there are those who wish to take away our rights to vote, to divorce, to be employed? Sadly, to everything there is a season, and it seems as though my time voyeuristically consuming women’s rights and wrongs through fiction has come to a possible end.
(Image courtesy of Engin Akyurt via Pexels)
Plot twist
After the birth of my daughter, my anxiety has gone into overdrive in an effort, evolutionarily and biologically, I suppose, to try to maintain my family unit within a small, protective bubble and keep the horrors of the world away. The terror that originally had no effect on me when reading horror is now wholly felt, as if I were back in the eighth grade, in my friend’s basement, watching Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman get stalked and terrorized by three weirdos in masks.
I noticed this change when I was finally able to read Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova, a book about a woman mourning the loss of her child to such a degree that she turns a piece of his body into a sentient monster. I read, maybe, 10 percent of the book when panic began to overtake me. What if I lost my daughter? In our world, sadly devoid of magical realism, I wouldn’t be able to manifest such a creature. I would have nothing. Plenty of parents around the globe have obviously experienced loss, so I would not be special. But, such a fact does not eliminate the disquietude that this concept produces. I returned the book almost immediately. Then, very recently, a similar thing happened while I was reading the beginning pages of The Lamb by Lucy Rose.
I had read books describing cannibalism before and, while the idea personally disgusts me, I was able to push past this revulsion to see how these gruesome tales proceeded. Now, my response was so visceral, so palpably felt, that not even a can of Vernors ginger ale could remedy my nausea.
Both books had been hyped up on Bookstagram (a community with which, like BookTok, I have many issues but ultimately can’t quit) for months, as certain accounts received advanced reading copies and therefore raved about how good they were before library-using plebs like me could gain access to them. I was so excited to read them, but, this enthusiasm, and the state of my emotional moods, were in direct opposition.
The militant feminist in me (which, let’s be honest, is most of my personality) is begging me to push through. She, to be frank, doesn’t even think it’s appropriate to confess that motherhood has caused any change. I should be able to engage in the things I enjoy, instead of letting possible internalized patriarchal ideals – that dictate that mothers’ lives should revolve around their children; that they should spend every single second of every single hour of every single day thinking about their children and their needs; that they are not complete people now, but accessories to the new generation – win. Whatever individuality I can eke out, says this feminist, should be celebrated and pursued doggedly.
Cliffhanger?
Unfortunately, overriding my brain is easier said than done. I find that I miss the previous catharsis I relished while reading; I have no outlet for my frustrations. Also, a small part of me fears that, with this change in taste, I’m no longer cool. Is this how the process from eclectic individual to lame parent starts?
Maybe I’ll return to Monstrilio and The Lamb in the future, when I’m more practiced at divorcing reading and my anxieties. Maybe it’s finally time to give Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time a try? Maybe I’ll exclusively read nonfiction until I’m 90. The specifics of my reading habits were different at 10, 17, 25, and will continue to vary at 32, 46, 54, and so on.
I find myself back at square one, in a place akin to where I was in 2021, wanting to read but not sure where that desire will take me. Still, I have progressed before and will again. And, I should emphasize, I’m ultimately grateful that my lifelong passion for reading remains in spite of the hiccups detailed here, and that I have passed that passion on to my daughter, who demands a reading of Frog and Toad Are Friends at least once a day.
For now, I suppose the horror books on my to-be-read list must wait patiently in their dark corners. But, as the current total of this list, according to my profile on The Storygraph, is 3,308 books, there’s plenty to read in the meantime.
It’s hard feeling depressed. And it’s really hard to be a depressed mother.
It takes a lot of effort to get up in the morning and much more effort to take care of others.
Depression is thought to be one of the fiercest mental illnesses, one that nearly paralyzes its patients. Nothing is ever easy. Waking up, eating, going to work or school, even going out with friends is difficult.
When my older kids reached the age when they could grab a sandwich or a cookie on their own —meaning they had a bit of independence and were past the breastfeeding stage —and I was hit by one of those overwhelming attacks, I’d often keep them in front of the TV all the time. For how many hours? I could never tell. However, I could only blame myself for the careless mother I was, while sleeping and suffering from nightmares.
Feeling guilt is, at least for me, the core of depression. Most of the time, I feel guilty about everything for no reason at all. It might be about something I forgot, whenever my kids fall ill, if they’re not eating well, or even when they’re simply annoyed with each other. It was always my fault.
I am always there to be blamed.
My mind often bombards me with questions like, “Shouldn’t you have put out some veggies for the kids?” or “Couldn’t you at least have spent some time telling them a story first instead of simply just tucking them into bed?” or “How often do you play with your little ones? Do you really believe that once in a while is enough?”
The questions never end.
And the answers are always backed up deep in my mind, with the voice of a very perfect mother, chastising me with remarks like, “You’re always fucked up,” “You’re a loser,” and the ever so sarcastic, “What a perfect mom!”
And this internal struggle goes on daily, from the moment I wake up. “Have I woken them up nicely today?” or “Why the hell did I yell at them when they drove me crazy?!” And it continues throughout the day with lunch, homework, time to bathe or sleep, screen time, and so on.
Of course, sometimes, when everything seems to flow smoothly, I dare to think “Perhaps I’m not a bad mommy after all.” But those feelings never stick around for more than a few hours.
I know all mothers have a hard time taking care of their kids, with raising them and the challenges that come with that. But if you add depression to the complicated equation of motherhood, it’s hard to see anything but misery out there.
There were a lot of nights that I spent wishing I had never been gifted my beautiful little ones. There were days when I thought I ruined their mental or psychological lives, perhaps just due to a word. A lot of my time is spent thinking about the harm I have caused them by living in the same house as a psycho mom who sometimes flees to her room just to cry out or yell or sleep.
Depressed mothers suffer the most because they are part of the vicious circle that holds them responsible for everything related to their children. However, sometimes, I feel like I’ve learned and taught them something of benefit. I give them —most of the time —freedom to feel bad, to appreciate the tiny everyday good things and to empathize with me and themselves. Sometimes when I would sink into a depressive episode, my eldest kid would come and hug me saying, “It’s ok, mom.”
A couple of hours ago, I was really feeling stressed. I was yelling at all of them to get dressed quickly and prepare themselves. I even yelled at my 4-year-old girl as she continued playing. After she surrendered and let me dress her, she kept saying, “I don’t want you to be sad. I didn’t mean that.”
Although, as a matter of fact, I feel guilty after such words, I also realize that maybe there is a positive side to all this.
When I was a little girl, I never learned that someone could be mentally ill. I only thought of pain in terms of bleeding or broken bones. If there are no physical symptoms, they are completely fine; they’ve no reason to miss school or postpone an errand.
I remember crying silently under my blanket at night for so many reasons. I remember trying to make myself sick to skip school.
Years later, when I was old enough to work, I was still fragile on the inside. I was harassed at work. I still couldn’t speak up at home and say that I was stressed or that I was psychologically down. I came up with a different mature idea —to skip both home and work. I said I was going to work as usual but headed for a big park and spent that day there.
I cannot say that I was always depressed. There were times when I was happy.
Maybe my childhood was hard. I was a quiet kid. I was always clever at school and I was always the model child; the example my parents encouraged my siblings to imitate, but that same pride they showed was always a heavy load to me. Somehow I was prohibited from being who I really am.
Now that I’ve learned the meaning of depression, I can say that maybe I did have early episodes that I wasn’t aware of. When I first went to a psychiatrist and started taking medications, I couldn’t tell my mother and my family what was going on with me. I couldn’t face them with the idea of psychological illness, which we never recognized as being real. I couldn’t cope with their feelings of pity for me and their trials to get me cured.
After a couple of years, they saw me struggling during one of my episodes. And again, I was always the reason for what’s going on with me. Sometimes the reason I suffered was that I wasn’t close enough to God. At other times, I was accused of not appreciating the blessings I have. And at a different time, my family believed that Satan had control over me.
My suffering had a different route, a fiercer one, when I became pregnant with my first baby. I started pitying myself and my kid. I started having nightmares about the future of my kid. I couldn’t continue my regular medication being pregnant. I had to endure the whole thing while suffering from the normal hormonal disturbances that all mothers experience.
And since then, the little seedling of guilt started to grow in me. I started getting anxious about the future of my kids and how my mood would affect them. I started to believe that I was the only reason for everything bad that would happen to them.
I’m still struggling with these ideas today. My oldest kid is now twelve, a lovely, sensitive, and kind girl. Sometimes I still think that it was wrong to bring my kids into this life. And because I know that I do have depression, I try saying that life is not as cruel as I think it is.
But most of the time I don’t believe it.
Today, I try to mention three good things every day. I’ve done it for three years. For a person with depression, mentioning three good things every day is really hard.
Of course, there were many days when I dropped the whole thing. There were weeks that passed me by as I lay in bed thinking about the blessing of death and hoping that the so-called God would just stop my suffering; days when I thought it’s useless, that existence has no meaning and that life itself is such a curse.
However, there were times when my husband took my hands and hugged me while I just cried. There were times when I could overcome my dark ideas bravely and start over again, even though not all the time. There were times when I went to the cinema, watched a movie with my partner and died laughing.
And so, I’m sharing my struggle publicly. I wanted others to support me, to see that I am struggling and to encourage me to continue. I want to help other mothers grappling with depression just like me. Maybe they’ll find something to help them stand up and keep facing life. I also wanted to create a backup memory that I can check anytime to acknowledge my strengths: to see that I’m a good person, a good mother, a good lover.
I am an Egyptian woman I mean, I am an exhausted woman I spend my night in enjoyment till the morning watching fantasy movies that I do not afford living and my day passes through many ordinary tasks that no one counts.
For instance, today, was too short to give it a name I cooked Green soup and rice for the hungry kids who come home from the mangler I waited for their little mouths to finish chewing, I prepared to go out, not for pleasure of course! however, I wore some red lipstick, to distract myself from the burdensome doctor’s visit.
I swallow cars’ smoke every bit of the way, thinking: Do my kids breathe all that genuine Egyptian momentum? Do they taste that air saturated with sweat, rage and poverty? Do they swallow that? Does my old childhood album hold anything more than Hours spent in public buses and microbuses, breathing boredom, tiredness and smoke? Couldn’t it be the smoke of something burnt, someone burnt?
My kids play in the hospital. In the physician’s clinic, they jump on the sick bed and grant it life. In the pharmacy too, they smile while circling their pink balloon and I, like any genuine Egyptian mother swallow people’s looks at them and throw out orders for my kids to stop living so that others be happy whereas my kids are defeated.
Problems lie in knowledge. A friend once told me that and I did not understand him. Sometimes man’s knowledge hurts him more than his ignorance, I know that they have a right and that I have a right and that birds should keep flying most of their lives but when mosquitoes’ bites hurt me, I banish the birds, inadvertently.
My two birds have slept by now. They took their medications, in their specific dozes, those that I recorded at certain times. they drank milk just like two playful kittens now, they want to play a little or maybe a lot but it is time for the sleeping train, my dear.
Ended their day quickly and started my nighty day, everyday. I prepared sandwiches, two fruit slices and some vegetables that they will not eat anyways. I filled their bottles with love and water I put some prayers in their bags and I hid some apologies for my many orders in the kitchen sink. I ironed their clothes that will never stay the same everyday, my son lies down on the ground after wearing his clothes my daughter sits to play and draw. That does not infuriate me anymore my heart smiles for them only while they are asleep, like every Egyptian mother! My heart tries to smile at myself too some kindness tries to touch my angry soul and closes her eyes she says, Hold your thread and create a life, exchange your angry heart for a young child’s heart, rock it softly to sleep now open your eyes again you are just an exhausted woman.
