Meet Abbey — Author, therapist, creative soul, wife, mother to three beautiful neurodivergent boys, dreamer of big dreams, and proud AuDHD woman.
HONOURING EVERY WOMAN
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HONOURING EVERY WOMAN 𖥸
For as long as I can remember,
the only thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a mother. Putting balloons over bellies and babies in handbags all my childhood.
I can clearly remember the conversation with my year 11 careers advisor, a relatively uninspiring woman, who scoffed at my statement “I have no idea what I want to do for a job, I’m really just killing time until I can become a mum.” She responded with flat disinterest “well what do you like?” and I said, “helping people, I guess.” And, unbeknownst to me, this was birth of my Social Work career.
Social Work was a mark to aim for in the HSC and a way to productively “kill time” before I was ready for my real life to begin. But the universe doesn’t make mistakes, and I soon found myself in a world of social justice and advocacy I LOVED. My passion became child protection and the call of motherhood quietened. Academia, traditional markers of work-related success, and an insatiable ADHD driven thirst for learning took hold for over half a decade. That was until the impact of being exposed to the most critical cases of abuse and neglect crept in and vicarious trauma also silently began growing roots in me.
I left the work that was my passion and the vulnerable children who had my heart with no job to go to; despite securing three different positions. Deeply needing rest and recovery but also feeling slightly crazy. I remember saying several times to my beautiful boss and mentor, “I need to get out of this work, and if I was ready, I’d just have a baby to get some leave.”
Naïve, in so many ways. Fast forward three months- I was unemployed and pregnant. As it was, the call of motherhood had also begun, rather violently, growing roots inside of me. Little did I know these roots that had protectively ripped me away from child protection work would also, over the next ten years, rip me away from almost every version of that young girl. The one who was learning to follow the call within and chose her baby, when to almost everyone else, the timing did not make sense.
First time motherhood kicked off with a magical pregnancy and so much joy in finally being able to connect back with little me, who longed to be a mother. Sadly, that magic didn’t last and those violently growing roots of motherhood served me a traumatic birth, traumatic early post partum from a very sick baby, a third hospital admission from a terribly infected perineum, breastfeeding difficulties from stress, severe anxiety I would not recognise, and PTSD symptoms I desperately minimised.
Because I was going to be great at this. Id waited my whole life for this. I was fine! So in the spirit of being “just fine” we had another baby a little over 2 years later and, amongst the greatest love i’d ever known, I was beginning to unravel. By the time I had a 2 and 4 year old the anxiety had me clinging to perfectionism as the way to avoid acknowledging severe burnout, overwhelm, and the harsh fact that my kids were actually so much for me to manage.
On the one hand I knew I was a wonderful mother but on the other hand my ravaged nervous system and the toll it was taking on me could not be denied. How can you be a great mum and be riddled with stress, emotional pain, and finding things so hard? Wasn’t I educated enough to manage this? Someone who helps people regulate for a living is not supposed to find herself with children who struggle with that very skill and be staring at the most unhinged version of herself. The shame was loud, deafening at times. But the want for my boys to have the best life possible was always just that little bit louder.
And so began my healing,
If I was to truly overcome all that had been placed in my path and really see my boys for the wonder of who they are, I was going to have to do the same for myself. Learning to put the protection perfectionism and over functioning had offered me down and start embracing the power of loving self- compassion was transformative. My boys taught me, by unmasking in their kind- hearted and unapologetically company, how to let me be me. I found my brave and started saying things id never said before, like “I’m sorry that’s too much for me”, “I actually struggle with that all the time”, and “can you help me?”.
Life didn’t get easier right away but a radically different inner world, one governed by a gentle inner voice instead of a harsh inner critic, was born. And it changed everything over time. Not just the quality of my life but the purpose of my life. All of the challenges in bringing my 3 boys into the world is now the focus of my life’s work and it is my deep hope that it can help change yours.
Please stay, rest your soul, and fill yourself full of the knowledge that you are already
so much more than enough; just as you are.