When Anxiety Is the Air You Grew Up In: On Motherhood, Mental Health, and the Slow Work of Healing

After I had my daughter, I thought I knew what was happening to me.

I had been in therapy before. I knew anxiety. I could name it, trace it. I understood my patterns, had words for them. I’d lived through it, worked through it.

And, I’m a therapist.

Which, honestly, made it harder.

I should’ve known what to look out for. I’d supported clients through postpartum anxiety. I understood the signs, the pathways, the neurobiology. And yet, when it showed up in me, I missed it.

I didn’t recognize it as something clinical. I thought it was just personal. I thought I was failing. I thought I was just… not doing a good enough job coping.

There was another message tucked inside, too—one I hadn’t realized I’d internalized. That as a therapist, I should be somehow above the struggle. That I should be more regulated, more evolved, more immune. That I should have it together.

It mirrored the messages I’d absorbed in the religious spaces I grew up in: Be good. Be strong. Be above reproach. Don’t fall apart. Don’t be messy.

It didn’t feel like sadness—it felt like terror. Like I was on fire from the inside out. Every intrusive thought was a spark, and my mind was a burn unit. Images I couldn’t control, flashes of harm, fear, shame, panic. And in the background—like a hum I couldn’t silence—was the theology I had grown up with. Spiritual warfare. Satan prowling. I was told the enemy targets you when you're vulnerable, when you're doing something holy, like becoming a mother. And so I prayed compulsively. Whispered “Jesus, help me” under my breath like a ritual. I cast thoughts out like demons. I said “get thee behind me” with clenched teeth and trembling hands. I wasn’t sure if I was anxious or under attack. I wasn’t sure if I was breaking or being tested. I just knew I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop, couldn’t make it make sense.

Looking back now, I can say: it wasn’t Satan. It was postpartum anxiety. It was trauma. It was my nervous system screaming for help. But when you’re raised to see every internal storm as a spiritual battle, it’s impossible to feel safe inside your own mind. There was no room for nuance—only warfare or victory. And I couldn’t win, no matter how hard I prayed.

I was raised in an environment where anxiety wasn’t named—it was simply the air we breathed. Fear was spiritualized, vigilance was virtue, and suffering often meant you weren’t praying hard enough or believing the right way or worse, that it was holy and therefore, immovable.

So when postpartum came and the anxious thoughts bloomed, I returned to what I knew. I prayed - compulsively. I took supplements. I exercised. I journaled. I tried to “think better.”  Because somewhere inside, I still carried that belief: right thinking = right living.

But this wasn’t about belief or willpower. This was a nervous system in overdrive. This was a body trying to hold a baby, manage unhealed trauma, and live inside a framework that didn’t make room for the complexity of real emotional life.

Some days were okay. But many were smothered in debilitating obsessive thought loops and dysthymic daydreams—stuck in worst-case scenarios that left me sleepless and tearful.

I didn’t ask for help—not for a long time. Not because I didn’t believe in it, but because I thought I shouldn’t need it. I thought I should be able to manage.

Eventually, I reached out again. Slowly. Hesitantly. Not with a grand realization, but because I couldn’t keep doing it alone. That choice—to get help again, even though I “should’ve known better”—was one of the kindest things I’ve ever done for myself.

Now, years later, I still live with anxiety. Some days, it’s just a whisper. Other days, it pulls harder. Doing the healing work hasn’t erased it. But it’s softened it. It’s helped me meet it differently—not as a sign of failure, but as a messenger with something to say.

Anxiety was the air I grew up in. But it doesn’t have to be the air I pass on.

It feels vulnerable to share this, even now. But I’ve seen again and again how the simple act of naming our pain can help loosen its grip. If you’re someone who assumes you should be able to handle it, that needing help means you’re failing, or that your struggle is somehow because you're not "doing spirituality correctly" I hope this offers you a little breath of grace:

You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re not too late.

Healing isn’t about having it all together. Sometimes, it’s about finally having language. Sometimes, it’s about letting someone meet you there.

If you're in the thick of it, you are not alone. And you are not weak for needing more care. You’re only human.

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About Me

I’m a Licensed Mental Health Therapist, with certifications in EMDR and Perinatal Mental Health. I specialize in complex trauma, attachment wounds, religious trauma, and perinatal issues. I work with clients navigating the long-term impact of spiritual abuse and high-control religious environments—not from a place of pathology, but with deep respect for the courage it takes to unlearn what was once survival. Whether you’re moving through a challenging transition, religious deconstruction, or the weight of anxiety that’s been with you for years, I offer therapy that’s trauma-informed, relational, and deeply human. You're not too much—and you're not too late.