Motherhood is often described as a wonderful adventure. Yet in reality, it is a test for many mothers. Some women are sometimes confronted with maternal rejection. An unmentionable feeling with which it is difficult to live. Julie, mother of two children, has been there. She told her story “In Olivier’s eyes: when motherhood is a test”, a report broadcast on France 2 on January 31. For Aufeminin, she responded to our
the maternal rejection is a taboo, painful subject, which we never talk about. For many women, motherhood can be a real ordeal, where nothing goes as planned. Unable to attach themselves to their child, they then find themselves helpless and feel guilty for not being this “perfect” mother that we still idealize too much. Julie, 39, knows this better than anyone.
Before getting pregnant with her first child, she had a very specific idea in mind about motherhood. For her, who comes from a family of five children with a mother devoted to her home, “Being a mum seemed really simple, ‘just do like mum'”, she tells us. But reality quickly caught up with him. When she gives birth to Marie*, at the age of 29, she is the exact opposite of what she had imagined as a mother. “I saw myself as a mother who would know how to set clear limits between her needs and the needs of her children. I saw something very structured, very square. My daughter arrived and there I discovered the character of a wolf mother, that I would never have suspected.” Julie is absolutely crazy about her daughter but little by little the fatigue accumulates because Mary is a baby who does not sleep. Over the months, Julie lost 20 kilos, the fault of fatigue. In her relationship, tensions appear, and the new pregnancy will not help.
The first signs of rejection
Eighteen months after Marie’s birth, Julie learns that she is pregnant again. A news that does not immediately delight her, because she’s not sure she wants it. “I said to myself ‘it’s not possible, but when will I be able to go back to sleep?'”, she remembers. The pregnancy continues, and with it the first manifestations of rejection.
“I can’t imagine myself with this baby. I’m not at all in denial, but it’s as if I forbid myself to imagine my son present with me. The only way to create a bond with this child is to sew him a birth outfit during the 9 months of pregnancy. And it’s also a marker of my discomfort that is already there, because I can’t finish this keychain in time. For me it’s an absolute disaster because at that moment it’s the only thing that materializes this bond with this baby that I can’t feel in my heart.”
The arrival of her second child changes everything
When Antoine*, her little boy, arrives, nothing will happen like with Marie. Julie can’t manage to bond with this baby. Yet she wants it very deeply, she knows she is capable of doing it, she has already done it with her daughter but she does not have the capacity at this time.
“At first, I take care of him in a very mechanical way, that is to say, it’s devoid of affect. I’m a good mother to him in the sense of taking care of his needs, I don’t let him cry, I feed him when needed, I do things with him but it’s like I can’t get to him give something other than this maternal mechanics.”
For Julie, the situation is more than difficult to live with. “Internally, it’s an indescribable woundit destroys me”, she assures. And lack of sleep solves nothing. Two months after Antoine’s birth, Julie is arrested for exhaustion. One burnout which drains her of all energy. “I am everywhere except in my body”, she recalls. Yet another signal. The bond ends up being built with Antoine around his six months. But on the other hand, she is unable to love his two children at the same time.
“It was one or the other. If I’m good with my daughter, I push my son away, if I’m good with my son, I push my daughter away. From the moment Antoine was born, it’s been a incessant yoyo between I love you, I love you more, I love you, I love you more.”
This thought for her is unmentionable, especially since she sometimes prevents her daughter from being near her brother. She doesn’t want to and can’t manage to talk about it to those close to her. “If I spoke I felt like I was opening a Pandora’s box. It was so intense what I was going through inside of me, I had such dark thoughts. There were days when I hated my children, I hated them deep inside me. To me, being a mother at that time was the worst choice I had made in my life“she admits in a tight voice.
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The point of no return
The guilt doesn’t stop gnawing at Julie. She knows she’s destroying Antoine and Marie, she knows it, she sees herself, but she can’t go against it. “I am the spectator of a devastating thing, I am both a spectator and an author. It’s me who does it, I watch myself do it and I continue to do it, while inside me I know so much that it’s horrible what is happening, I know it, and each time inside of me it’s like my heart is being ripped out”she admits still very moved. One evening, it was once too many. When Marie was almost two and a half years old, she went to Julie to breastfeed. She leans against her and begins to touch a small mole just above her right breast. And there, physically, something happens inside the mother, a skin reaction.
“There is a phenomenon of nausea, like a wave that starts from the bottom of my stomach and I expel it, I push it, I start screaming, I ask it not to touch me anymore. It felt like my whole body was pushing that child away, it was excruciating“she delivers.
At this moment, the young mother is in a state of absolute panic. She hasn’t yet identified that she has something to heal inside of herself, but she knows she can’t go on like this.
“I started looking for who I am”
After this significant event, Julie starts working on herself. She starts looking for answers, she reads a lot, she comes into contact with people who share certain similar experiences, she discovers the concept of hypersensitivity and finds its great lesson.
“For years and years, I had never taken care of my needs. I had completely forgotten myself, my own needs did not count. I also come from a generation where, as women, we were raised a lot implicitly in this idea of ’you will give yourself to others'”she says.
Today, Julie is much better. Her relationship with her two children has calmed down, she no longer feels this visceral pain. If she had advice to give to those who may one day feel these unavowable feelings, it is to find someone to talk to. “If it were to happen to me again, the first thing I would do is call my midwife. In the end, they are the ones who have perhaps the best view of what it can be. feelings, thoughts of a young mother. And I will tell her ‘help me’“, she declares.
Thanks to Julie for agreeing to open up with great courage about her maternity experience, and for lifting the taboo on maternal rejection. The report “In Olivier’s eyes: when motherhood is a test” is to be found this Monday, January 31, on France 2, at 11:10 p.m.
*The names of the children have been changed to respect their anonymity.
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