<center>![motherjail.jpeg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfRi8mY5Wnd2ZjrvFnuGaUZB2X9m4WXkR3wNtVZtrdUCh/motherjail.jpeg)</center>

# Mothers don’t admit what it’s really like to go through the process of bringing a new life form into the world. 

We grow up assuming that the motherhood experience is akin to having a spiritual awakening or being struck by a glorious bolt of lightning consisting only of altruistic joy and boundless love. We believe that mothers enjoy sacrificing their life energy, vital forces and time in order to bring into the world a sane and happy creature. We believe the condition of motherhood brings with it a rapid rush of selfless giving impulses. We think that motherhood transforms selfish women into non-selfish women. What is a selfish woman anyway? Am I selfish? I might be. But I might not be, either. I’m definitely an introvert though, and I now fiercely protect my personal alone time.

# Being a mother is the single most important aspect of ushering in a beautifully formed race of elevated human beings, and yet my culture derides, devalues and generally looks down upon anything related to motherhood. 

Why is it like this? Are men scared of women’s ability to create life? Are men worried that in the future, their sex will be thinned out, hyper-selected, to only include men whose genetic traits are of the highest quality?

Being a man, especially in the future, feels like a precarious state of affairs. I’ve spent life inside my own head trying to understand things from other perspectives. There was one time about ten years ago, that I had a dream that I had a penis. After the dream, I felt envious of men for I had experienced what it must have felt like to have one.

## But putting myself in a man’s shoes with regard to breeding makes me feel insecure. 

Is it this insecurity that is the source of hatred for anything female-related like creating life itself? I’m a deeply insecure person, but in the area of sexual breeding, I’ve always had the secure feeling, “Well, if I want to have a baby someday, I can. If I want to.” And because I consider myself to be terrible at maintaining long-term relationships, I didn’t rigidly attach having a baby to having a secure relationship with a man.

Even Nikola Tesla admitted:

> “Perhaps the male in human society is useless. I am frank to admit that I don’t know. If women are beginning to feel this way about it–and there is striking evidence at hand that they do–then we are entering upon the cruelest period of the world’s history.
Our civilization will sink to a state like that which is found among the bees, ants and other insects–a state wherein the male is ruthlessly killed off. In this matriarchal empire which will be established the female rules. As the female predominates, the males are at her mercy. The male is considered important only as a factor in the general scheme of the continuity of life.”
-Nikola Tesla

# I’ve never discussed this with anyone, so I have only hunches. I don’t know, what do you think?

I’m almost beginning to feel that my love interests were more tied to my desire to improve myself, not breeding instincts. Like, when I was in love with an artist, I found myself wanting to be more like him, more artistic. He brought out a side of me that I never knew existed within. I’ve used my relationships the way mentees use their mentors. That’s why I always want someone out of reach. Then, through desire, I start to evolve myself, in an attempt to seduce and capture my desired man. Sometimes, though, this activity enables me to move past the desired man, and I end up somewhere else, with more knowledge, whatever, just doing my own thing. I slowly forget about the object of my desire, having moved further ahead of him in some vital aspect. I wish I had a more pragmatic approach to relationships, but I think it’s actually too late.

# This is how I have been moving up the human developmental food chain, and something I’ve been doing ever since my teenage years. 

The boys I was interested in my early teens were absolute rebels, bizarre figures that stimulated my most insane fantasies of individualism, art, rebelliousness and total disrespect for authority. One of my early boyfriends named Cash was awesome: he wore pants lined with clothespins, had long blonde hair, and he owned 5 pairs of identical black high tops which he wore every day. He was absolutely crazy and I loved that. He also was gay, I think. I met him at a teen club that was situated below a gay bar. 

The reason I think he was gay was this: every time we made out, he didn’t really seem into the activity, like I was. Kissing was always my idea, and he went along with it, but would make up excuses to stop. When he broke up with me, he told everyone in Kansas City I had committed suicide over the break up. People I hadn’t seen in a while would say, 

> “Oh my god Leah, I thought you were dead.”

# Rebellion runs strong on my mother’s side. 

My aunt was a totally insane artist and a good piano player. She often joked that she knows how to talk to a piano better than to a person. She was right. Anti-social is putting it mildly. She was a brutal, stubborn, intelligent woman who didn't know how to relate to others well. She excelled in music, art and sewing and always had chickens. She was a rugged individualist, taking after my grandfather who was a lumberjack and horse tamer in the West. My grandpa died at the age of 81, while he was on top of his roof, repairing it. He refused to stop living and doing things in his old age. He’s my role model for older years.

My aunt was also a bully who used to beat up my mom. When she turned 17, she literally controlled her family. She moved to a small cabin attached to the family house, and had her meals delivered to her there. My mother is also extremely headstrong and definitely made the decisions in our family. You would think that logically, I would model myself after her. I didn’t. My core personality is much more similar to my father’s: introspective, moody and pliant. As an adult now, I often take notes on my mother’s strength and try to emulate her.

# Back to the topic of this post, motherhood.

I grew up with the idea, “I don’t want kids. I don’t want to be feminine and I don’t want to sacrifice my life for another. That’s not cool.” I now have learned I was brainwashed by our American society, which is something that depresses me greatly.

I can only speak from my experience, but here it is:
From the very first moment of finding out I was pregnant, my entire existence went into a spiraling pit of doom. When I saw that first sonogram, I didn’t think, “Oh, a beautiful expression of life is forming within me. 

## It went more along the lines of: 
> "Shit! There’s no turning back now. I might have made the biggest fucking mistake of my life.”

I hated being pregnant (I felt like a parasite had taken over my body), giving birth, breastfeeding, changing diapers, feeding, everything! I never experienced the “glow of pregnancy” (whatever that means, I’ll never know). I despised having my hair yanked, arm grabbed, shirt burped upon, face slapped, nose pinched, bed invaded and eardrums assaulted by deafening screams. It wasn’t cute talking to someone who didn’t talk back. It was weird and alien. I wasn’t prepared for it.

# In those dark days of breastfeeding, I felt alone with a speechless parasite who was threatening my ability to cultivate a decent livelihood as an artist. 

This was not the plan I had envisioned. The plan that was hatched out was I would be working to make money while my mate stayed home and did all the domestic stuff. Well, that plan imploded when I came to realize I’d gotten sucked in by a fucking psychopathic man who was not who I thought he was. He’d created an alternate personality that was diametrically opposed to his real one. It took me about 8 months to figure this out. By then, it was too late. My life was fucked and all I could think about were the various ways to murder myself. At certain times, I had wished I’d simply got an abortion. But I didn't. Truth be told, I didn't have the guts to go through with it, even though I didn't want to have a baby with the man who had literally tricked me.

# Once my baby was born, every time I heard a cry in the middle of the night, my heart stopped and my artistic dreams shriveled a little bit more. 

Doing this alone was a shock to my system. If I was too tired to get up, I had to do it anyway. To this day, I cannot really even look at a dad pushing a stroller without practically having a meltdown. So sad not to know what it's like to have a man help raise my daughter.

# I could see my own aspirations disappearing with every feeding, every yank of my breast. 

I actually failed at breastfeeding because I had great difficulty getting my baby in the proper position and suck angles. My baby was fussy too, and would cry out when she couldn’t get situated in a decent amount of time. I got frustrated fast, and felt like shit. I became even more nervous, more unraveled than I already was. I got angry, too. The whole thing, using a breast pump, trying to work to make money and at the same time give my lifeblood to a tiny, speechless parasite was a complete disaster on my body and mind.

## During the times I was supposed to sleep, my heart went racing non-stop because I became unsure when I would be woken up again. 

I stopped being able to focus, relax or enjoy life. My nervous system went on overdrive and I lost all awareness of internal thoughts. Everything revolved around tending to the constant needs of a screaming, parasitic baby and I was literally and physically dying inside. The amount of energy I spent to cover up these dark and horrible thoughts was enormous. I was plagued by these thoughts: “What if my baby can sense that I am not enjoying this?”

I had no active filtration device to reduce the pitch, timbre or amplitude of the noises coming from my baby. All sounds just pierced directly through me, causing symbolic bleeding and damage inside along the way. This made me more nervous, more unable to think or relax. More insanity. On top of this, I was seized by the fear that my ex would come back and murder both of us. His criminal records were sent to me in the mail by his former girlfriend. He had forgotten to let me in on one very important detail of his past: he’d severely beaten his last pregnant girlfriend to a pulp and she had to spend weeks recovering the hospital from her very serious injuries he inflicted upon her.

My world fucking shattered when I read the hospital and legal papers, detailing the horrific abuse. 

<center>![1-LjpcxYojxzTMy8xbQX0P8w.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmTA5p1zDtLs2HhVzVSTc6QWbswBP35x2dFe3EkFRWNzQZ/1-LjpcxYojxzTMy8xbQX0P8w.jpg)</center>
_this drawing was done while I was pregnant and with my psychopathic ex_

I was working at the time, so I wasn’t getting any sleep at night due to the constant interruptions. I now see why two people raise a child. Trying to do everything by yourself will kill you. The lack of sleep caused my legs and feet to develop planar fasciitis which in turn made walking a painful and horrible ordeal. I was forced to quit my 9–5 job because I was getting too sick. I was living in constant pain and my body wasn’t able to heal itself at night. I had to make a choice: quit my job and regain my health (and consequently have zero income) or continue working and get sicker. 

I decided to become poor and healthy, live with my parents and just sort of give up on the whole idea of being a single mother. It’s fucking horrible. I’m lucky to have parents who are amazingly supportive. My daughter is their only grandchild, so they are happy, I think. Out of necessity, we have created a family structure that works in most parts of the world, the extended family.
My daughter is now 7 and I feel relieved that she’s happy, well-adjusted, smart and full of boundless creativity. Thank god I didn’t kill myself during the dark, prison-like days of breastfeeding in an empty basement full of the stench of a horrible failed relationship, an endless stream of milk and tears, my own thoughts of self-murder, fear of personal economic collapse and one innocent and beautiful baby.

I usually don’t end stories on a happy note. It goes against my despondent nature, however, there is a bright spot in all of this. Things have greatly improved since the baby phase.

I recognize there are many things I do not do well, but also recognize I have an enormous amount of unconditional love for my daughter. I made a vow to myself to always honor her innate creativity and sense of wonder. In this respect, I’m really “crushing it” (to co-opt one of the over used tech bro expressions) as a parent. Actually, it’s a survival technique because when she’s an adult, much of the world will be automated by AI. Human creativity is one of the last frontiers that will be largely untouched by artificial intelligence. Humans are still the best story tellers and creators.

From the age of 2 I let her paint her own face (and mine, too), create what she wanted, and yes, draw on her walls.
![artmom.jpeg](https://steemitimages.com/DQme9agunLH2FRsg41kai9NTtDMaDYM8WwkFJAvJhHvJWLR/artmom.jpeg)

I signed her up to engineering classes at age 5 where she learned to make rockets and I let her create galaxy slime from Crafty Carol, custom-painted LPS figures from Cookie SwirlC and whatever the hell else she finds on YouTube to learn how to make. Our “home school” (this is in quotes because she attends regular public school, much to my dismay) comes in the mail each month in the form of Kiwi Crate. And I was really proud when I figured out how to put together 2 balloon-propelled race cars so she and her friends could see whose traveled the farthest.

Experimentation is the norm at home. It’s my personal lifeblood, so she understands that it’s just something we all do. It’s something I have to do, or else my mind implodes. She has her own paints, and sometimes when I come from work and find her with her friends painting their toys on the back porch, I feel truly happy to be alive. Then, I put down my stuff, and alongside the kids, I work on painting an old, discarded Barbie with black paint that might show up on the cover of my next book.

<center>![1-ca1BjU-P6T47Ohh2GksLBw.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPMH1XECQ1vPx1sDpSTcu7tB7dZ1FNZQHMsLViVrXK4HR/1-ca1BjU-P6T47Ohh2GksLBw.jpg)</center>

When one of my daughter’s friends saw this she said, “Oh, she is soooo beautiful.” It made me feel really good because this black painted doll is crying white tears and some people might say it looks creepy (by the way, this is not a race thing, at least not that my conscious mind is aware of).

# Children can see the beauty contained within sadness better than adults. 

Most adults have lost their interpretive and symbolic way of thinking and feeling. Artists are just adults who refuse to grow up, at least in my case, this is the truth. Almost every day I engage in expressing some remnant of my horrified soul, some dessicated, molted skincase from a trauma that slithered away years ago. This is why I am compelled to create. Not creating stuff is a death worse than death itself.

If you want to read the full story of how my life disintegrated a few years ago, get [my book on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Crap-Your-Life-Navigating-Situations-ebook/dp/B017PBLZPA). Do it today before your attention vanishes. It’s pretty graphic, so brace yourself.

We are all in the process of dying, so it’s best to figure out how to live this very second. You’re better off creating something, anything. You will feel better. Don’t worry what people will think, your mediocre stuff will be forgotten instantly, or your amazing thing will pop up in the middle of someone else’s dream.

Don’t fixate on “amazing” or “mediocre” though. Just make something now. The world will tell you what sucked and what didn’t. You can’t be concerned with that when you create. Judgment kills creativity. Your job is to express that insane wind-up toy inside your head that refuses to stop dancing when you shut your eyes at night. That is your life force, your source of all knowledge, creativity, innovation, wisdom and strength. The best part is that it is there, waiting for you to unleash it. It needs you. Give it food and water. It won’t rest until you find it. Don’t make the mistake of letting it fester for a lifetime and then watch as it resurfaces when you’re almost in the grave. 

Grab it now!

Yours Truly In The Sphere of Mad Ideas,
Stellabelle

This was first published on Medium: https://byrslf.co/being-a-mother-is-like-a-jail-sentence-cc42eacabd79