When Motherhood Reckons With You
A letter from our co-founder Rachel Daggett — for every mom holding far more than anyone sees.
Becoming a mom completely wrecked me and everything I thought I had planned so damn well for in my professional, personal, and relational life.
I was always unsure about it. But by the time I decided I'd give myself and motherhood a chance, I thought I'd already been through and out of my rock-bottom.
Theoretically rock bottom is a singular event…and then you get to go enjoy the fruits of your labor in your happy perfect life, like in all the movies, right?
RIGHT???
Back in 2011, my academic career and life plans took a sharp turn, when my master's program — ironically, in counseling psychology — was rudely interrupted by my own mental health crisis, landing me in an inpatient eating disorder treatment program at 22.
Leaning into my innate desire to please, while continuing to quietly die inside? Pffff. My best skill. Easy. I got through treatment the same way any obedient good girl does: quietly, tenaciously, falsely…and without even knowing that I had been doing any of that my entire life.
Unbeknownst to me (but not to the seasoned therapists in the room), I had barely scratched the surface on what was actually causing my issues with food, mood, and anxiety, but instead discharged with a new leash on life – including a fresh and painful break-up, swearing a therapist career away for all of eternity, and a giant toolbox of shiny new compensatory defense mechanisms I could continue to mask with.
A few superficial jobs, one rat-infested apartment, and another identity crisis later, there I was, dragging myself down the familiar walk of shame. Except not the college kind - this time was back to my parents' guest-room, and to the office of my former grad program director. Giving my best Emily Charlton, playing nice, and fake smiling, I was cleared to resume graduate school.
When I look back at that time now, I am able to see exactly what that young, flighty girl was doing, why she was doing it - and gosh, I love her. Her inner fire had been thwarted at every turn. Playing small and self-destructing was her safest bet. But she never gave up on herself. Not fully.
After a genuine and successful pass at recovery on my own terms, thousands of grueling clinical training and supervision hours, a licensing exam, and years of my own personal therapy in every form possible, I thought maybe, maybe, I had my sh*t figured out — just enough to trust myself as a potential mother.
I was ready to be a mom. Not the “I’m so ready and have dreamt of this my whole life” ready, but the “okay, I think I can do this…here goes nothin” ready. But, I knew a couple of things had to be true, simply because everyone told me they would be (get ready to cringe): 1) I would have the most gentle, easy-going children, and 2) motherhood would be the most joyful, natural, God-given job I would ever have in my life. I would simply evolve overnight into the whimsical, strong, self-assured and well-balanced mother I was meant to be……….
——- Pausing to LOL at the things I used to say about what my kids would be like, and also feeling a ton of sadness for the way mothers are set up to feel like total failures when it doesn’t just “come natural” ——
Back to the story….Motherhood happened. And it reckoned with me, from day one. Humility came back with a vengeance. Turns out I didn’t have myself figured out, not even close.
My pregnancy, birth, and postpartum with my first child threw me flat on my face and right back into the cave, to face and re-face all of my demons and worst fears. They were all the same as before, just in different forms now. Peter Pan knows this - our shadows are master shapeshifters.
Motherhood has been joyful, yes. It has grown my heart and completely changed me and helped me become better, yes. I 100% believe that I have the children I needed, and they challenge me in the specific ways they do for a purpose. I love them, so much, and would do literally anything in the name of their well-being.
But honestly, so much of it has been downright excruciatingly devastating.
If you can relate, we should meet.
I was (and continue to be) challenged to walk my talk, and to enter the cave full of my own resident monsters that I’m afraid to admit exists. Again, and again. There, I am reminded that everywhere I go, every time I leave a room, every life promotion or fancy training I get, there I am…along with all of my broken and healing parts too.
My experience now includes over a decade of working in mental health and building a thriving private & group practice, while navigating my own birth trauma, postpartum mental health struggles, and raising two feral-at-times children — including one with significant medical and attachment traumas and special needs of their own.
As both a devoted imperfect therapist and a devoted imperfect mother, I know firsthand the challenges of balancing the many demanding roles that women do, and re-negotiating all the terms we thought we’d so shrewdly made with ourselves in a past phase of life.
Motherhood is a constant invitation to return home to ourselves, and every past version of us that we've grappled with or exiled or learned to embrace. And if there is one thing I know for SURE, and will tell every expecting mother when I get the chance, it’s this: we cannot do this alone. We need each other. Specifically, we need other moms who are in the day to day messiness with us. “It takes a village” is a cute cliché, but it is rooted in our DNA. I don’t think I’d be standing upright today if it weren’t for some of the women who have stood by me, with no judgment and open arms, even in my worst, lowest, most devastating moments as a mom. My Bloom Room co-founder, Celynna, is one of those women.
Celynna and I are passionate about creating supportive spaces for mothers, who are truly tapped emotionally, trapped systemically, and more isolated and community-deprived than they even know.
Through these communities and support groups, we are determined to help fellow mothers in all stages share acts of love for one another, and to feel - and be - less alone. We’d love to help you find true connection with other moms who understand the truly disorienting, unpredictable peaks and valleys of motherhood, and are right along for the ride with you
Every one of you has a story, one that is unique and complex and nuanced. We would love to get to witness it and walk through it with you.
Check out the communities and groups we are forming below, and if you don’t see one that seems to fit, please email us at hello@flourishatthebloomroom.com. We also have a whole team of amazing clinicians here who provide individual and couples therapy for parents and families. We would love to hear from you and chat about what kind of support you are needing!
🌻 If you're a therapist mom
As therapists and healers, we must follow this call back to ourselves. Our devotion to holding space for the deepest emotional pain and healing of others simply requires it. And the way back to ourselves is through each-other. Not through AI chats, not through social media, not through isolation. Join our village.
Our Therapist Moms community is exactly what it sounds like: a supportive, no-judgment, loving sisterhood for women carrying two impossibly heavy roles — therapist and mom. In-person and virtual support & process groups, and in-person gatherings where you get to be the human, not the holder. Bring the business decisions, the parenting decisions, the identity crisis, all of it.
🎒If you're a mom of school-aged kids
Our Monthly K-12 Moms Support Group is our night for real talk, real school-year survival, real good tacos, and no kids.
🍼🖍 If you're a mom of tiny sproutlings or of tiny tornadoes (0–4):
The postpartum season is equal parts love and free-fall — healing, feeding, not sleeping, and quietly wondering who you even are now. You shouldn't have to white-knuckle it alone. We're building a postpartum support circle at The Bloom Room (because postpartum doesn't end at six weeks, by the way) — a soft place to land, babies welcome, led by clinicians who specialize in maternal mental health (and have lived it).
The toddler years: negotiating with a very small person about very big feelings, all day, every day. It's funny until it's not — and it's exhausting either way. We're forming a toddler-mom support circle for this exact season: real nervous-system tools (for you, not just them), real talk about tantrums, picky eating, and identity, and zero judgment about how much screen time got you through Tuesday.
→ Send us an email to Join the “Little Years” Interest List — help us shape what this becomes and be the first on the list to get details!
We hope you will join us as we continue to nurture and grow this supportive, no-judgment, loving sisterhood of mothers— whichever door you come through. Come as you are: messy, tired, questioning everything. That's exactly who this is for. You’ll be in good company, but you’ll also find legitimate sturdiness and guidance.
xo,
Rachel
this is a beautiful photo, taken in a beautiful place, and a gorgeous moment in time with my family,
AND it’s not a full depiction of what it’s like to be a mom day-to-day. But these are the moments that get us through, help us find our ground, and form adaptive core memories for us and our kids, and I’m so grateful for that.
