hyperemesis gravidarum<\/a>. By the third trimester \u2014 after months of throwing up multiple times daily, missing weeks of work, relying on IVs for hydration, and having one desperate, terrified conversation with Brendan about whether I could make it to the end \u2014 I\u2019d come to terms with the fact that the nausea would leave when the baby did. Friends and family joked that, karmically, I was ensured a smooth delivery. I believed this, cautiously. But one thing after another went wrong after my water broke, and suddenly I was getting prepped for an emergency C-section after twenty-four hours of labor. Theo\u2019s heart rate was dropping with each contraction, and I asked Brendan if he thought the universe was punishing us. What if I really wasn\u2019t supposed to be having a child?<\/p>\nAs soon as Theo arrived, bits of his personality were apparent. Other parents had told me this would happen, that I\u2019d be shocked at how clearly defined his quirks and sensibilities would be. Here\u2019s what we found: a baby who came out raring to go, as if trying to bypass all of the required stages so that he could participate in the world. His legs never stopped kicking. His pediatrician, witnessing his nonstop motion and then, at two months, his attempt to push himself up, let out a low whistle and wished us luck.<\/p>\n
As a newborn and then infant, Theo would abruptly pause in the middle of playing or babbling and gaze at nothing I could pinpoint, quiet, as if lost in contemplation. When he was just six days old, I recorded a video that I often revisit. I\u2019m holding Theo with one arm and filming with the other; his face fills most of the screen. His lips are pursed, a small dribble of milk from the corner, and his eyes scan slowly back and forth, up and down, in an expression that mimics deep consideration. It lasts fifteen seconds.<\/p>\n
At the time, I sent it to my family group chat saying \u201cSometimes Theo likes to pause in the middle of breakfast to think about things.\u201d Then it was a joke, but if I\u2019m being honest, part of me believes it. Five years later, I still catch those breaks, constantly. When it happens, I ask him what he\u2019s thinking about, trying to sound playful and curious, trying to mask the underlying dread that this is the beginning of a lifetime of isolating interiority. He never shares, and I never push. I tell him it\u2019s all good; he\u2019s allowed to keep some things to himself. It is his right.<\/p>\n
Still, his hypersensitivity and attunement to my moods are undeniable, having intensified with each passing year. He has always been attached to me, and at four years old that manifested in constantly checking on my well-being. It became claustrophobic: Wasn\u2019t I allowed to be stressed in my own house, wasn\u2019t it unreasonable and unrealistic to expect me to mask any sign of frustration?<\/p>\n
As the check-ins became more frequent, I assured him that he didn\u2019t have to worry about me, that he should never ever feel as though it was his job to change my feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it is,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel everything you feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The theme continued, becoming a source of overpowering distress. Theo would register any shift in my tone, more often than not a result of annoyance that had nothing to do with him, and ask, \u201cAre you angry, Mama? You\u2019re talking angry.\u201d<\/p>\n
At bedtime \u2014 it was always more urgent at bedtime \u2014 he told me to be happy, and I reminded him that it was okay to be sad, that everybody gets sad sometimes and it was nothing to be afraid of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do you feel like I have to be happy?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause that\u2019s how I love you,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s how I don\u2019t get so sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few months into pre-K, I took him to get cheeseburgers after pickup, just the two of us. I asked him if he\u2019d had a good day, and he said no, he\u2019d cried a lot. I told him I was so sorry that he felt so sad and asked if something had happened. He shrugged, unbothered, and said, \u201cEvery day at school I\u2019m scared that you\u2019re not okay. Only when I\u2019m with you I know you\u2019re being safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
This development was a source of tension between me and Brendan \u2014 not angry but still disruptive \u2014 as I insisted it was pathological and required medical intervention and he admitted that he wasn\u2019t convinced it was that serious. The reality likely lies in the middle. I\u2019ll catch Theo holding back tears, self-censoring no matter how many times I tell him it\u2019s okay to be sad, and within seconds I\u2019m ten, twenty years in the future, trying to stop him from killing himself. It\u2019s an unproductive, even detrimental, preoccupation. It helps no one. Finally, we\u2019ve reached an accord, agreeing that, diagnosis or not, he \u2014 and we \u2014 would benefit from seeing a child psychologist. But I haven\u2019t mastered dismissing the intrusive thoughts.<\/p>\n
In 2014, my brother Jordan and I shared our\u00a0reluctance to pass down our genes with our sister, Danea, and brother, Dylan. We sparked a brief debate while visiting Danea in L.A., the four of us sitting around a patio table in the apartment complex courtyard of a friend of a friend of a friend, drunk and about to get drunker.<\/p>\n
When I brought up the fact that I didn\u2019t think it would be responsible for me to have a child, given our family history of severe mental illness, I knew Jordan \u2014 who would end up at an inpatient facility for his own suicidal ideation a year after my hospitalization \u2014 would be on my side and the others would be aghast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is wrong with you?\u201d my older sister Danea asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur genes are great!\u201d my youngest brother Dylan insisted.<\/p>\n
Jordan handed me a sweating bottle of ros\u00e9 and started unraveling a roll of duct tape. We were unyielding in our argument: Yes, sure, we\u2019re smart, we can have a good time \u2014 it\u2019s not like we hate ourselves \u2014 but we also have this tendency to feel sadness so impenetrable that months can elapse without any other emotion breaking through; to feel meaninglessness so calcifying we can\u2019t fathom getting out of bed. And it didn\u2019t come from nowhere. Our family is replete with mental illness. Among the four of us, our diagnoses include depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, ADHD, and multiple eating disorders. Look at our mother, whose anxiety has translated into a house so crowded with stacks of unopened boxes, bags of clothes, and decades-old paraphernalia that we can barely find paths through rooms. Look at our father, his depression at times so profound that as young adults we\u2019d staged an intervention to make sure he wouldn\u2019t kill himself. Look at his mother, whose lifelong depression had begun in 1940s Italy, when the cure was being sent into the country to \u201ccalm her nerves.\u201d We couldn\u2019t, in good conscience, bring someone into this life when we had so often felt, almost irreversibly, the desire to leave it. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to be dramatic,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019d just rather not risk passing it on.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was lying, at least about the drama. I love being dramatic; I love being contrarian. I\u2019d gone into the conversation to test out a concern as a conviction. It was safe, noncommittal. My hypothetical child\u2019s potential inheritance did worry me, but at the same time I was well aware I\u2019d abandon all methods of birth control that instant if Brendan wanted to. Maybe I wanted Danea and Dylan to persuade me out of my lingering doubts.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou honestly don\u2019t think it would be a net positive,\u201d Danea said, more dare than question.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
She rolled her eyes. Jordan shrugged. He wrapped the duct tape around my hand and the bottle and then took my phone to get a photo: Edward Ros\u00e9-hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re idiots,\u201d said Danea.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know,\u201d said Jordan.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not trying to be dramatic,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019d just rather not risk passing it on.<\/p>\n
Jordan hasn\u2019t changed his mind about having kids. Clearly, my stance wasn\u2019t so solid. That day, Jordan and I were arguing with a narrow, individualistic focus: We didn\u2019t want to transfer the suffering we\u2019d experienced onto someone who had never asked to be born. Maybe I eventually decided that the gamble was worth it; maybe I just really wanted to be a mom. Maybe it was selfish. I worry sometimes that it was. Would I have chosen to live had I known what living would be? At my worst I\u2019ve resented my parents for bringing me here, but I\u2019ve also been overwhelmed with gratitude and awed by the sheer luck of existence.<\/p>\n
Underlying our argument, whether we were conscious of it or not, was something that is more sinister but which offers more insight into the experience of the chronic desire to die. Individually, our horror at the possibility of passing down our depression is built on premature guilt for causing another person\u2019s suffering, and premature fear of that despair whirling in the person we\u2019re meant to protect and love above all. But zooming out, it reveals a rejection of the proliferation of depression across humanity. It smacks of eugenics; acceptable \u2014 barely so \u2014 only because we were discussing it in the context of an intimate and deeply personal decision. Just as much as it is about the fear of passing down an excruciating desire to die to someone who never asked to exist, it is also, inherently, a reinforcement of the idea that a depressed life is not worth living. My decision to have Theo doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019ve come around to believe the opposite. I hope a depressed life is worth living; quite often I\u2019m sure it is. Still, I\u2019m desperate for evidence that Theo has evaded it. Still, I watch in trepidation for signs. Has he been infected?<\/p>\n
One recent night, as I lay with Theo in his bed, trying to cajole him into sleep, I told him it would be easier if he closed his eyes. He told me he hated to do that, that it was too scary. This wasn\u2019t news; the year prior, I\u2019d arrived to daycare pickup and found him crying, saying he hated nap time because the teachers made him shut his eyes. That night, I asked why it was scary. \u201cWhen I close my eyes, I close everything,\u201d he said, and hearing it was like taking a bullet. I apologized in a tone of communicating sympathy, of hating that he was struggling with this fear, but, really, I was apologizing for what I can\u2019t help but recognize as my role in his fear, my passing along such a familiar burden to him.<\/p>\n
So has Theo been infected, or am I overreacting, projecting? Might this be run-of-the-mill toddler preoccupation \u2014 nothing but an expected, 100 percent normal stage of his psychological and emotional development? And if he is anxious or depressed, well, what of it? To what extent? Will he be powerless against it, condemned because of it? Will he resent it? Do I?\u00a0For as long as I\u2019ve known I\u2019ve had depression, I\u2019ve wondered if, given the option, I\u2019d choose to be rid of it, trying to figure out who that person would be, if I\u2019d even recognize or want to be her. Kay Redfield Jamison describes her ambivalence regarding her bipolar disorder, having come to understand it as \u201ca distillation both of what is finest in our natures, and of what is most dangerous,\u201d and the sentiment resonates with me. If Theo inherits my depression, might he, like me, decide the good is worth the bad?<\/p>\n
Cuddling on the beanbag one night, just after smothering him with kisses, Theo grabs my cheeks with delicate hands and says, \u201cThis time I give you a kiss.\u201d Very deliberately, he drops quick little kisses all over my face, each time announcing the destination: \u201cA kiss for your cheek\u201d \u2014 smack \u2014 \u201cA kiss for your other cheek\u201d \u2014 smack \u2014 \u201cA kiss for your nose\u201d \u2014 smack \u2014 and so on. Then he asks for more kisses from me to him, directing me to his fingers, one at a time, and then his toes. What I struggle to explain at times is how embodied my love for Theo is and his is for me, how it feels feral, primitive, close to the ground. His heart came to life through the work of my blood. I listened for its rhythm beneath my skin. He feels, still, like part of me.<\/p>\n
These days I look at him and often feel equal parts joy and despair, wonder and loss, a premature mourning or regret. I look at his body, and I want to burrow inside. His body, which used to live inside mine, separates from me more every day. As his navigation and mastery of it grow, so does our alienation from each other. As time passes and I become less of him and he becomes less of me, I worry it will become easier for either of us to leave. I tell Elizabeth that I\u2019m so scared, sometimes I can\u2019t look at Theo without worrying that he\u2019s going to kill himself, that I know he\u2019s going to be just like me, and she says, \u201cEven if that were the case \u2014 we can\u2019t know if it is, but even if it were \u2014 you didn\u2019t die.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true. I\u2019m alive with the support of my family, friends, therapy, and medication. Theo will benefit from the progress in mental health care \u2014 still far from perfect, but certainly improved since I began to need it \u2014 and earlier interventions. My hope is that we\u2019ll be happy-enough people together, just as I am with my family and largely mentally ill friends. (I like to think we find each other.) My mother has sat with me through group therapy sessions; our entire family made sure Jordan never experienced a single day at the psych ward without a visitor. We talk openly about all of this, we help each other, we survive.<\/p>\n
I think I will always be afraid, but not just for Theo\u2019s or my brother\u2019s or my dad\u2019s or my own suicide. There are countless risks, so many ways to hurt, so many ways to die. Maybe I will always be afraid, but maybe that\u2019s just me, or maybe that\u2019s just motherhood, maybe that\u2019s just love. I\u2019m learning to see the fear, name it, feel it, and then let it drift from my mind like a cloud. My mother is crazy and my father is depressed, and they raised us before our culture started to develop a growing awareness of mental health as a concept, but my brother didn\u2019t kill himself, and neither did I. We\u2019re alive, and they helped us get here. If Theo does end up like me, I\u2019ll be here to help him live, too.<\/p>\n
From the book: BETTER by Arianna Rebolini. Copyright \u00a9 2025 by Arianna Rebolini. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos Getty Images When I started seeing Elizabeth, I think I imagined therapy as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[2420,24294,26268,6961,26270,105,218,26269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-48295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-parenting","9":"tag-book-excerpt","10":"tag-chapters","11":"tag-first-person","12":"tag-hard-paywall","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-postpartum-depression-and-anxiety","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114396416157339984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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