Motherhood is one of the hardest jobs to do; having a life depend on your every waking move is scarier than can be expressed. My insecurities in the beginning years of my journey were sometimes the most debilitating experience ever. How I got through is a miracle in it of itself. I was a dysfunctional functioning mother to say the least. The following entry is a flashback of my early years of motherhood. Can you relate to me?

Could I silence the destiny that was calling me? Being a mother was the scariest thing I ever did to date. What comes naturally for some, was a challenge for me because I experienced so much physical, emotional and mental abuse.  I had a tremendous amount of fear that would repeat itself throughout my family. My father was a very cruel man—letting his anger out on us without warning, using crude language, beating us mercilessly when we did not live up to unrealistic expectations while showing the world a pleasant side of himself that his kids did not see often—he was, surprisingly, not as bad as his mother. His mother (my grandmother) had several children and she was brutal, both with her mouth and her hand.  She would physically abuse to her kids, especially my father. When you looked closely at his head there were still scars from being beaten in with pots and pans. There were a few times she left gashes in his head, and because they were poor and lived in the country part of Jamaica, he did not get the medical attention he should have gotten. After many beatings he finally dropped out of school, ran away and lived with strangers, all at the age of 14. The deeper you looked into his childhood, it would no surprise as to why he was the kind of father he was. He never wanted to be the way he was, but it was like trying to fight the wind. His anger always overtook him no matter how hard he tried.

It was for this reason that I was faithfully going to therapy with the pastor of counseling at our church, days after 9/11 happened. I was trying to be very transparent to him about my inner demons along with the chains that were keeping me from enjoying my newborn son. I was feeling the same wind of anger rush over me more and more. I struggled with anger before—which is why I got into so many fights with people. I had so much bent up aggression and I didn’t care who it was against. The last thing I wanted was to consume my own child with that rage.

As a baby, Joey was hard for me to handle. He did not give me time to myself and his cries and determination to not be comforted by anyone but me, was causing me to lose myself. We could not leave him with babysitters, the nursery at church or even his own grandmother. He barely allowed Sam to hold him, so I found myself rushing my showers, scarfing down my meals, and never being able to have me time.

I remember one day, when I realized that this was not going to be an easy fight, I went to Louie’s (my counselor) and was completely honest with my battle. I sat in his office still shaking a little bit. My heart was racing and I did not know if I could trust him enough to expose what I almost did. Would he look at me differently? Would he think I was a danger to others? Would he report me? “What happened Marsha?”

“I struggle with so much anger Louie. Joey cries the moment I am inches away from him. I was so overwhelmed today that I almost hurt him.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I can barely do anything in the house. Joey screams and cries for hours the moment I am away from him. He doesn’t cry himself to sleep, he doesn’t calm down after a while and it is all day.

He wants no one but me. He doesn’t want Sam or my brother and I never get a break. I couldn’t take it, so I put him in his crib, not for him but for me. He just screamed louder and more desperate.

“With no exaggeration I felt like I lost a bit myself as I felt myself getting hot all over. After 30-40 minutes of desperate crying, anger was trying to consume me. I went into his room and wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. It was as if something was coming over me. This would never pass I thought to myself. I heard a voice whisper to me. ‘Just do it. Pick him up, hold him over your head and smash him on the floor.’ My heart started racing as the idea made more and more sense.

“I picked him up, held him away from me and wanted to shake him till he stopped crying.” I could see Louie was secretly holding his breath as he was wondering what happened next. I reassured him that I did nothing to him even though, unbeknownst to me, the demons that drove my grandmother were squeezing me from the outside in.

At 14 years old my dad ran away from home but when I was 14 years old I was attending my father’s funeral. My father died of a massive brain aneurism. After my father’s death they examined him and said that the vain in which the eruption happened looked as if it had been there for a long time. The doctor said he had to have gotten a blow to the head that was so hard it caused a thinning in the vein. My mother deducted that the blow to the head the doctors were talking about must have happened when his mother beat him in the head with the pan.

That day when I was with Louie, I needed to break this cycle, so I looked at Joey with those eyes in that small body; even though my heart was racing, and my anger was fueling me, love silenced the enemy. After about ten seconds, I brought Joey closer to me than I ever had before. He nestled his head and allowed his tears to run down my neck. Nothing brought him more comfort then my touch. I cried because I just don’t know if I could always win this kind of battle. Sam came home shortly after I went into the room and he could feel the tension in the room. He held both of us unbeknownst to him what almost happened.

I am blessed that Louie did not shame me—making me feel worse than I already felt. He reassured me that I did great and that I needed to rely on Sam more when I am experiencing that anger. My next few months of counseling with him would help me to see how much I needed God in order to break from the chains that was trying to keep me on this toxic road.

What would I have said to myself if I could go back 19 years back seeing myself holding Joey? I would have said, “Be the first person from your father’s side to not to allow your emotions to rob what God has for you. It may feel like you are fighting the wind but remember you aren’t doing it alone. You have the God of this universe who can silence any storm that may rage in your life. This little baby will never stop loving you, never abandon his emotions towards you. You will continue to be the air in his lungs and one of the twinkles in his eyes. Don’t allow anger to rob you of that.” I had no idea the trials I was going to face because fear was still making his home and it would be seen soon.