Published on July 7, 2025
I Just Wanted to Keep You Safe: The Truth Behind Maternal Anxiety
Patricia
Recently diagnosed
I became a mother at seventeen, convinced I was ready, yet decades later I’m still untangling how ADHD, lingering childhood trauma, and fierce devotion shaped the way I raised my two children. From the quiet bond I shared with my son to the crippling anxiety that consumed me after my daughter’s birth, my story tracks the fine line between protection and overprotection—how love, fear, and mental-health challenges collided, sometimes scarring the very people I longed to keep safe. This essay is a candid look at imperfect parenting: the missteps, the lessons, and the stubborn hope that, even without a manual, we can keep learning to love better.
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When I was asked if I could write about being an ADHD parent, I've to confess they touched a soft spot because I think I completely failed at how to be a mother. I became a mother at 17, a child having a child, although at the time I thought I was very mature. My son was a very quiet boy and never gave me much trouble as a child, I can't say the same when he reached adolescence. I didn't work at the time he was born so we were always together. It felt like me and him against the world which deteriorated my relationship with my partner a little because my son was everything for me. I wanted to be with him all the time.
When my daughter was born, 8 years later, that's when everything got worse and my PTSD kicked in. As a child, I was victim of abuse by a family member and all I could think was that she was a girl like me and that I had to protect her. I spent the first year of her life in constant anxiety because I thought she was going to die. I don't know why I had these thoughts, but they were constantly there and all my anxiety was passed on to my daughter. She was constantly crying. Trying to keep my daughter safe was my life's mission and my constant anguish.
I never talked about it until recently when I told her. She is now 23. Our relationship is difficult, we talk a lot even though most times our conversations end abruptly because I can't keep her line of thought and she gets frustrated. On the other hand I can speak to my son for hours without any disruption.
I think it's different for every parent, but in my eagerness to protect them from harm, I've traumatized my children and exacerbated their own fears with mine. I just love them too much and I don't know how to control it. I truly believe that if I had raised my children alone, everything would have gone better. I'm not a team player and I don't know how to work in a team, and if I had been alone many arguments that my children were forced to witness would have been avoided. Life would have been much calmer, I think.
The thing is I believe there is no perfect parenting, we will make mistakes just like our parents made with us. There are no shortcuts, just hard work and learning from trial and error.
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