On this date, twelve years ago, I was in the psychiatric ward of North Park Private Hospital. I'd had my first child, and although I'd wanted to be a mother for as long as I could remember (even though I found babies kind of annoying and squishy, but I was sure that would change when I had one of my own). It didn't. Motherhood is the place where you need to know who you are and what kind of mother you want to be. You need to back yourself and your decisions. You need to scream for an epidural if you want one. You need to tell the brestapo to fuck off if you want to use bottles because you can't stand the feeling of breastfeeding and it's making you insane. You need to look in the mirror and be able to tell yourself that this is hard and messy but you can do this because you are strong and that YOU ARE THERE FOR YOU. It doesn't matter what happens, you back yourself and you know you can do this. I had none of that. I had a chameleonic sense of self that cha