Mother and social worker. Best parenting advice came from psychiatric patients

In the beginning of my social work career, I worked in a confined psychiatric hospital. My patients suffered from incapacitating despair, terrible anxiety, psychosis, and an assortment of incapacitating mental diseases.

I cherished the job.

I enjoyed getting to know my patients — the individuals they were when they weren’t battling with overwhelming thoughts and perplexing emotions — and discovering methods to connect with and support them. I found enormous value in assisting families in making sense of their loved ones’ illnesses and surviving the crisis.

I learned a great deal in that position.

During my years working in the unit, I acquired a number of valuable things that would serve me well as a mother.

Sleep is an effective treatment.

We need not believe all we believe.

It is not embarrassing to take medicine for a mental disease.

In difficult times, we all need assistance.

Despite how much I enjoyed my career, the task was occasionally terrifying. My patients and their visitors occasionally exhibited erratic, threatening, or aggressive behavior. After a particularly terrifying incident in which a young man exploded and physically attacked during a meeting, the attending physician gave me one of the best pieces of advise I’ve ever received: “Never be afraid alone.”

These comments were spoken in passing by the doctor, but they meant more to me than she could ever know. She not only provided me with helpful counsel for those times when I was immobilized by dread, but also reassured me that it was normal to feel that way.

My fear did not indicate that I was acting improperly. Occasionally, this is what occurs.

When I became a mother, what I had learnt was much more beneficial.

This piece of wisdom has saved my sanity more times than I can count now that I am a mother. When I was unable to feel the baby’s kicks, I contacted my midwife. When my infant’s cough sounded strange in the middle of the night and I wasn’t sure whether it was croup, I woke up my husband. I texted my buddies when I felt fear for no apparent reason, when the anxiety is nebulous but insistent. And when I thought I was losing my wits and had no idea what to do, I scheduled an appointment with my therapist.

So I’ve learned to extend myself. Even among friends and family who know me well and always adore me, it is not always simple. I’ve learned throughout the years that when I reach out during moments of dread, one of two things is likely to occur. In fortunate circumstances, there exists a solution or a clear road forward. Frequently, though, there is no simple solution, but at least I am not alone.

I have learned not to give in to the temptation to burrow into my fear and hide until it passes. There is nothing fear enjoys more than a dark, lonely niche in which to thrive. It grows to occupy the space we give it, and when this occurs, it is so easy to feel trapped and powerless. But dread does not fare well in the light, and the greatest way to illuminate it is to share it with another person.

Clinical social worker and author of four books on parenting, including “You Are Not a Sh*tty Parent: How to Practice Self-Compassion and Give Yourself a Break.”