Recovery in Motherhood

In March of 2020 while the world was shutting down, I was cloistered in my daughter’s nursery, holding her through every single nap of the day. She only slept if she was being held and rocked, and any change meant she would wake and cry, and I just might cry too. 

But how I loved this baby—this first, beautiful baby of mine. She was propped up against my body, perfect and warm, while I held in the palm of my hand a portal straight to Hell. 

My phone.

The exhaustion of new motherhood and the monotony of sitting in one place for hours took me deep into the world of fanfiction. This was a world I was intimately familiar with. Fanfiction had been my crutch for well over a decade—a coping mechanism I leaned on whenever reality was too much to handle. 

I first discovered it in middle school when I innocently wished my favorite book series would continue. Instead what I got was irresistible, explicit content served to me in an evil,  “justifiable” manner. 

They’re just stories. 

It’s just reading. 

They’re not real people. 

They filled every gap in my spare time. Long car rides, boring classes, breaks at work, rocking a baby for hours on end…

And I didn’t know.

I didn’t know I had a porn addiction and I know what you’re thinking, “How could you possibly not know?” 

Here’s the thing: when you grow up in an agnostic household and consume secular soup for every meal throughout your formative years, you end up spiritually malnourished. So I didn’t realize I had an addiction until I tried to stop, and couldn’t.

Oh, how I wanted to stop. While I was rocking that baby I was also taking RCIA classes via Zoom, praying my entrance into the Church wouldn’t be delayed. 

I wanted to stop this compulsive dive into porn for the sake of my daughter. 

I wanted to stop because I loved the Church and her teachings on sex and sexuality. 

I wanted to stop because I loved my husband and wanted to honor him. 

I wanted to stop because I wanted to be worthy of Christ.

But I didn’t know where to begin. I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of porn’s hold on me and the insidious way it touched everything in my life. I had used porn to anesthetize pain and discomfort for so long, how could I leave it behind and expose myself to the suffering I’ve avoided for 13 years?

The answer was painfully simple: it wasn’t about letting porn go, it was about letting Christ in. 

With every practical measure I took to limit my access to fanfiction—to pornography—I had to let Christ fill the void. It was like pulling splinters from my flesh and after each excision letting Him tend the wound. These places of pain I brought to Him in prayer and through the sacrament of confession.

I had to allow His wounds to heal mine. 

It would take me at least a year to reach some measure of sobriety, and another year after to enter into a place of real healing. And by the time my second baby came, I could soak in the beauty of both of my children with clarity and freedom. 

It’s from this freedom that I write to you today, while rocking my third baby. 

The freedom He wants for you too.