Admittedly, feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and shame affect all mothers. The concerns I harbour about how my mental illnesses might compromise my ability to parent reflect a societal tendency to hold mothers to astronomically high standards, judging the hell out of them when they fall short. This pressure has always been there, but it somehow feels worse today when there’s always a perfect-looking parent in your social media feed. In a Refinery29 survey of 500 Canadian women about motherhood and social media, 82% said they compare themselves to other moms online. Most mainstream media representations of motherhood don’t help. And I’ll admit, this idealized maternal martyr — the kind who bakes cookies like Martha Stewart and gives sage advice like Marmee — was once the kind of mom I once fantasized about being. (Which is also pretty typical of someone with anxiety: We tend to accept nothing less than perfection, even though, intellectually, we know no one can be perfect.)