Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness

by Catherine Cho

Pregnancy felt like a separation from the body. My body was doing something on its own, a pre-programmed path it already knew, and I no longer had any control over. It felt like a hand sharply bringing my spirit back to my body, a return to the earthiness of it. It was also an erasure of self; I didn’t feel more ‘me’, I felt like I was being split, being shared. My body was no longer my own, I was a carrier, a holder of life. It was a reminder that my body was a collection of blood and bones.

It was a warning against the triumph of love, because something so beautiful, so raw, can only end. To bare one’s heart is to know suffering, vulnerability. It is a destructive force. That’s what makes it beautiful, to know mortality and failure, but to step off the edge anyway.