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Bella Messina

Australian podcast host of Up Past Bedtime and Beyond the Bump, sharing motherhood and single-parent life on TikTok and Instagram (@bellsmessina).

Jul 30, 2026

17:49
so it must have been fulfilling purposeful and felt like you're on the right path what are some of the elements looking back where you start to go that doesn't quite feel right for me what are the elements that felt like they didn't quite connect for you after a while
18:05
I feel like people say like mothering is the hardest task and I, it's hard, it's hard work.
18:11
I feel like it's especially hard because it is completely undervalued.
18:15
So you're doing like a task that is really hard and it's all, it's all consuming.
18:20
Like you, you're, when you're a stay at home mom, when you're a mom, it's 24 seven, but when you're a stay at home mom, it's 24 seven and it is your job.
18:29
You know, like you've set up a structure in your relationship where it's like, oh, the baby wakes, that's you because you're doing baby, you know? you know? And you do often feel like as a society it is undervalued massively.
18:43
Like the amount of times like, you know, you get door knockers and they're like, oh, do you want to give to this, whatever? And they'd be like, oh, what's your career? And I remember one time I said to a guy, oh, I'm a mum.

29 MINS LATER

47:43
that's it but post leaving your marriage what do you have you discovered about yourself now that some of those limits have been taken away what were some of the discoveries you made about yourself
24:43
So what was that moment? When did that happen, and how did that go?
24:46
The, the first sign that I was really like, "I'm really struggling here," is I was at home, and I was just crying, and crying, and crying, and I'd cried from the second my husband had left for, for work-And I just cried for like four hours straight, and I couldn't stop crying.
25:06
And I'm, I was insane, and went through this stage where I daily vlogged for a year straight.
25:11
And I remember I was, like, taking clips and clips, and I had to keep being like, "Well, I can't use that because I'm just standing there sobbing, making a coffee, and I'm sobbing trying to play with my kids in the playroom." And I'd gotten to the point where I was like, "I need to call my husband and be like, 'You need to come home and take these kids,' because I'm...
25:31
I don't know.
25:31
I can't stop cr- I'm so depressed.
25:35
Like, I cannot stop crying here." And I remember I ended up keeping the clips, and I, like, cut them all together, and then did a clip of me just, I was in hysterics that I had had to call him to come home.

5 MINS LATER

31:15
And what did recovery or the start of recovery look like for you?

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