NIGHTBITCH: What I Take From It

There is something deep-rooted and almost animal-like or primal about the way I resonate with Nightbitch.

To the uninitiated… the premise of Rachel Yoder’s novel and/or the film adaptation… might sound surreal… perhaps even absurd.

A mother. Overwhelmed by the suffocating isolation and demands of domesticity, begins to believe she is transforming into a dog. At first glance, it might seem like a descent into madness… an eerie unraveling of a woman’s psyche. But to me, Nightbitch is an unfiltered, guttural howl of truth… a raw and unflinching depiction of the wildness within me, the wildness within all women who have been domesticated by society’s rigid expectations.

I know intimately the feeling of being caged within the walls of my own existence, my own home oftentimes and even my own body.

The constraints of daily life. The roles I am expected to play… Wife, stepmother, caretaker… the ever-patient woman… press against me like an iron muzzle. Holding my untamed spirit at bay.

The book/movie does not portray as horror to me, nor as satire. It is an exorcism of something deep within myself. A testament to the madness that threatens to consume me when I am unseen, unheard, and overburdened.

Like Nightbitch, I have felt the slow disintegration of self. The way motherhood… and in my case, stepmotherhood… can siphon away autonomy, reducing a person to merely a vessel of service.

There is something uniquely eroding about constantly being needed but never truly known.

Nightbitch captures this in a way that is almost too real, too piercing, for those of us who live it daily.

The protagonist’s transformation is not merely physical… it is a spiritual and existential rebellion against the suffocating mediocrity of her life. Her body rebels because her mind cannot, because society does not allow her to simply scream that she is drowning. And is that not what we do? When words fail us, when we are unseen, our bodies take over… through pain, through illness, through inexplicable rage.

My Lupus gnaws at me like an invisible beast, turning my own body against itself. The chronic pain, the exhaustion, the way I sometimes feel like I am being eaten alive from the inside… it all feels eerily similar to the protagonist’s slow, terrifying transformation. Her change is, yes, grotesque, but liberating, painful, yes, but necessary. My body, too, demands that I listen to it, that I acknowledge its suffering, its hunger, its primal need to be free from what shackles it. And yet, like her, I fight against it, wrestle with the idea that I must endure and suppress rather than embrace the change that threatens to consume me.

And then there is the loneliness. Oh the overwhelming loneliness… That particular brand of loneliness that comes from existing in a role where you are everything to others but nothing to yourself. Nightbitch is not merely alone in her experience… she is unseen, dismissed, her reality questioned. How often have I felt that same gaslighting from the world? When I speak of my pain, my struggles, my internal wars, there is always that lingering doubt in others’ eyes, that silent suggestion that perhaps I am simply overreacting, faking, lazy, imagining things, making excuses. It is infuriating, alienating, and so deeply wounding.

Like Nightbitch, I am expected to keep it together, to not let the darkness seep through the cracks, to maintain the facade of being fine. But I am not fine. I am feral. I am aching to be understood, to be heard in my rawest, most unfiltered form. I long to scream and break all items in my path. I long for it so deeply I dream of it in vivid detail.

There is an undeniable catharsis in watching Nightbitch embrace her transformation and her wildness. She stops fighting it. She lets herself howl, lets herself roam, lets herself feel everything in its fullest and most instinctual and emotional intensity… and… is that not what I long for? To stop apologizing for my emotions, my intensity, my needs? To stop minimizing myself for the comfort of others? There is something intoxicating in the idea of no longer needing permission to exist loudly, to be wild, to take up space unapologetically. And yet, the world does not allow such things easily. It demands a return to modesty… properness… decorum ... to domestication… to the quiet suffering of a tight box form of womanhood.

I think often of the visuals in the movie of how Nightbitch finds solace in creation and expression. And I wonder… perhaps my writing… my poetry … is my own transformation. Perhaps I do not need to grow fangs and fur to reclaim myself. Perhaps my rebellion is in the way I spill my truth onto the page, refusing to be silenced, refusing to be caged. But still, there is a part of me that longs for something more tangible, something more physical. A primal scream, a tearing away of everything that keeps me tethered to this life of constant sacrifice.

Nightbitch is a love letter to all women who have ever felt caged, who have ever felt unseen, who have ever wanted to surrender to the wildness within them. It is a mirror held up to my own existence, reflecting back all the rage, all the exhaustion, all the desperate longing for something more. It does not offer easy answers. It does not promise redemption. But it does offer a truth that I have always known but rarely voiced… … we were never meant to be tamed. And perhaps, just perhaps, I am tired of pretending otherwise.

And even as I acknowledge my exhaustion, my longing, my hunger to be seen, I must also confess that yes, indeed, I DO love those I care for. Fiercely. Deeply. Without hesitation. I do not resent them for needing me, for leaning on me, for assuming I will always be there. Because I will be. No matter my title… stepmother, mother, caretaker, wife, nurturer… I have been there, and I will be there. That is who I am. But I cannot pretend that love alone sustains me. Love, as beautiful as it is, does not replace the need to be loved in return with the same depth, the same intensity, the same unwavering devotion that I pour into others.

There are nights where I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, and I wonder… does anyone see me? Not as a wife, not as a mother, not as the glue that holds so much together. But as me. Do they know my dreams, my fears, my secret desires? Do they ever wonder how I am feeling, not in passing, not as an obligatory courtesy, but with real, burning curiosity? I am drowning in the weight of my own silence, and I long for someone to reach into the void and say, "I care about you too."

The exhaustion of motherhood… stepmotherhood… is something no one truly prepares you for. It is a relentless, all-consuming force that does not relent, does not pause, does not allow for rest. It demands everything. And I have given everything. Not just in actions, but in the very fabric of my being. I have given my heart, my soul, my energy, my dreams, my body. And I will continue to give, because that is what love compels me to do. But I ache for reciprocity, for someone to look at me with the same devotion, the same urgency, the same passion that I give so freely.

I do not need grand gestures or poetic declarations. I do not need perfection. I need to be asked, How are you? Not as an afterthought, not as an obligation, but as an invitation. An invitation to be seen, to be understood, to be held in the same tenderness I extend to others. I need someone to recognize the quiet sacrifices, the unseen battles, the moments where I am barely holding on. To press their hands against mine and remind me that I do not exist solely to serve, to care, to provide. That I, too, am worthy of being cherished.

Nightbitch speaks to that yearning. That primal and aching need to be acknowledged. And perhaps that is why it clings to me so tightly. Because in its pages, I see myself. A woman who loves deeply but is desperate to be loved just as fiercely in return. A woman who has spent so long tending to others that she has forgotten what it feels like to be tended to. A woman who is tired… so, so tired… but who still hopes that one day, someone will reach into the darkness, take her hand, and say, "I see you too.”