Sorry, this is really long, please feel free to skip most of it and just answer the title Q if you like.
I'm a long term sufferer of depression which has cleared as soon as I have become pregnant on both occassions. This time it didn't clear and I just can't do it anymore.
I have only a few weeks to go before DC3 is born but things are just getting worse, I cannot bear the thought of him meeting me for the first time while I am like this.
I feel like a terrible, incompetent mother. My poor DCs are suffering as one minute I am OK, the next I am shouting at them. I am not parenting in the way I would like to and I feel I am being incredibly disrespectful towards my beautiful DCs. Some days I sit at the table with them at mealtimes and just sob - it's just not acceptable for me to do that. I have totally different, higher standards for myself than anyone else btw - not sure how to deal with that one. I feel like a total failure. I really don't care about any mistakes I have made in the past but my beautiful children are far to important for me to mess thing up for. My parents always told me I would be a terrible parent and I was so bloody set on proving them wrong. They said I would be useless at everything and I just want to stick two fingers up to them and show they were wrong (although that is not what drives me from day to day, when I'm down it feels like they are just saying, see we were right').
At night I cannot sleep for terrible nightmares, they come during the day too - really graphic images of my children suffering in some way or another - stupid depression brain I know but I just don't have the energy to fight it right now. I have no one in RL to talk to about this, I rarely go out and see other mums as I cannot afford to.
I just want to get things right. Doesn't everyone? Stupid thing to say I guess but at least I'd like to get the important bits 3/4 right.
Today DD1 had her first day at 'big (primary) school' - a sort of get to know you session before she starts PT in Sept. I had my suspicions she was suffering as she has been very out of sorts recently, tantrums are just so very rare for her. 30 mins before we left to go she started to get visibly nervous (although up until then she had been keen and I had played the whole thing as best I could - new friends, etc etc). When we got there she was terrrified and clung to me like she has never done before. She came home and 40 mins later wet herself - she has never done that - not even with potty training. I know I'm not handling things well at all and I just wanted to make this as easy for her as possible - obviously I didn't! DD2 (23m)is very hard work too, very hard, tantrums all the time, obsessive about 1001 things. I should be able to cope with all this and as soon as this depression shifts I know I will.
I want to go on ADs ASAP but very much want to BF DC3 too for a fair while - it's going to be tough if this doesn't clear due to some hormome shift when he is born.
Sorry to ramble on. It is rambling, I've missed loads of important bits I'm sure but just needed to type ASAP before DDs need me and while I could face it.
Thanks for reading this far. I just don't feel I can do this alone and have no idea where else to turn. Have DH but he doesn't understand.
btw I have namechanged also - sorry. Can't accept myself right now and don't want people to see me like this - I never let people see me down.
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Mental health
OK Someone please tell me their depression has miraculously cleared on meeting their new baby or I don't know what I'll do
10 replies
MaryPoppinsAteMyHamster · 11/04/2008 17:19
OP posts:
PotPourri ·
11/04/2008 21:07
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