I worry about lots of things - This is LONG and rambly! - Don't know if I should go to the GP/how bad my mental health is

[crokky]

I'm thinking of going the to the GP about something, but I would prefer it if she would just advise me rather than it going onto my medical notes. Does anyone know if I can ask her not to record the conversation - being that I am not saying anything dangerous/criminal or asking for any medication! Just advice really.

Basically, I worry a fair bit - I have a baby (DD) and a toddler (DS) and am still breastfeeding the baby (8 months). I love them more than anything in the world and my worries revolve around them and what might happen to them. I am not particularly concerned about myself or my DH. I think it is partly the breastfeeding hormones fuelling my worry (I plan to stop at 12 months, I would feel guilty if I stopped for myself). After I stopped breastfeeding my toddler (when he was 12m) I did feel a lot better, but got pg immediately, which brought other problems - hyperemesis + more complications!). My pgs were both physically horrendous to endure from start to finish and the complications were frightening and both my DCs had to be delivered 3 weeks early (which stressed me out, especially as my DS?s breathing was not very fabulous).

My DH is out virtually 24/7 - he works huge hours and only comes home to sleep and often will get home after we have all gone to bed and go out before we are up again. So I have to shoulder 99% of all the parenting/house type responsibilities myself, although my mum helps me out a lot. I think all the responsibility without any input from DH is also not helping my worry, but he says that he cannot work less in the forseeable future. He is at work now and will not be home before we are in bed! (This is a 9-5 M-F office job and it isn?t in London!). All decisions (even major ones) are made solely by me - eg shall the kids have vit K/MMR jabs, what school should they go to etc, what car we could get, which house to buy (seriously!) all this is up to me and DH is happy to go along with what I say. Trivial things are also up to me - getting kids clothes, food, decorating, anything to do with car etc. DH?s only real concerns are his job and how many DVDs he has got to watch. He isn?t nasty, in fact he is very supportive when he is here, but that isn?t often and he usually comes home about half an hour before he needs to go to bed.

I'm not sure exactly how irrational my worries are and how much they are being impacted by breastfeeding and having virtually sole parental responsibility for 2 little children. I would really like to speak to a professional. I think it is relatively low level anxiety so would be solved by speaking to a professional. I don't think I would need any medication or serious treatment. The sorts of things that I worry about are:

-If say someone dropped a packet of something small on my floor (say very small buttons/marbles), I would worry that one of the DCs would swallow it/choke etc. I would be out with the vacuum, moving furniture etc to ensure I got every last one up. My mum would honestly consider this a bit neurotic - she'd just pick up what she could see.

-I would be anxious if I had a friend with a 5yo round and the 5yo was playing with marbles for the same reasons as above. I would be uncomfortable watching the 5yo - I wouldn't think he/she would swallow it as he/she is older than my DC, but he/she might lose one which my DC would later find.

-(This has happened) - I opened an old sports bag to find 3 mouldy (severely) satsumas that had been rotting in the unopened bag for 3 months. I was convinced DS (a few days old at the time, milk coming in etc) was going to be poisoned by some stray mould (and I thought he would die).

-Last week, I found a pile of sugary stuff in my car. I just though it was a broken up biscuit from a few weeks ago and cleared it up rather carelessly (baby wiped a bit of the seat etc). It turned out (few days later I found this out) that a battery from the torch I keep in the car had exploded (old and cold I suppose) and the sugary biscuit was infact nasty battery acid/chemical. I have heard/read sometime in the past that if a child swallows a battery, they can die. All the contents of a battery are in my car and I am really really stressed out about it. It will now be in small quantities as it has been cleaned, but I feel stressed every time I get in the car now. (as it happened recently). This is my main worry for today and I think about it many times a day. (I usually forget about worries relatively soon, but I can't shake the worry that I didn't clear it up carefully and there could be small amounts of this chemical in my car/house and my DC will be poisoned and die). I feel physically worried about this one and I don't want to have to worry any more, so this has prompted my post.

-If my DS was in the garden running around, I would not worry about him getting muddy/dirty/wet, but I would be very anxious about him touching a plant if I didn't know what it was/whether it was poisonous. I also get stressed when mushrooms grow in the grass when it rains because I worry about them being poisonous and getting on him etc.

I don't let my worries stop my DC doing things, I don't want them to worry about stupid things like I do and I want them to have nice childhoods and experiences.

To balance things and put this in perspective, I would like to list things that I can be rational about and don't worry about:

-I have never had my DD weighed since the HV visits stopped when she was v young (she's 8 months now). I have never taken her to baby clinic etc as if she looks happy etc, then I don't worry and don't see the need to get things checked.

-I don't worry about things that are out of my control - some people worry about car travel, but I take the attitude that if the DCs are in seats appropriate for their weight, age, height and development and the seats are properly fitted and the driver is careful then I have done all I can.

-I can make decisions re my DCs/home/life very easily. Generally, I will feel confident that having considered the facts, I can make a good decision.

-I am a relatively confident person and will say things as they are with most people (other than my dad and stepmother who are, well, not very nice people at all and taunt me if I worry about things and constantly belittle my life/parenting skills - all of which I am happy with).

So does anyone have any idea how far away from "sane" I am and if I see the GP, will she record it? I don't want any health professionals to think that I am a bad mother - I would be scared that they would want to take my children away. I also don't want to take medication because I would like to think this can be helped another way.

[constancereader]

They would not think you were a bad mother and there is no way the information you give would give them cause for concern about your parenting. You sound completely sane, in fact you sound unusually realistic about your situation.

No wonder you are tired and anxious - with two pg and continuous bf (both of which make me hormonal and over anxious) and having to cope alone . Have you talked to your dh about this? WHY does he have to work such long hours?

[notnowbernard]

Sorry you are feeling worried and unsettled about things

I think a GP has to document every consultation. But from what you've said I don't think you have to worry at all about having your dc taken from you, so please try not to let this thought influence your decision to visit the GP or not

Have you told DH how things are for you atm?

[constancereader]

Also do you get enough sleep and exercise?

I ask because both those things really impact on my mental health.

[crokky]

To answer questions:

Yes, my DH knows about everything I have written above. So does my mum and so does my brother - I don't hide things from them - I have a very nice family. Although I do hide them from my dad and stepmother as they are difficult.

No, I don't get proper sleep. My toddler has only just started sleeping reliably at night, with no nap in the day. He will still wake up, just wanting a cuddle, nothing else. My baby is a really bad sleeper . She wants to get up about 4x a night for brief bfs so although I can get her down quickly and still get a reasonable number of hours sleep, they will be broken a number of times. DH has never got up to them (needs sleep for work) and recently he tried to, but they both wanted me so it was difficult. I exercise a bit. I take my toddler swimming a lot, he's quite good in a floaty vest so I let go but am always with him, but can move around a bit myself. Occasionally, I can go to the gym with my DD in her buggy whilst my mum has my DS. I don't leave them both with her as they are a handful, but she can have one at a time!

Quite honestly, I think the worry caused by this being on my records would be greater than the worry that I am actually experiencing from the problem! When I see things in the papers where children have been taken away for adoption for no reason, I worry that it could be me (irrational!) so I would like all documentation on me to be non controversial. I am someone who obeys rules - I have never had a parking ticket and that sort of thing.

I don't really understand my DH's work - he has just moved office and that office is very understaffed, but he is a workaholic and has been since he started working. He seems quite obsessed with it and I cannot get through to him about it. For example, he only managed to get to DD's birth because it was a bank holiday weekend. He had his paternity leave when she was a month old because of work! When he was a child, his parents had no money, his father was made redundant and they were in fear of the house being repossed. He is very careful with his job and he is afraid of being in that situation again I think. It really nags at him even though it is in the past and his parents would help us out if we couldn't pay our mortgage.

[notnowbernard]

You seem to be doing the 'right' things (ie. you're trying to look after yourself) Going to the gym, getting out with the kids, letting your Mum help you out, being honest about things

To me it seems that the issues with DH are the biggies. You describe him as a workaholic - he does indeed sound like one. He is not emotionally available to or for you. His primary relationship in life is with work... surely it should be with you, his family? If his 'absence' was due to excessive drinking or gambling, for example, would you tolerate it in the same way? To me, an anonymous outsider, it doesn't seem that different

Can you talk to him about it again? What do you want/need from him?

How do you get along when he IS around? Can he ever switch off?

[constancereader]

I do understand about your worry about telling your GP as I suffer from those kind of worries sometimes myself. But just let me say that they are irrational, there is simply no way that any of what you say could be a reason for taking away your children. I

I found CBT very helpful when dealing with my irrational anxieties. It certainly gave me a sense of perspective I previously lacked.

The effect of cumulative lack of sleep should certainly not be underestimated.

I do wonder if your dh couldn't be persuaded to talk to someone about his anxieties? His attitude to work seems obsessive to say the least. I really think you have the right to a great deal more support from him than you are getting.

[notnowbernard]

Agree re sleep, btw - lack of it can exacerbate anxiety tenfold (if not more)

[crokky]

Yes, that's partly what is putting me off about going to the GP as well (my DH not being here). I'm not sure that I think it is right for me to have [medical] treatment for a condition that may be helped substantially by my DH being here.

What is CBT? I think I know what it stands for, but I am not sure what actually happens when you have it/what is physically is. Will anyone give it privately so it doesn't have to be recorded?

My DH is extremely stubborn. I am certain he would not speak to someone - he is not even honest with his own parents when he has problems, although he is honest with me. He would also maintain that he does not have a problem re work - he provides money for all of us so it is "necessary".

[crokky]

I do get on with him when he is here - we are very well suited etc but I do feel that we are leading increasingly separate lives. He always thinks "long term" but doesn't seem to realise that we are in the long term already! ie it is OK to sacrifice evenings and weekends when studying for exams etc, but it is not OK forever - he seems to think it is still OK 10 years down the line.

[notnowbernard]

When were you last able to sit down with him and have a proper, uninterrupted talk about how you are feeling and how life is for you atm?

Is he working tomorrow? DOes he work every weekend?

When he's at home is he 'switched off' from work or does that never happen? (ie mobile off, away from computer etc)

[snowcrystal]

HIi there.Sounds as if you are naturally a very consientious and careful person .
Do you feel you are a bit of a perfectionist at all?
If you are v. responsible [I know I am]then the weight of looking after two little ones on your owncan be very heavy.
I think the worries you describe aren't medical but show the burden of stress you are under.
Try to reduce your stress by getting time to go on a course,talk to other mums etc cos if you take small things too seriously if a big thing goes wrong you might get panicked.
Tell your dh that you can do the childcare but the whole burden of their upbringing should be talked aboutand shared between you. .
Have you thought about a part time job so you have your own life and others share the care of the l.o.s?
btw have you ever retraced your path in the car cos you thought you might have run some thing over~ just out of interest.
Don't really think most gps would offer much and might make you anxious [unless you feel very low or probs sleeping etc.]
Ther's a ridiculous pressure on us to be perfectparents these days from the media etc
You're obviously an excellent parent if you make a mistake or something goes wrong that's fine noone's going to die from mould in the air or tiny bits of battery don't worry.

[yousaidit]

crokky ; go see your gp but i suggest you ask for referral to mental health unit BUT not because i'm being dramatic!!!!

you sound a bit ike my bf who started to 'worry' about mundane things but the worries became a bitr more nagging and she started to have to go back tpo the car when shopping thinking she'd not locked the car, wouldn't answer the phone in case it was about the ds.. only little things but getting v shaky and not sleeping, her gp referred to mental health a nd a psychiatric nurse is visiting: not a mental health issue per se, more beig very anxious, but it is something getting worked on and put right...

[StephanieByng]

No wonder you're anxious; you're chronically sleep deprived and over-burdened.

Someone, whether it's you, or someone who loves you, needs to withdraw your consent NOW to your husband absenting himself from virtually all his responsibilities; because his doing so is starting to seriously affect your mental health.

Sorry if that sounds blunt. But your children deserve a mother who is well enough to look after them and they deserve at least some parenting from their father.

[crokky]

Thanks for your replies. Even talking about it on here makes me feel a bit better.

I do feel that this is something that I will get over and am trying my best to think positive.

snowcrystal - I like to do things the best I can, although don't really go for perfection. I go for timesaving really - I don't iron things etc. I haven't retraced a car journey - I think my anxieties are a bit different - I overthink situations that are happening/have happened and think of frightening (worst possible) outcomes.

Unfortunately, I can't get through to my DH. Yes, he is at work today as usual (he has worked the last 70 days consecutively and he sees absolutely nothing wrong with this). He has no problem with it - he doesn't resent his employer for it and he doesn't seem to understand the level of neglect that he is giving me and the DC. He is quite tired, but he will just sleep in the spare room without hesitation if he is tired. He seems to be able to exist on very little sleep. I have emailed him today asking him to help me get rid of my anxiety and to be here more. His response was just to say that he will just give up and leave us if I am not happy. He just thinks I am having a go at him and feels hurt because he genuinely thinks he is a model husband and father. I never consented to him absenting himself from home - at the start it was always a reason/excuse - I have an exam/a client wants something/this month is busy/I will need 12 months to get to grips with the new office (these months have elapsed). Finally I said to him that I don't want to hear any more excuses about why he is not here and that if he was going to be absent, it was his problem and he would be missing out and to just consider that really. Recent examples - I took DS on a train ride last weekend where Father Christmas comes round to see the children - I took my brother as my husband as DH was at work and I left my DD with my mum as she was too little. I just can't get through to him and my mum thinks I will have to sort my problems out without his help. I have gradually become numb to his absence - I would have been really upset if he had stayed at work late/worked a weekend in the beginning, but I now just expect it every day and don't get upset about it. I don't think I am going to go the GP just yet for this reason - my anxiety is not 100% my problem.

[StephanieByng]

It's such a shame all round. He will miss their childhoods. They will miss having a father.

I know you say you never consented; well I personally feel that now, if you let this continue, you are tacitly consenting.

his aggressive response re: leaving is calculated to frighten you into dropping the whole issue so that he can carry on in the same way. I think you need to press on past that initial response and tell him you need a huge talk and you need it now.

To be totally honest maybe him leaving would be a good thing if it means he has to make time to have contact with the children. I know that sounds glib and I don't say that lightly at all; I've worked with kids damaged by a split situation. But this current situation is not damage free, is it? You are getting ill and I for one believe that children who feel constantly second best to work will be affected in terms of their self esteem.

You sound an absolute star for coping so well but I think it's doing you no favours actually. Stop coping and then maybe he'll see he has responsibilities at home as well.

[muchlessanxiousnow]

Hmm well first off I don't think making an effort to find every marble is irrational at all! And I would keep an eye on marbles myself if an older child was playing with them as I would not like to think of one being on the floor. I should say that I have had CBT for anxiety and OCD in the past, but even despite that - I now have a pretty good handle on which of my anxieties are over the top, and which are more solidly grounded in sensible caution when caring for children, and I would count not having lots of stray marbles around with a soon-to-be-mobile baby in the house as sensible.

Anyway... I think the issue with most of these is not the fact that you're giving any thought to them - they're all sensible things to have given some thought to, it's whether you're worrying intensively and for so long that it's affecting your general life negatively. E.g. with the marbles, too much worrying would not be getting down to look under the sofa to be sure you'd got every last one, but it would probably be going over and over in your mind for days afterwards as to whether or not there could still be ones there. Similarly I'd pay attention to what very small children were doing in a garden with toadstools if they were too small not to know not to touch them, but an OCD/overanxious worry for me would be spending hours afterwards not being able to shake the feeling that their garden clothes could have been contaminated from the grass, even if I had no evidence to believe they'd touched even one toadstool. I still have feelings like that, as it happens, but now that I know where they come from I deal with that by trying to just let the feeling wash over me, rather than acting on it by doing extra changes of clothes and washing and so on.

I agree that it sounds as though having all that pressure and responsibility is not helping here, and it may be giving you a bit of a general anxiety problem, which because of the nature of your main responsibilities is quite focused on being extra sure your children are safe. I know what you mean about things that are out of your control being less of a worry - for what it's worth, anxiety combined with a strong feeling of personal responsibility to make things safer when you can can be an OCD thing for some people - but that doesn't mean you've got OCD (before you panic!). From my experience so far the boundaries between different kinds of anxiety are very blurred and sometimes something may have an 'OCDish' flavour where it features a lot of intensive thinking about some things, but that's not the same thing as 'having OCD' - it's all just anxiety coming across in different ways.

I don't think you need to worry about anyone overreacting and taking your children away if you go to the GP about your anxiety - tbh I would just say you generally feel you're getting overanxious about some things without going into detail because everything you've put sounds so mild. There just doesn't seem to be anything absolutely, objectively irrational about anything you've listed - it's not what you're concerned about, it's how time-consuming the worrying is for you that seems to suggest an anxiety issue at the moment - and that whole anxiety thing is likely to be so affected by lack of sleep and lack of support that it might well evaporate if those things could be improved.

If you are interested, do some hunting round for books on anxiety and the theory behind it, and on different kinds of intrusive and anxious thoughts about things - you may find that simply being able to recognise some things as overanxious and do your own homegrown 'exposure and response prevention' (for instance don't try not to think about things, rather try to practise accepting risks while understanding that you may not be able to get the anxious feeling to go away straight away) could help you to change things. And if you do decide to see your GP, I think what they're going to be interested in is how much the anxiety, and the time-consuming worrying, is making it hard for you to function, rather than in identifying particular worries as objectively irrational. Does that make sense?

I hope you do get some more support and sleep soon - I think you've done very well to identify anxiety that's just beginning to get a bit out of control, and you're doing the right thing trying to do something about it. Please don't start thinking of yourself as irrational or fundamentally mentally ill though and worrying about your children being taken away - anxiety is so so common and there are so many things that people can do to help you deal with it, and that you can find out about yourself to help, that it's really not the disaster it may seem.

[snowcrystal]

Agree with muchless ~ good advice.
I picked up on
your dcs are very important to you and you want to be sure they're extra safe,
alsoyou're finding it difficult to make a decision about going to gp for fear of what they might think of you and fear of that being recorded,
you're not sure if your worries are excessive.
What I think is you are at the limit of the stress you can cope with.Stresses can be from the past[like the births],the present,and you don't know what is in the future.You need a break to be your own person away ffrom the l.o.s.If yyour dh won't help you ,you must get some space so you feel a bit less indispensible and reduce the weight on your shoulders.
Also ,instead of being frightened of what could happen to yourdcs,put yourself in the frame of mind that whatever happens,you will be able to cope with itfor example;
if one of the dcs had ppt the battery in their mouth you would take it out,and seek medical advice,problem solved.
I'm not being patronising believe me.I found trying to think of every eventuality and prevent every accident quite limiting and felt much better when I turned it around to being fairly sensible but confident to act if something happened.
I was wondering if you are put off going to gp by dhs reaction.
FWIW I don't think the gp would offer a lotunless you are depressed or v. anxious wanting treatment.
CBT offered by a clinical psychologist may help but I don,t think normal counselling would help myself.
Have you considered a homestart volunteer parent who could lend a bit of support and perspective~its for anyone with ch under 5 yrs and its low key and non~statutory.

[notnowbernard]

Totally agree with stephanie's last post, in particular the last line of it

Hope you are ok, Crokky

I agree, I don't think you need medical intervention atm. I think this is more about what's going on for you at home and in your relationship with DH