Feeling completely overwhelmed, I keep screaming into a pillow

1. speak to your GP
2. speak to your husband. You need a day off and a cleaner. Just for a while
3. give yourself a break re his nutrition. Get some good quality vitamins in (like Animal Parade) and let him have just the milk and a banana if he refuses food. For a month.
4. bag up all their toys apart from 3 each into bullies and put in loft. Rotate the 3 toys each every 2 weeks.

Does the 2 year old eat at nursery?

My daughter was a great eater until about 2-3. Then we started loosing foods, so she would refuse food she had previously enjoyed. It was exhausting.

I gave in in the end and just gave her what she wanted. Fed is best.

She’s 16 now and a couple of professionals have suggested she may be autistic. She doesn’t want a diagnosis as she mainly manages fine, but it has taken bucket loads of me being a bit over protective in managing her routines and needs against others who think I am being a pushover/overprotective.

Speak to nursery and ask to discuss the behaviour - they know your child and are also trained to help. They may have some suggestions to help you.

Oh noo, you are doing amazing! Please take all the time you need to be angry and shout and feel sorry for yourself. Motherhood is bloody hard! You are not alone, I promise. I raised two kids on my own as husband was also working away al the time. House was a shit bomb too. We are very critical of ourselves, don't let anybody else's opinions to bring you down. Straighten your crown Queen❤️

Hi, it sounds so, so stressful. I really feel
for you . Just coming at it from a different angle have you considered an aspect of it might be hormonal?

I don’t know your age but in your mid to late 30’s your progesterone and your testosterone starts to tank. Which really can mess with your moods , tolerance and energy ( not saying you have to have a hormonal imbalance to feel stressed by what sounds like essentially lone parenting!!).

the only way we make pr0gesterone is by ovulating . If you don’t ovulate you don’t have any progesterone.

if you do ovulate you might not be making enough pr0gesterone. To check you need to get your oestrogen and progesterone bloods done 5-7 days post ovulation then you calculate the ratio between the two . If it’s less than 100 you’re not making enough.

you can test your testosterone any time .

progesterone is a calming and anti -anxiety hormone . However it also shares its metabolic route and precursors with cortisol . When you’re chronically stressed you don’t make progesterone you make more and more cortisol and then it’s like a negative feedback loop.

I’m only mentioning it because I had low prOg and testosterone and I didn’t know what was wrong with me and doctors kept trying to give me ADs and it was a hormonal issue . I’ve spent a long time researching it .

Not at all saying you’re not in a stressful
situation but just suggesting another idea.

Jesus, your husband is a useless, judgemental streak of piss. He’s a failure of a parent.

I hope your week is getting somewhat better OP and you have had a bit of time to yourself 💕

This is a really good way of wording it.

I think people take antidepressants and expect to feel happiness which isn't the goal and many get upset when they feel emotionally stunted but it's like taking painkillers and expecting euphoria, instead of just not being able to feel the pain.

I'm a big advocate for a combination of talking therapy and medication but you've got to be lucky enough to have access to NHS talking therapies or be able to afford private. It can be hard seeing your personal progress without it, but it's definitely something that should be a necessity and not a luxury which is apparently is these days.

I think of anti depressants a bit like pain killers. They don't really fix anything, they just give you a temporary break from the pain which enables you to function better so you can start taking action to improve things for yourself that would have been too overwhelming otherwise.

Hey OP my heart goes out to you. I too, screamed into a pillow a few times this week! You are not alone. Parenting is so fucking hard especially when you have a kid who is just relentless. Antidepressants might be a good shout, i’m thinking of taking them
again too, but also you need a serious talk with your DH and you MUST MUST MUST get a break. Hotel spa weekend to yourself sort of break.

I'm just going to print out that your child has two parents - where's hubby's responsibility for behaviour? Also if hubby and everyone else and their goat is berating you at every opportunity, of course your son is going to pick up undesirable behaviour- that is on them, not on you. Please give yourself some grace. You are surrounded by muppets - time to tell them to either give proper help (or in the case of hubby, actually step up and do some parenting!) Or fuck off. Massive hugs x

You need a plan of action to make things better for yourself and help you with the children and the various pressures you are coping with. It's a heavy burden, considering you have been unwell - which seems to be being overlooked and unaddressed - are practically and emotionally unsupported by husband, parents and in-laws and assailed by doubt and feelings of guilt or failure, largely brought on by their lack of support, coupled with carping and fault finding.

Can you make up your mind to take one step? Choose which one and do it. You have several possibilities - one would be to drop your hesitation or fears, throw away caution and have a good clear truthful conversation with husband, telling him straight that he is not pulling his weight and you have had enough: you are unsupported, he has no empathy or consideration for you and that you have reached a point of no return and he has to step in and do more, if he wants to have a wife and mother to the children / if he doesn't want to see you carried out on a stretcher.

An alternative approach with husband would be to take action instead. Decide you are going out on Saturday morning / afternoon / night etc, tell him you are going and it's his turn to be on duty, and go, leaving him to it and to the tender mercies of the children.

Another option would be to speak to your mother and tell her you have reached exhaustion and crisis point and need some respite and help from her and your father. (I say both of them but I really think of the mother as being the one, no doubt because of my own experience of family and women) Why isn't she aware of this already? Why isn't she helping you? I don't get this. Did she know you were unwell and have a health condition? If she doesn't know, why do you hesitate to tell her or ask for help? Throw away your doubt and go and ask her.

An alternative would be to ask social services, health visitor (as has been mentioned by some posters) or local parents' charity, if there is one, to help you get help. Why not go and do that if you feel you can't with husband or parents?

Another avenue would be paid help with the children and house - an au pair or occasional temporary nanny to give you one evening off a week, say, or a half day or night away at the weekend.

Please stop suffering with pressures, guilt, worry and exhaustion and make changes, one way or another. The GP is another option as many have suggested. I am not convinced about anti-depressants being an answer when what you need is moral and practical support and consideration but that's just a personal view and not necessarily one you or others may share.

Maybe if I just went to a hotel for one night and a day, it could help.

I would hope it would least be eye opening for your husband who might then dial down his judgmental comments a bit.

I think you should open up to your GP about everything you have found tough on here. You deserve to be listened too and I am sure they can help.

I was a similar mum. Since birth, my dc were allowed as much screen time as they wanted, eat what they wanted in bed or on the sofa (younger dc lives on chicken nuggets, milk, cheerios and peas, even for Christmas dinner). My kids are lovely. Both are neurodiverse, so that explains why screens are extremely important and calming to them and why they have a limited taste/diet. But they are extremely polite, kind and are doing exceptionally well at school, self motivated, straight A*s, 1 dc won every scholarship going and grade 7 in two instruments, mudic theory and voice age 12. Just don't sweat it. Maybe your son has ADHD. If you try to control him, it won't work. Screens, fun, rough and tumble, messy play, feeding on demand, going easy on homework but maybe try some fun apps and encourage them to be in charge of their learning as much as possible, maybe get your boy into rugby todds or something to tire him out - they will be absolutely fine. I'm convinced it's 69% genes, 9% school and 19% peers how kids turn out, and parental efforts are in the long run negiglible. The best thing you can do is keep your sanity and a positive relationship with your kids, everything else really is not going to make a difference. At least see it that way: what you are currently trying is not working. Doing more of the same, just stricter, is not going to make them 'better', it might make them worse (especially if they are neurodiverse), and it's definitely going to break you.

I've been unhappy for too long. My kids deserve a happy mum.

True, and you also deserve a happy you!

Make a plan and come tell us what it is (if you like).

I agree with pp who say you should try the anti depressants that you were prescribed.

I like your post a lot, @Nafotdbs.

You've described my experience well.

On bad days, it can be like having a crap employee!

Something else I feel is that it's hard to go against the norm, even when the norm is bad.

DH sometimes turns to me worriedly after spending time with friends with useless/passive/clueless/workaholic other halves and hisses "I know it's not OK to be like thar!"

To see change you need to make change.

Very easy to say, extremely hard to do when you're not in the right mindset.

OP, you are becoming a barrier to yourself. You were prescribed antidepressants but didn't take them. Sleep deprivation and burnout is the cause but it doesn't sound like you're going to have a quick solution, so take the meds. Talk to your health visitor, they should be able to refer you to some sort of support. You let your husband have lie-ins. You are worries about asking for help from the grandparents.

You won't take the children out without someone with you- that's you're anxiety making you think that's normal, it really isn't. I completely understand the reason why, but the more you don't go out the harder it's getting.

Refusing to take them out because your eldest got hurt whilst running after the youngest, worried about going to a farm because they will get hit by a car, they'll run off into the woods.....
That is your anxiety making excuses.

They dont get out enough so play up more, both at home and when you do actually take them out. The 2 year old will eventually get used to reins. The 2 year is probably running away to get some playful attention from you (in his mind). Is there anyway you can arrange a playmate in a park for your eldest, she can play with a friend and you can play with the youngest (he can run away safely, you can pretend to hide so he also learns that he could get lost).

Things you cannot change: having a 2 & 4 year old. They are meant to be active, they aren't meant to sit still. You are describing normal toddler behaviour, but you are too burnout to deal with it.

It's not your fault, but you do need to do something. Without support I don't know how you've managed this long. However, as I said at the start, this will be extremely difficult if you're not ready to implement the changes.

Agreed. Also it doesn't help me on a personal level as I end up in even worse fight or flight mode with a side order of guilt. Secondly it totally takes the weight out of any arguments I have to stop the kids yelling at one another as I've lowered the tone with the parental example. Thirdly if it doesn't work then I've used my trump card and totally lost any authority I had in the room (which arguably once you've lost control that's gone anyway) and finally I end up spending more time dealing with the upset children who got shouted that then I would have done using gentle techniques to get the behaviour I wanted in the first place. Just a bit of a fail all round tbh. Not that any of that prevents me from shouting sometimes, which is ridiculous as it's proven to be completely ineffective on multiple occasions.

I disagree with this. A bit of fear maybe when they're older. But at 2, it's just mean.

I don't like, condone or agree with it, but time and time again it seems that some men need more...tutoring/direction/expectation setting/orders than women. Especially in parenting. A lot of women I know just get on with it, whereas the men default to 'if you want me to do something just ask'.

I remember DH asking me questions about DS and me replying 'we've both been parents for about 7 hours...why are you asking me??'. Something about a woman's body changing during the pregnancy giving us months of extra time to realise how much life is changing, then it's us who take the leave etc and care for the kids whereas after 2 weeks most men are typically back in their standard routine with the standard friends/colleagues etc and not much else changes. Add that to centuries of gender stereotypes and you can see why some of them assume that the women will just handle it and ask for help if required.

Trying to be careful with language here, it's not all men or all women, but seems to be a running theme in chats I have with other mums that unless they are directly asked and often that some fathers will naturally think it's the mothers role and carry on in blissful ignorance. It's not acceptable. DH often says if I wasn't so forceful in my expectations of him he wouldn't be half the parent he is. He's had lots of time alone with the kids as I need time by myself to stay sane. He really wanted to be a parent whereas I wasn't that fussed. So I was very very open from the earliest days that it was his dream and he was expected to put in a fair share of the work which it entailed. Ridiculous that that even needed voicing, but sadly in a society where parenting is still often stereotypically defaultly viewed (again trying to be as generalist as possible) as 'woman's work' I wanted to have it out there from the start that if that's how it was going to be for us then I wasn't interested in having a family with him. He has done, but even with that motivation it's been bloody hard work to keep things even remotely level.

We have 'parent #1' and 'parent #2' days whereby even though we're all there, someone takes on the role of 'lead parent' for the day. Honestly the first time I was #2 I realised why DH never had a clue when the next feed/nappy change was or whatever, if you don't see it as your responsibility it's easier to take no notice of it. Haven't had to do this for a while as the kids are less full on these days (no nappies/naps/feeds etc) but it really helped him realise exactly how much work was going on just carrying the mental load.

Think having regular, direct chats within the parent partnership about expectations, workload and the kind of family we want to be has been a very positive move for us. Would be great if I wasn't always the project manager of the household, it's a shitty reality that this seems to be yet another hat that a lot of women I know wear in order to have things running smoothly. But if that's what I need to be to make sure I'm not the default parent/housekeeper whilst also trying to work/exercise and keep a marriage afloat then I'd way prefer to put the management hours in than carry the slack on the rest!

Add a workload imbalance to the tyranny of toddlers and emotional fallouts of starting school and it's no wonder you're overwhelmed. This shit is tough!!! Be kind to yourself.

Why on earth are you looking at social media shite, comoaring your life is the last thing you need

I think you and many others expect far too much of themselves. Your kids sound a handful. You are working. Its too much. Without back up or family.

It sounds like anxiety that's funnelling in to rage through overwhelm. Look in to beta blockers, ask your doctor about them. They're great for situational anxiety.