Can anyone resonate with this?

[TinselTitsAndGlitteryBits]

My life is great. Gorgeous dd who is 6, amazing partner (not DDs dad and we do not live together - we have our ups and downs, but overall he is fantastic), live in a nice house, don't have too many worries apart from the norm...

But, and I can't for the life of me think why, I am sitting here now and have an incredible, overwhelming feeling of sadness washing over me. I've got a lump in my throat and it feels like the whole world is ending. It's crazy, completely random and has no obvious triggers.

I've had my fair share of stress/sadness;

• My mum died in a traumatic and sudden way in 2018, I did CPR on her and it unfortunately didn't work, so I carry some guilt about that - and I miss her every single day.
• I moved 400 miles away on my own with DD when she died with no support circle so it's been rough balancing everything on my own.
• I am currently going through a tough time at work, but again nothing to far away from the norm.

I've tried to work through these and day to day I feel okay.

I just can't understand this sadness, this lump in my throat.. once it washes over me I feel like everything is just pointless, I'm a worthless mother and person, like my partner hates me, like I might as well just give up.. it goes fairly quickly - does anyone feel like this? Do I need medical help? Am I going mad?
I just feel so rubbish right now.

Hi, I don’t resonate with this but from what you described you absolutely do have valid reasons to feel sad, those are a lot of things to happen to one person in a relatively small period of time. No, you’re not going mad. I’m not qualified to say whether you need medical help or not but I would advise to see the GP and consider anti depressants if you are open to taking them to see if that would improve.

I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself at all. This would test the majority of people.

I’ve had similar following trauma (not the same but I can relate).
That’s a lot of trauma to go through, especially without your support network around you. Attempting CPR is amazing thing to do. You probably know that it’s success rate in the community isn’t great, but I can understand it must be very difficult to come to terms with. I second the GP visit to discuss medication but I also think you should ask about counselling to talk through everything.

Thank you both for your answers, maybe I do need to speak to the GP.

I thought I'd processed the trauma surrounding my mums death.
She was an alcoholic so we had a very rough relationship and my young life was a crazy rollercoaster of trying to protect myself during her drunken rages.. but I miss her awfully still and I'll never forget the sensation of giving her CPR.
I thought back and realised that I can't remember any part after her death, not her funeral, not planning it, DDs birthday is a few days after her date of death - I can't even remember my child's birthday that year... so maybe I haven't processed it as much as I thought. I don't know..

I know CPR isn't always effective; but you go into it knowing that you're trained to do this and it WILL work - I kept going until the police physically pulled me off of her and dragged me away.
It plays on me at times.

Work isn't helping. I don't know if it's a culmination of everything - I just want to know why it presents itself in huge anxiety about everything; I now believe my partner is cheating on me, that I'm failing my daughter, that I'm an imposter at my job..

It sucks.

@LakesideView

I’ve had similar following trauma (not the same but I can relate). That’s a lot of trauma to go through, especially without your support network around you. Attempting CPR is amazing thing to do. You probably know that it’s success rate in the community isn’t great, but I can understand it must be very difficult to come to terms with. I second the GP visit to discuss medication but I also think you should ask about counselling to talk through everything.

I'm sorry to hear of your trauma, I wish you all the best - I really do. It's so difficult.

I lost my Mum in my 20s and we had a complicated relationship - not in the same way at all and I’m not comparing my experience to you, just to hopefully help you - I have total blanks after her death…like I know people sent flowers and cards but I can only remember two of the things people sent. Hearing songs I listened to at that time will make me cry before I really know what’s happening. I think it’s a protective mechanism.
I had some counselling last year where I talked about my childhood and some issues. It really helped me put some of that stuff to bed so I stopped dwelling so much on the things from the past that I had no way of changing now.

Imposter syndrome is a real thing, it’s worth reading up about. It sounds like life is very challenging at the moment. Sorry to hear about your partner - is that an evidence based suspicion? Sometimes my current difficulties seem worse because of past experiences. I think counselling would help you process the past and work out what’s really going on in the current.

You’re not failing your daughter OP. If you were, you wouldn’t have the thoughts that you’re failing her in the first place. It might seem that way to you, but you’re not, you’re really, really not. And it doesn’t matter if you feel like you’re an imposter at your job, honestly, LOADS of people feel like that all the time. Look at all these threads saying exactly the same thing, and this is just from a Google search of one minute:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4339541-Starting-new-job-on-Monday-and-got-imposter-syndrome

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4141752-To-feel-like-an-imposter-at-work

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4227803-To-think-there-are-no-women-without-imposter-syndrome

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3806948-To-wonder-if-anyone-else-has-suffered-with-imposter-syndrome

It sounds like your brain is in a (understandable) fog. Do you think you would open up and be honest with a counsellor if you went to see one? Because if it would help, I think it would really benefit you and help process and see things more clearly

I get miserable for no obvious reason the day or so before my period. If nothing obvious is making you sad, could it be hormonal? It doesn't take the sadness away but when it happens to me I try to mentally list all the reasons I think I could be feeling sad as a sort of checklist, if I don't think any of them are the cause I put it down to hormones and it sort of helps as then I know it isn't 'real'.

It resonates with me and I feel it too. Have you kept a diary op?

Make a note of when you feel it and see if there is a pattern. If there is it could be related to your cycle, so a hormonal change, especially as you say it passes too. Mine certainly was to a certain extent.

Having said that you have had an awful lot to deal with and a chat with the GP is probably wise, when the feelings got so bad for me I did end up with some antidepressants too as I hadn't processed a lot around loved ones deaths and also the feeling I was a rubbish mother, CBT helped a lot with that one.

I have been through an incredibly traumatic death of my child. And it took years, literally years for the symptoms of PTSD to actually kick in. I naively thought at the timr that I was somehow ok and that because I was just carrying on with life (it happened in very unusual circumstances) I was going to be fine. I even remember being surprised at myself - how was I just fine after what had happened.

But it was the shock of what happened at the time that really did take years to life and for the PTSD to kick in. It sounds like this could be happening to you, you describe some of the symptoms of it - the overwhelming feelings, nothing mattering anymore and of course the flashbacks you describe.

I would speak to your GP for some support and if you'd rather not do that you can refer yourself for talking therapies here:

www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-psychological-therapies-service/

Be kind to yourself