To have taken down all ds's baby and toddler photos because it causes me actual physical pain to look at them?

[Lovedmywildway]

He was so small and precious and now that time has all gone. I look at him and it actually causes my heart to feel like it's broken, that precious time I will never get back.
I know it's completely linked to my total and utter infertility and that he will be my only one, I'm really struggling to let go. I look at the photos and think how lucky I was then, how happy we were and now everything's just horrible and miserable and dark.

Life is pointless and bleak for everyone with depression, yes.

Why don't you think you deserve to be happy?

Yes, everyone feels life is shit sometimes, but not all the time. Your treatments have damaged your mental health, please get help.

It may get better on its own over time, but why struggle so much and miss out on so much happiness in the mean time?
Your son will pick up the vibes if he hasn't already. Do it for him.

Your last post again as every sign that your are deeply depressed. I've been there - I've thought/said incredibly similar words.

Don't want to stretch the NHS - well pay privately.

The longer you leave it the more entrenched those thoughts become, please seek help so you can learn to have joy in your life day today because you deserve it.

Yes life is hard and it is a struggle but there should be joy in it too.

Would you consider letting your DH see this thread?

OP - no, feeling like that is not a normal part of life, go to your GP. Get help now, for Ds's sake, he gets one childhood, a depressed mum who doesn't see the point of playing with him is no fun, of course he doesn't want to play with you now.

Even if you had got pregnant last year, you know it'd be at least another 2 years before they played together, you'd still be having to be the one to entertain your DS on holidays etc.

And then think about strategies for having an only, lots of holidays with kids clubs or centre parcs type places so your DS can make friends - holiday with other families with similar aged DCs so they can play together. Make weekend plans involving setting up playdates for his school friends, you will need to be more active in planning things, but that doesn't mean family life is over because you just have one child.

What it does mean, is you can dedicate your at home time to him. your holidays can be all about him, your weekends, all about him. You have the time and energy (and much more money) to give him the best possible life - but only if you are in a fit mental state to do it. Feeling miserable is not normal. Get yourself in the best shape you can. If you couldn't walk very far due to knee pain and there was medicine and phyiso available on the NHS to fix it, would you say "oh, I can cope driving everywhere, DS doesn't need a mum who can run around with him, I don't want to waste NHS resources getting this sorted." or would you just go book at GP appointment? Your depression is limiting yours and your DS's lives, thats just as worthy of treatment as a physical problem.

Happiness just seems so fleeting for everyone. You chase it and then it's gone anyway. People look forward to things and are then disappointed. Why bother? I feel very detached today as though everything that's happening is miles away.

OP, I want to reach through the screen and shake you! that's how I felt when I was depressed, then I got some anti-ds, got my head straight enough for the couselling to make sense, then got the energy to fix the bits of my life that were causing me to be depressed and come to terms with the bits I couldn't change. That was over 15 years ago, but the techneques I learned are now a big help when I feel that way again.

Happiness is no more fleeting than life.

Hard part now - you have a child, you don't have the luxury to just be miserable and indulge your depression. Get yourself to the GP and start sorting yourself out - your son doesn't have a sibling, but he does have a mum, time to be the best one you can be.

Please give your GP a call Loved - today! or the clinic where you had treatment, they maybe able to give you support very quickly. They were paid a lot of money to support you, not just give you IVf - so make the most of it! The fact that counselling is included as standard during treatment is prof that the NHS knows how hard it is to deal with this stuff. When I rang I think I emailed on a Monday and was sat in front of a counsellor by the wednesday of the same week.

You feel this way because you are depressed and grieving and its all got too much. So many people, and I used to be the same, tell themselves that they are just moping or being selfish/self absorbed having such feelings and we ignore them. Depression is a very real condition and one that, with the right help, can be fixed and made better. Please give them a call today, ask for a phone consultation maybe if that would be quicker just to get going?

Happiness just seems so fleeting for everyone. You chase it and then it's gone anyway. People look forward to things and are then disappointed. Why bother?

…and that will be the message you will pass on to your child. Is that what you want? Depressed people are miserable to be around even (or especially even) when they are trying to put on a brave face to please others.

Why bother? Because you love you child - thats why!! You can't have as many children as you once hoped, but you can certainly make sure you give your best to the one child you have. Don't you think it's at least worth a try for his sake?

Hapiness is feeting, but joy shouldn't be.

The quiet contentment that one should experience most of the time, that is there underneath the trials and tribulations that we go through. You feel pain and loss and grief and fear but the joy will creep back through.

The more you post the more I can tick the list for you that you are severely depressed. Please seek help.

Go to the doctor or call your clinic.

You are seriously depressed and you aren't going to be able to get better without some help.

However with help you will get better and you will learn to accept the fact that you're a family of three. You will find joy and happiness again. The reason you don't believe this is because you're depressed.

I've been there. It was shit. But I got better and you will too. Please go to the doctor or call the clinic.

Dh is part of the problem to be honest.
It's ok. I will wait around until ds is old enough to get to and from school on his own and then I will be gone. I've just got to wait it out a few years. This thought makes me feel better.

Yes because all you are is a taxi service for school drop offs and pickups? He doesn't need you for anything else?

It's time to put your big girl pants on and phone your doctor.

You sound really quite ill op and I'm not sure that you're in a place where you can accurately judge what's normal or not.

I've been affected by secondary infertility and the combination of knowing you should count your blessings and feeling guilt for not providing a sibling plus grieving over the children you won't have is tough.

You are in a worst place because your hope has been taken away from you, plus the physical and mental stress of I've. It's no wonder that this has affected you so badly.

But no, it's not normal. It's not how other people with one child feel about their child and the future. This idea that your ds doesn't enjoy spending time with you, and that family holidays are pointless and almost over is worryingly skewed and bleak.

Ds1 was an only until 6.5 and we had a blast on family holidays as a threesome. We were amazingly lucky to get ds2 but the age gap means that in some ways they are 2 onlies and I still do loads of things just with nearly 8 yr old ds1 on our own. I don't see this stopping... Ever.

Please see your GP. When your own perspective differs so absolutely from everyone else's it's often worth reconsidering whether the might have a point. Humour us, please.

He'll manage.
Dh is always so distant too. It's like we're just three seperate people who happen to live together.

There's no point in picking away trying to show you illogicality in your feelings. They're feelings.
But your feelings are typical of someone who is depressed. Plenty of us know that sense of doom and hopelessness; of marking time as something to be endured.
And a lot of us know that feeling that way means we are depressed.
It might be your grief or hormones. It might be a relatively quick fix or it may not. How bad would it be to miss out on one day of fun with ds when 10 minutes with a gp could sort it? Or at least put you on a path.
Do it for him.

I've always looked forward to christmas but now this year it just seems futile. It'll be over in the blink of an eye and they we will be beginning another new year and what will have changed?
Everything is so monotonous.

This is making me furious. Both my mother and my husband's father had depression when we were children. Me and my husband both suffer from it. Because we want to do the best for our son, given that he could be predisposed to the same issues, we get treated for it because it's not just about us any more. You choose to bring a child into the world then you have a responsibility to do your best for it. Refusing to be treated for a major illness to the point where you are planning to die when your child hits double figures is disgraceful.

I don't know if I will kill myself...I just want to leave. It all feels suffocating. I don't want to be me in this life.

Go. To. The. Doctor. You are ill, and your child will suffer for it. Print this thread out and go. We can't help you, you need professional help.

I don't want to be me in this life.

Well then go to the doctors and you won't have to be.

Life will feel pointless and dull for a child who doesn't have a mother, and right now he doesn't.
If you don't care enough about yourself to get help, do it for your son. He's suffering here, and whether you mean to or not, you;re causing it.

Please go to get treatment. My eldest son died in February at 18 years of age. I am too old to have any more children. I have to live for my surviving child, to show him that he is worth living for. It's hard, very, very hard. But it would not be right of fair to completely ruin my other child's life. I have been on anti D's to help me through this period. Things will never change for me, my eldest child will always be dead but it have to find a way to live, not just exist.

You are being incredibly selfish to not seek help. If you cannot do it for yourself, do it for your child. Live for the child that you do have. You are a parent, take responsibility. I know it is hard, trust me, I know it is hard. Depression makes it impossible to see a way through other than a way out but you can do this.

OP, if you can't find the strength to seek help for yourself, then seek help for your son.

This poor little boy has been written off by you as too old to bring any joy to you. Do you want him to grow up with an increasing awareness of how, basically, he wasn't enough for you? That you were so desperate for a second child you forgot to keep loving the first?

Having a profoundly depressed mother will blight his childhood. You can do something about that.

People have been so kind and supportive in this thread, but now I think you need a kick up the arse.

Op, you are being selfish and self centred, and depression makes you that way. Find the strength to ask for help. Admitting you have a problem is the hard bit, believe me, 6 months from now you will either have got help and feel massively better, or you won't have and will feel even worse, and your ds will have had another 6 months of his childhood stolen.

Now I'm going to hide this thread. I can't stand this kind of self-pitying whining.

You have a child who needs you, woman up.

It is not normal to feel the way you do, not normal at all. You are sick. Get treatment.