...to wonder if I actually love my child?

[FlossyMcTrumpetson]

I'm desperately seeking opinions as I'm utterly confused by my experience of motherhood and I'm not sure what to do. If anything.

I have a 2.3 year old daughter who I chose to have alone via sperm donor. The conception was easy, pregnancy awful and the birth very quick and easy. All the way through my awful pregnancy I just thought "All this suffering will be worth it to get my daughter". I envisaged having a really difficult baby but assumed we would have this incredible bond and that she'd be a clingy, cuddly mummies girl. Worth mentioning I'm very tactile and LOVE cuddles and affection.
Anyhoo - what a deluded fool I was. I ended up with the easiest baby I have ever heard of. She slept brilliantly, still does, never had any colic or teething problems, never ill with anything, happy, easy and gorgeous. As a toddler she hits all of her milestones on time and is happy, chatty and easy to parent. She's well behaved and learns things quickly, really likes social interaction with kids and adults and people adore her.
However, she had always been extremely uncuddly and still is. As a baby she squirmed and wriggled away from me when I tried to hold her. Never settled in my arms and preferred her bouncer or cot. The ONE time she was slightly ill with a temperature and I tried to cuddle and console her all night she screamed and pushed me off her.
She's sort of slightly improved a bit now. Now that she is starting to understand things a bit better she will be affectionate in order to get things or because she's done something wrong and is apologising or similar.
She has never, to date, cuddled me for no reason or for the sake of it, or because she 'wants a cuddle'.
I can't overstate the effect this has had on me and its left me really confused as to what is right, my feelings, my experience of motherhood, who I am and even my purpose on this planet. I have cried nearly every single day for the last two years, I've had counselling, group therapy, and have pushed away many many friends.
I'm a shadow of the person I was before I became a mother, I often feel that my existence is pointless if my one shot at motherhood has resulted in a child that doesn't seem to love me. Is disgusted at me almost. I tried to kiss her today and recoiled away from me and pushed my face off her with her hands. I cried for about an hour as she sat next to me impassively watching peppa pig on YouTube.
There is nothing I can compare to this feeling of daily- if not hourly - worthlessness and rejection. If she was my partner I would have dumped her by now as I simply cannot bear being with someone who is cold and unaffectionate. I end relationships with people like that very quickly as its so so fundamental to me not to feel relentlessly worthless and unloved. I can't bear it and yet I have to get through every day feeling like this All. The. Time. And more depressingly, this is it now, for my life, a daughter who makes me feel like this all the time and for the rest of my life.
I am so consumed by it all I have come to the point where I don't even know if I love her or not and I'd like someone to tell me what they think.
So the positives are: I think she's awesome. I find her fascinating, hilarious, helpful, happy and beautiful. If someone asked me to swap her in for someone else, I wouldn't. The thought of her not being in my life fills me with the deepest fear imaginable and I am absurdly grateful that she's mine. All mine. I adore dressing her up, brushing her hair and taking her to places and teaching her new things.
Occasionally when she smiles at me my heart melts and my stomach goes to mush. I (rather pathetically) wake up each morning with a sense of hope and excitement at seeing her and spending the day with her.... She wakes up.... And it goes downhill from there.
I pick her out of bed, she pushes my hands off her, my heart sinks, I sit her next to me in bed, she shuffles away a good few inches, my heart sinks further still, I lean in to kiss her... She cringes.... My heart finally breaks and I start to cry. The day has barely begun and I'm sobbing next to an impassive child.
It makes me resent her. It makes me feel a sort of hatred towards her. I HATE SAYING THAT. It makes me not want to play with her. I often don't play with her for fear of being rejected further. Often when I look at her I feel nothing in my heart, I'm so defeated by her and this experience. I am getting to the point where I have this slow creeping suspicion that I don't love her and it's so so scary and depressing I don't know what to do or think anymore.
Worth mentioning I've been assessed for actual depression and I don't have it - as in chemically - I sleep well, eat well, enjoy pleasures in life and am a positive person in many ways. I get sad but I don't have depression.
Please help. Please be kind I could not feel more low or crap about myself right now. Feel free to be honest but don't bash me about too much.
Thank you in advance xxxx

You do have the disadvantage of not knowing half her genes. She could be exactly like her paternal grandmother or her father's uncle Fred or similar.

Lots of things are down to nature and not not nurture. E.g I would assume that mannerisms were copied had I not had a son whose father died when he was a baby and he couldn't possibly know his mannerisms and yet he has them. He had some of the same opinions- despite them never being discussed beforehand.
You put your mother's problems down to her terrible mother, but your mother could still have been undemonstrative even with a very loving, cuddly mother. You don't know.

You need to start putting your daughter first tbh and not putting your feelings first.

and maybe you need prof help to do that.

Your description of hugging elderly patients made me cringe... again you are using people you are responsible for to meet your needs rather than considering theirs.

I think in some ways you sound as if you're the type of person who needs a drama with yourself at centre of it. This is not good for your daughter.

I hope you get the help you and most especially your daughter need.

Saoirse I don't think that's fair. I'm sure there are many elderly people who don't wish to be touched or hugged, and I expect the OP is s good enough nurse and sensitive enough to their signals that she doesn't hug them. But the fact is that there are many, many elderly people in this country who are lonely and touch-deprived. To have a kind touch or a quick hug would bring them a great deal of comfort, and HCPs are well placed to make that difference. I've experienced that on nursing placements, in a job caring for an elderly lady, and as a community first responder. I'm not a touchy-feely person, but I can see the comfort people get from a hand to hold when they are scared, in pain or distress.

I'd agree with you crabby except that the op has described sitting crying beside her two yr old because her two yr old won't hug her, suggesting to me that the op may not be in a position to be judging others wishes v well.

I actually have a huge amt of sympathy for the op. It is v difficult when your idea of parenthood isn't matched up to the reality. but what I'm trying to get at is that the op should try and see that her dd is actually the most important person here and that it's important the op gets help to help her.

I admire the op for her honesty and I hope she gets the assistance she needs. I think the ops dd sounds lovely and clearly this is in no small part due to the op. but the op sounds v sad and getting help should address this.

Which is a totally unacceptable situation (sitting crying beside her DD) - nobody has said otherwise, including the OP.

But extrapolating from that to say that the OP is 'using' her vulnerable patients to meet her own needs for a hug... not fair.

Just to clarify, the hugging situation with my daughter is an entirely different ball game to the one with my patients... Crabby you are right.
I've been a nurse for ten years and whether or not I get a hug from my patients doesn't personally hurt like it does from my child.
I deal with a lot of lonely widowers and I of course gauge and get to know them a bit before I have physical contact with them. It's often when I'm assisting them out of bed and even just putting an arm around them to guide them to a chair you will often hear them say 'ah that's nice' or they will physically lean into you and give you a hug or cuddle. It's amazing and humbling and I'm glad I can help them feel that again when they have been lonely for so long. Anyone in the nursing profession will tell you it's an important and lovely part of your job. I don't just run up to anyone and force them to hug me I'm not 'Mr Blobby'.

So recently my Daughter (age 9) has had a horrible case of persistent threadworms. Was first treated via (Ovex) Mebendazole which I was given over the counter at the pharmacy. One week later behold, more worms. I have done everything and more necessary- washed all houses linen in boil wash; made sure everyone washes their hands before eating and after going to the toilet; treated everyone in the house. We are a very clean household and my daughter has had impeccable hygiene throughout. Thankfully no one else is showing symptoms of it but, I think that it only manages to isolate her more. She keeps blaming herself for it and being far too harsh about it; I have told her that she is doing everything that she can and it’s not her fault. Although, I am worried that I have solidified the idea of it being someone’s fault in her head. When it’s not in any case. Went to see a doctor at a walk in clinic- they gave her a longer course if the same medicine. We have had them in the past but this time it’s ridiculous. Why won’t the go away. I honestly feel like a horrible mother because I can’t do anything to help her. Has she built up an intolerance to the medicine?? Please help me!!