To be really really struggling with being back at work?

[Whatthehelliswrongwithme]

I am feeling pretty desperate this evening. Before DD was born, I know that I was reasonably good at my job. I'm sure I wasn't the best lawyer ever to walk this earth, but I was perfectly competent and I knew my own job pretty well.

I've been back from maternity leave now for 9 months and I feel as though I must be losing my mind. I have gone down to 4 days a week, and I go in early and leave early to pick up DD, but invariably have ended up doing at least the 5th (and 6th) day's worth of work anyway - after DD goes to bed and at weekends. Notwithstanding the extra hours, I feel like I am missing things all over the place. It's not laziness; I appreciate that flexible working requires both parties to be flexible so I know that there will be some times when I will need to put in the extra hours. It's more that despite the extra hours, there just aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week, and I feel as though I am dropping balls because everything is rushed. I've mostly managed to catch them before anything really terrible happens, but even then, it's humiliating and unprofessional to have to re-send corrected documents after the original version has gone out and I don't know what the hell has happened to my brain. It frightens me.

I can't sleep and I feel sick all the time and I just don't know what to do. I used to think that my going out to work was going to allow DD to grow up with the view that she would have a career as a matter of course but now, for the first time, I feel as though my working is having a severely detrimental effect on my time with her. I am distracted and stressed all the time. We could survive on DH's salary but due to the nature of the legal job market, if I were to leave it is extremely unlikely that I would be able to re-enter at a later date. I also feel that I'm not particularly good at being a SAHP. Maybe that's the problem; I used to feel like a generally competent person and now I feel as though I am making an almighty mess of everything.

Has anyone else felt like this? I feel as though I am going mad.

I do feel like the inside of my head is absolutely overloaded and I am panicking so much about everything, all the time, that I feel as though there's almost no room for anything else in there.

Sums me up exactly. The thing is the most stressed I become, the slower and less efficient I become-the longer it takes me to cross check things a hundred times, the slower I am to think my way out a drafting problem.

I need a complete mental break. On the weekend I sit and revel in moments of NOT THINKING. My
brain is fried and so so tired. I have decided to cut my self a think break. Copy the suggestion about zoning thinking time. Life admin is the bane of my life.

I like driving home. Because I can't feel guilty about not being at my computer. Yesterday whilst driving I turned off the radio and talked myself loudly through an entire mark up of an agreement right down to additional clauses and redefining terms. Weirdly, it kind of helped. I will chat to myself about work problems as I know
I listen!

Also life admin is something men and women do. Always check on a weekly basis if you have achieved equal marriage that week. If not give more life admin the next week to your other half and if still not equal give him even more the week after until it's fair and equal.

OP, I know there are lots of comments about checking your work, but I wonder if you may in fact be checking it too much? As in an anxious and less productive way. You quite probably doubt your skills way more than you should. I really think that anxiety may be the culprit here rather than anything like baby brain (which I think is more due to sleep deprivation which you say is less of an issue and women's own self confidence).
Someone suggested mindfulness - try the Headspace app. One of my colleagues is a huge convert to it, and says it totally clears her head.
Exercise may well be something that you feel you can't fit in enough time for, but would help with anxiety too.

I failed to recognize the person in the next office one morning due to tiredness
I love this - after I returned from mat leave, I failed to recognise my new in-house counsel. She was my "on nodding terms with" 4 doors down neighbour.

I'm very similar to the OP though - not with my first but my second DC was a great sleeper. They both sleep through fine and my youngest is 2.5 but my brain is just not what it was, though weirdly much better in the past 6 months. Starting to wonder if it's just turning 40?