IABU. Please help me stop being so envious and bitter.

[Somedaymummy]

I know I am being unreasonable and the guilt is compounding my feelings of worthlessness and bitterness.

My life has never been easy. I grew up poor, with an unstable parent who was a sufferer of mental illness. Moved around a lot, never had anywhere I could call 'home'. In my young adulthood I made many bad decisions whilst looking for a father figure, abusive relationships followed. Still had nowhere I could call home or anyone to share life with. I don't have any other family apart from a few distant relatives who live hundreds of miles away.

A few years ago I met the love of my life. We're happy, I was content, he is perfect, I thought that was it, after more than three decades of life seemingly happening to other people, I was finally going to get my happy ending.

It wasn't to be. We have been struggling with infertility for years and years. Failed fertility treatments under our belts. As a result we now have very limited finances, a strained relationship and I've slipped into what I assume is a depression. I am on medication for that and have had a few sessions with a therapist.

I look around and it feels as if everyone is living their lives, have family around them, have babies and children, lovely homes, great memories, have progressed in their careers, have disposable income... Whereas I'm floundering, struggling, with a barren body and a string of painful health issues, waiting for the day when my life starts. But it never does. I feel like I'm watching everybody else 'living' and I'm stuck here, becoming increasingly bitter.

I wasn't always like this. Infertility has been the thing that has tipped me over the edge of the abyss. It has made me feel envious, bitter and incandescent with rage that the universe could continue its battering of my spirit despite all I've been through in life.

My therapist keeps 'giving me permission' to feel this anger, to feel that it's not fair. But I feel like a petulant child. The woe is me mentality doesn't suit me. I've bounced back from so much, I'm scared I won't bounce back from this.

IABU, I know that. I envy friends when good things happen to them. Nothing good ever happens to me. Life is an uphill struggle. All of which I could deal with until recently, as it becomes clear to me that my dream of a family, something I never had, I will never have.

How do I stop resenting my friends? Resenting my DM for giving me such a shit start? How do I stop feeling like such a victim? I want to be content, that is all I've ever wanted. I never aspired to be rich, I just want contentment. The basics of family life. A life that only seems to happen to other people

mermaidhair ....you are where im working to be!!! my cpn has said to me i hide behind my makeup and humour but i practice mindfullness as often as i can,you didnt get to be where you are in your mind without one heck of a journey,

I think that all of us survivors of a hard life thats what we are survivors we are not victims all have to reach a point of utter breakdown (mine was with a court case that dragged on) in order to buld solid foundations from the very bottom and work our way up to solid blocks x

OP, as others have said you seem very self aware.

I have no real experience of fertility issues (I am a recurrent miscarriage sufferer but I do now have 2 DC) so I can only give my opinion based on what you have written here.

You need to protect your relationship. If its the only place you have ever truly been happy and felt settled, then you need to make this your priority.
Having kids can push even the strongest relationships to the brink so maybe you need to move the focus for the time being?

How would you feel if children were never part of your life? Is this something you could ever make peace with and move on from? Maybe your future could be in helping kids that have had horrible beginnings in life - like yourself?

I know I am over simplifying things here... It's all well and good for some random person to tell you to forget about having kids (and that isn't what I am saying) BUT my point is I think you need to repair and protect the very reason you are wanting to have children - and that is your relationship with your partner.

No, not harsh, agree completely. I keep thinking to myself, "today I got up, I can walk", "today I ate, we have food", I switch the heating on and feel thankful, I fill the kettle and know I am blessed to live in this country. I watch the news and my heart breaks, I feel lucky as a citizen of the U.K. but still, I feel that it feels such hard work. Gratitude used to work for me. DH is very aspirational, he wants a better house, better car, nice things, lots of 'stuff'. We had different starts in life. I don't want to get in the way of his dreams. It's difficult to be thankful for the small things whilst wanting the big things so badly (a baby and a quiet life for me) do you know what I mean? It's hard to put into words.

Hacker no. There is no way I am anywhere near being able to accept that we won't have a child. I am not ready for that. My therapist mentioned it and I screamed no in my head. I just can't fathom that outcome. I'm not ready.

I think there is only so much self deprecation, shrugging it off and putting a brave face on that one person can do.
I totally understand where you are coming from, and sometimes there just isn't any of that persona left in the pot. When you look in the pot, there is just the 'fuck it, this isn't fucking fair and it's all going to shit' left.
My childhood was not like yours, but life has been tough, with long term illness and family difficulties along the way. When we arrived at infertility that was tough too. And I really really resented my friends and their happy perfect lives. Crying in secret (and the towering rage/guilt spiral) when another glowing lovely friend announced yet another perfect pregnancy was not unusual. I withdrew. I stayed at home. I refused to play any more.
We got through it, ICSI was a success, and I now have a perfect wonderful 5 year old.
But then DH was made redundant, we nearly lost the house and I was hospitalised with a complication of my illness that leaves me on a cocktail of drugs for the rest of my life. Then we had a marital crisis. That was my really shit low point, when I couldn't do any more of the 'happy smily it'll be ok' bollocks.
Since then I have learnt to slow down (a lot!), be kind to myself and not compare my life to others around me. OK, I can't fulfil my career, we will never move to a 'better' area like our friends and I can't have another child. I will always be tired and my health will always be shit. But, our life and marriage is good, we have our wonderful dd and I am still alive. Every day brings something new to be thankful for.
Believe me, you will get through this. It is fucking hard, but there will be a sunrise where you can breathe out and be glad to be you again.
Try and be kind to yourself, you don't have to fight all the time. It's ok to feel this way.

TheGonnagle my marital crises was my really shit low point and this time I just don't seem able to drag myself out of it.

I hope my sunrise happens soon!

Yet another great post. That's what I need to hear. You summed it up perfectly, I have nothing left. There's nothing left in my pot. I just feel exhaustion, apathy, guilt, misery. I need my sunrise.

Thank you all for the advice. I wonder if being so self aware is a curse as well as a blessing? I find people who are less self aware have a sunnier outlook. That's how it seems to me.

And are the feelings of empathy I've always had, extreme empathy, are a product of my childhood?

I think the infertility on its own causes all these feelings for people, and that's without all the other crap you've had to deal with. No wonder you are angry and frustrated.
good luck.

I agree the self-awareness is as much a blessing as a curse. I'm not in your boat though I'm probably in the same body of water - we are TTC our third after our second was stillborn. I hate the person I'm becoming - the one who is raging with jealousy when others get what I want. Knowing why I feel like this doesn't make it easier.

Empathy is a blessing. Sometimes feels like a curse but it is a good thing to be able to feel empathy and it's cousin, compassion. It makes you a better person.
I think some people are just built that way. My dad says I have 'a face that people want to talk to' !
I don't think you need to accept that you can't have kids. I do think you need to accept that this is a very difficult and dark place to be. A lot of the problems stem from feeling that you are somehow being unreasonable. You really do have every right to be clutching the empty pot.
Try and turn the empathy/compassion ray onto yourself. Cut yourself some slack. Make some time to acknowledge how bloody bollocks everything is and have a good rage about it.
Then make some time to do some nice stuff with your dh. Put some positivity in there.
And I'm sending you a sunrise Random. It took a good 18 months for that particular shit storm to pass in this house, I hope you are feeling better soon.

This is a rather more trite response than some of the lovely ones you've had... But are you on Facebook? I had to quit FB as it was honestly messing me up. ALL my friends' lives just seem so perfect on there that I was losing the plot. I was comparing myself to everyone else, and I really believe the saying that "comparison is the thief of joy".

I've quit FB, take Vitamin B6 (which regulates hormones) and am on St John's Wort and I've had my sunrise. It didn't take very long at all.

I didn't suffer infertility but my career collapsed, I got divorced, I found coping with the DC nearly impossible, I suffered depression for 13 years... It wasn't a good time.

And are the feelings of empathy I've always had, extreme empathy, are a product of my childhood?

You might be confusing empathy with codependency. This is why you'd feel so guilty that you don't think you will "give" your DP a child. You might feel everyone else's needs so keenly, after walking on eggshells from childhood, that you place people-pleasing above self-care in your daily life. Do you feel like: "If I can just give everyone what they seem to want, I'll be good enough"?

I just want to say this - what you're dealing with re. the infertility drives many many people to the state you are in now, without having the shit childhood you had to start with. I know it feels like "just another shit thing" but I would say to you that it's a separate shit thing, and as such you could try to keep it separate in your head.

You had a shit start, you've dealt with it, you've overcome it to a large extent - now write that off. Don't allow it to add to the burden of infertility, take that as its own issue.

I'm not sure I'm making myself very clear here, what I'm trying to say is go back to before you met your partner, and wipe all that slate clean. Then take the positives of meeting the love of your life, and all that has been good since then, and balance that against the infertility, and only the infertility. Hopefully it will give a better balance, rather than being totally weighed down on the shit side as it seems to be at the moment.

Re. the infertility itself - I assume you've looked into all sorts of options for helping you to conceive, natural/complementary as well? One thing I strongly recommend (because I believe it helped me to have DS2 after 3 MCs) is vitamin D supplementation - with all the sunscreening we do these days, so many people are low in vit D, and low vit D status is associated with both infertility and miscarriage. It's relatively simple to get your vit D back up, using supplements - but you need to take at least 3000IU per day. You can of course ask your GP to get your levels checked but they may not agree; even if they don't, taking 3000IU per day will do you absolutely no harm at all and may help.

I hope that some of this helps - good luck with it all, it's a horrible place to be at the moment xx

I am the same. Just had a lot of psychology- finally found a psychologist I felt safe with. I learnt it's ok to be angry. I also learnt that I had insecure attachment- a parent that loved me but told me I was crap. Parents who were there in a traditional sense but not there really. I learnt parents not perfect and human themselves . More than anything I learnt about the really nasty critical voice in my head that punished relentlessly and made me feel crap about myself. I no longer needed my parent to do it for me. I also learnt about the past that 'it is what it is'. Things are no way perfect but a lot better. I need to keep practicing acceptance and control of the critical voice. I've learnt it's ok to be sad about everything that has happened. I've also learnt to amend what I wish for in the future. My fantasy life of what should have been is simply that- a fantasy but the constant struggle for attainment of that life was making me very unhappy given other things have happened which mean that life is not attainable. However it doesn't mean my new life has to be bad- just different

Oh yes my other secret, NO Fakebook, NO social media. I don't do any of it. And I have bad days still. My dh passed away last year and I am struggling, but I am a survivor and I need to keep going for our children.

Social media is all "show your best, hide the rest". They are an air brushed version of someone's day/week.

whatsgoingon I know what you mean but I don't think it's that right now. I used to be a people pleaser, this was until I learned the hard way that it doesn't help. I take my self-care more seriously now than I did a few years ago and I found that things got better, I was happy and I met DP. We had a lovely couple of years and then things started going downhill, not within our relationship but external influences, the largest obviously being infertility and my failing health as well as other life stressors. He puts no pressure on me, says he'd be happy with a dog! But I want a child/children so much. It's like an innate desire that I can't control. A lot of which I believe is biology, it's an urge as opposed to a want. And I'd love to have a family, more than anything else. I don't think I want a baby to make DP happy, though it would - incredibly so. I want us to have a baby.

By my extreme empathy, I meant in general, unrelated to my own issues, I feel People's pain. I empathise with Syrian refugees (for example) more than anyone I know. My heart literally aches when I see things like that on the news. I feel true sorrow for elderly people on their own. Things like that, it's as if I have too much empathy? Which can sometimes lead me to feel sad on its own!

thumb my vitamin D was checked by an endocrinologist as I have autoimmune hypothyroid. I don't know the numbers but I wasn't deficient. I will get my actual levels and add Vit D to my usual supplements.

Some days FB upsets me, other days it doesn't. There have been a couple of new baby announcements recently which I dealt with well but then had vivid dreams of me giving birth and holding my newborn which I thought were real until I'd properly woken up. I'm not sure if FB triggered the dreams or if I'm simply dreaming my wishes.

The past and the infertility are seperate, but surely it's the continuation of all that is unfair that has culminated in my OP. I feel lost. Like it's all to much and I want to stop the ride and get off.

I'm sorry Mermaid. That's very sad to hear I know I need to realise that people are going through much worse.

All I ever see are people doing much better.

I think you sound like an incredibly lovely person. Please have a HUGE hug.

All I ever see are people doing much better

Me too. I know exactly what you mean. But they probably compare themselves to you! Brave, successfully moved past a difficult early life, thrived, met a lovely DP and built an amazing relationship, kind, caring, in touch with global issues... See? You sound equally brilliant!

"The past and the infertility are seperate, but surely it's the continuation of all that is unfair that has culminated in my OP. I feel lost. Like it's all to much and I want to stop the ride and get off."

Yes, but that's why I suggested you try and separate the past and your infertility issues - because, as I said, other couples with infertility still feel the way you do without your past. It's hard to get the words to explain exactly what I'm suggesting here - it's sort of "don't let this be in addition to your shit past, let that be done, let that go and then this is something on its own". Still not explaining it well, I know. I just think allowing it to be cumulative with your past stuff is weighing you down more than it perhaps needs to, iyswim.

Thank you whats, I accept that hug. I'm not a hugger, I've spent all my life being so fucking strong and making the best of it, if someone in real life hugged me properly now I think I'd start crying and never stop. Like the young man in dead poets society. Despite all the (metaphorical) stabbings from trauma over the years, my exterior never changes, I'm cool on the outside while churning on the inside. I described that to my therapist, as if I've been stabbed over and over and over again, and now I've bled to death.

I see what you're saying thumb and you're right. That's the problem I think, I've lost my ability to seperate. Now it's all just one big Fucking disaster that even picking out the tiny gems in the pile of shit is an impossible task for my psyche.

I don't know if it's worse Mummy , it's just different. You are going to be fine, I can tell. You know what you are feeling and why, and you want to change it.

Are you on anti--depressants? Were you on them before but quit for IVF? (Apologise if you've mentioned that already.)

I'm not a big fan of ADs in most cases, but in your case, I think they'd help. You seem overwhelmed by sadness, and unable to move in any direction. Maybe they'd give you a respite?