To ask, what would you feel about a mum who didn't have custody of her child?

[callycat1]

So this is what I am considering.

I just really haven't taken to parenting, I always sensed I wouldn't. I'm upset about it, but I feel kind of resigned now after several months.

I broached the subject with DH last night and he was obviously very upset and thinks we can try some other stuff but in my heart of hearts I think I know it's how I feel.

So - leaving DS means leaving DH. Obviously I'd pay for him. Get a full time job somewhere else in the country, start life again.

Is this possible? Will I/he just be left traumatised and upset? Or is it that we all really need a fresh start? Ultimately we all want different things.

I'm talking worst case scenario here but what comes to mind?

I am inclined to agree with harrypooter you are his mum and you have a duty to get the help you need to be a parent.

I'd say exactly the same if you were his dad.

You are so clearly not heartless. A heartless person would leave for selfish reasons- you are obviously feeling very low and need some support, love and reassurance.

Get a different gp, if yours makes you feel uncomfortable. Change surgeries if necessary (eg if you want a woman go and your surgery doesn't have one). It is a bit of a faff, but it's really very important that you are able to access healthcare, the consequences of not are big for all 3 of you.
A very mumsnetty hug.

Homestart Mammoth?

Go to your health visitor or another GP if you don't feel like this one can support you. You really do need to see someone.

Oh Cally, i wish i knew you to give you a big hug.
Honestly please talk to your GP. Your feelings are real and no one can tell you otherwise. Please do get help, feeling nothing in life is shit (I know!), feeling like you just don't or shouldn't exist is shit, and feeling like you 'should' feel a certain way is shit (fake book does not help in that one!) .
I had a bit of counselling and it did help, but like you i couldn't afford to continue it. So i just plod along with better days and worse days.

A friend of mine worked in the same role as you do (if i remember) and she did get it with the job, i don't know if that still the case??
The other thing is charities, are there any charities that help with PND.
Honestly try to find that help before you go, it will stay with you, it will follow you and the damage it could do to your little one is irreversible.
I struggled with my first, i didn't feel like a mum. . On the odd occasion i went out i would pretend she wasn't mine as i didn't feel it. I used to say things like "i will tell your mum about this when we get home" Once she was walking things changed for the better.

Thank you :)

What I find hard - tactile-ness if that's a word. I find sometimes I get really angry and it is totally me not DS but like this morning he pulled my hair hard and obviously he's a baby and doesn't know but I felt rage. I get that a lot when he accidentally grabs my face or something.

My idea of normal is very skewed. mumsnet has helped me see this. Like to me shouting and screaming and hitting is normal. I know it's not but it feels normal. Like when DS screams and I just mean those happy shouts they make I feel like screaming at him to shut up.

I don't know what to do with him or really how to interact. Books are good but I feel self conscious doing voices and don't know how to play.

I used to enjoy going for walks when he was smaller but now I back at work it's harder and my hurt shoulder hurts a lot with the sling and taking the pram the places I like going is hard.

Most of all I worry he will resent me for being a shit mum. It's like I'm bracing myself by rejecting him before he has a chance to reject me.

Remember also that having PND doesn't invalidate your feelings or make them "wrong". But the right mental health professional will be able to help you process them and move along.

Cally, please talk to someone. The way i parent now is the complete opposite to my mum. I feel like she taught me what not to do!!!! But its taken a while to get that confidence that actually it is ok.

Please please go and talk to a GP. You don't have to believe it can be fixed, you don't have to be confident you'll be believed. Please JFDI do it anyway, because it could make a huge difference to your son's future. And tell the GP specifically what you wrote in your OP.

There are people who've been hospitalised with profound depression, suicidal and/or delusional, who've recovered and been a full on parent in their child's life. If they can do it, it's worth you giving it a go isn't it?

Oh gosh, this is so sad. I really feel for you. I can only second what others have said: please get yourself to a doctor. It sounds as though you would benefit from counselling as well because everything you are saying suggests that you perhaps haven't had a lovely family model to work from, and perhaps you haven't been able to take your own loveability for granted?

Sometimes, if we have grown up in households where violence is the norm, there is a process of unlearning that behaviour. This takes time, but it can be done, particularly with professional help. You are not doomed to follow some pre-set emotional pattern. You can break out and make your own decisions.

CallyCat

My DNeph doesn't live with my DSis, he lives with his Dad. DSis didn't know she was pregnant till late on, around 19 weeks, had an horrendous birth, almost died, was given no pain relief during this, was left to rot on the ward. She didn't bond with her DS at all. She pushed on for a year before having a full nervous breakdown which landed her in hospital for 6 months, being diagnosed with Post Natal Psychosis, PTSD and Manic Depression with Anxiety. She carried on seeing DNeph once she was medicated and living on her own (in a bedsit) but the relationship just wasn't there, she said she just felt a babysitter. This continued for 2 years before she walked away from DNeph. She was terrified that he'd realise she didn't want him around and said she'd rather be consistent with her abscence rather than inconsistent with her presence. This is a very long story cut very short, DSis was abused and neglected as a child as our mother never bonded with her and DSis was aware she was repeating the cycle of mother/child not bonding but would never have treated her DS the way our mother treated her. DNeph is a happy 14 year old who has never missed nor wanted his Mum. DSis has always cooperated with her Psychs and treatments, she was sterilised when DNeph was 2 as she didn't want to risk it happening again, and she's functioning as well as she can. She repeatedly tried to commit suicide because she said "I can't even bond with my child, I'm a woman, it's what we're built for and I can't do it, I just look at him and feel nothing, something is very broken inside me." It was horrendous for all of us.

DSis doesn't tell anyone she has a son because of the horrid comments she has had from people. There is a huge imbalance in attitudes towards men who walk away from children and women who do. With women it is mostly mental illness.

Don't know why I'm sharing this other than to encourage you to seek help.

callycat1, love, my heart goes out to you - and what you have posted here has put things you have posted on other threads in to perspective for me

Please, please, please seek RL help - speak to your HV or GP or even a trusted friend or relative about how disconnected to your DS you are feeling.

IME many people think that 'depression' (whether PND or 'normal') often think that being depressed means being really sad and in floods of tears, and yes, sometimes that is what it is like.
But it can also be very different: feel flat, just not enjoying anything, even things that you might have previously enjoyed or that you recognise that you should enjoy, but it's just not doing anything for you. Sometimes it can also be NOT feeling sad when most people would expect sadness - like a mother considering leaving her DH and DS. Not sleeping can be a symptom of depression (as can oversleeping. Just like over- and under eating can be a symptom). Etc etc...

Now, nobody here can diagnose you. You MUST seek RL help - please do. You will come out the other side of this and will look back struggling to remember how you are feeling just now. Just as you are now unable to really 'see' how you could feel differently than you do.

Please get out there and find help - print this thread off and take it with you if that helps to get your feelings across to whoever you decide to open up to.
You are not heartless, or worthless, or 'wrong', but you do come across as not very well.

To be honest, all kids love their mums, none of them think we're shit. They love you unconditionally.

But that's not the issue here, those thoughts and feelings will not be so strong if you can get the much needed help to see you through this.

Do your issues stem from your own childhood then?

But Cally they get their personality traits from you and their father and other relatives and it makes it so easy to love them. One of my sons is so much like my late Dad it's uncanny, one of my daughters is the double of me and is just as scatty it's like an opportunity to see things through new eyes and it is really lovely.
I had really bad PND with my sons and with my middle one I didn't bond for a long time (we are talking years) but I faked it well enough and he is none the wiser and he's an adult now and we are closer than close.
Get the help you need so that you can be everything your son needs not only now but also in the future, you all deserve the chance to be happy.

What the whole world said. You're not a shit mum, you're ill. Same thing happened to me. I didn't want DS, wanted to put him up for adoption. Wanted to run away like a TV drama and start new life in a windswept seaside town.

My mum saw how unlike myself I was and took me to the doctors. It's painful being honest with them but they've heard it all before. Got the meds, improved within a month and now I'm loving life.

Look, I'm independent by nature. Part of me is gone, never to return. Part of me is wishing away DS childhood so I can live however I like again. So what, loads of women are like me.

But when you're mentally well, you can cope with the shit, and even enjoy it. I didn't like DS much until he could talk. Now he never shuts up. He's my boy genius. Yours will be too.

I also grew up in a home where screaming and hitting were normal and I struggled with the anger and flashbacks when my daughter had screaming fits. I understand that feeling of impotent fury even while knowing your baby can't help it. I had PND. That didn't make my feelings or anger not real, but it meant I could not handle them healthily. I have been taking ADs and having counselling and I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

You must see your doctor or health visitor and tell them everything you have told MN. I promise they will not think you are a time waster or a bad mother. Like us, they will see that you are very vulnerable, most likely ill, and in need of help.

Please, cally, I beg you. We cannot give you the real life professional help you so clearly need but it is there. But you need to go to it.

If you sensed something from your GP, it might have been the glimmer of recognition that the minor ailments are not the real issue. Maybe he is waiting, kindly, for you to be able to tell him what is really troubling you.

Do try and tell him, by writing it down if necessary. Take your DP with you. And push push push for more than a referral for 6 sessions of CBT.

In fact, to really figure out where you are, you need to see a psychiatrist or psychotherapist. You can go privately for one or two sessions, to get a diagnosis. The private practitioner can then write to your GP advocating a treatment plan (if necessary). That will make it harder for your GP to refuse to offer more than the usual.

Honestly, the stakes are so high for all three of you that it has to be worth trying.

To answer your OP's question: I would not think anything about a mother who did not have custody of her child, one way or another.
I think in your case with the background you have provided, I would be very upset for your and for your DS - you are the centre of the universe just now for him; he needs you and he needs you well.
And you know what? You need him too

Op I commented on your other thread. Another PND survivor here and I agree the way you are talking sounds exactly like it. You are so desperate to get out of the situation that you can't afford to admit it's an illness because if it is then you might get better and STILL have to be in your life. But here's the thing. You won't be in your life as you know it. I used to pound the streets with the buggy on auto pilot thinking I could just keep walking now and not turn back, I'd be on a bus and think oh I do hope there's a crash. When you're better, life is different, you'll be able to identify it and celebrate it. It's not all great, your dc will still cry and irritate you and you'll get sick of the drudgery every now and then but it will be different. The very least you should do is go to your GP, don't worry about them judging you, who cares if they do? If they do they're a dick. Demand help. Take the tablets, tell them you will not take the same ones you were on before. Give it 6 months. It's not that long in the scheme of things. Put a date on it to think again about your decision and in the meantime take the pressure off and just 'be'. Talk to your dh, tell him what you're doing, he is likely to beside himself with worry, try to stay engaged with him . I know now what my PND put my dh through. I apologised to him recently after many many CBT sessions and 3 long years after I had kissed PND goodbye

Your his mum, he's pre programmed to love you and adore you. He won't reject you. Get the help to learn other ways to parent. You know what affect the shouty way has had on you, there are other ways.

God i remember the hair pulling, i can literally remember biting my tongue.
Ive never been one for silly voices and singing either, but we do play. Teddy bears tea parties and that sort of thing. But its taken its time as I'm not naturally a singy clappy mum.

It's not about walking away more about trying to ensure everyone is ok.

But walking away will never make everything OK, especially it won't be OK for your husband or your son. Please ask for an urgent referral for treatment for PND.

just to add cally all your minor ailments could link in with depression / anxiety.

If you have pnd then you need help.

If you don't then I really feel that saying it's not the life you want is not good enough. You have a dc and, whether you like it or not you are responsible. I don't think there is any way a dc who is rejected by a parent won't have issues. 8 months is nothing and some people love babies, I prefer 3 years onwards and I'm loving dd being 8 and making me coffee, being independent etc. Do you work/have time away from DS?

Your seriously being too hard on yourself, a small baby, all the stresses we all know comes with that. Get to your GP, chat with him/her, tell them exactly how you feel, then get the right help, then you will slowly come out of this funk. Look, you may never take to this parenting lark, who does, who cares, you'll manage like us all. In fact any woman I meet with a baby and she gushes to me about how it sleeps through the night since birth etc.. I could quite happily punch in the face. (in my head of course). Good luck. You will be fine.

I have not had PND, my experience is of a professional nature, but I remember vividly being in tears almost every day because I did not like looking after a new baby/tantrumming toddler, I wanted my 'old' life back, I was bored and stressed at the same time, I was forever not doing as good a job as I felt I 'should' do.
Motherhood did not come naturally to me and it is one of today's taboos that it is very difficult to talk about that in RL - an anonymous forum is a much safer outlet and I have moaned on here before

What you are feeling goes way beyond struggling to adjust to your new life.
You are not well, but you can get better. You will get better, and not being able to see that just now is also, guess what, a symptom.

Do you think anything in this thread might enable you to go and speak to a GP again? Or HV? And be as honest as you have been on here?