To think going to ruin DC's life?

[ladylouanna]

DC 10 month old. I love him immensely but i can't help but feel he would be better off without me in his life.

I'd like to point out that I'm not depressed, these aren't feelings of post natal depression. These are genuine thoughts and feelings that I'm not a good mum and the complete fear of DC ending up like me.

I hate myself. This isn't a sympathy post, i'm not looking for some loving or kind words.

I genuinely hate myself. I hate the way I look. I hate my size.
Some people are overweight but they still look great, good hair, nice dress sense.

That's not me. I'm not pretty, I'm overweight and I dress in plain stretchy fat person clothes. I have flat limp hair.

I don't make the effort with friends because I hate how I look and feel like I have nothing to offer. Why would anyone want a friend that looks the way I do?!

I feel angry all the time. I feel like I do such a bad job at being a mum.
I took DC to the park yesterday and he was really upset.

I instantly felt like such a bad mum.
He was tired and I shouldn't have taken him when he was tired. What kind of a mum does that? I know he likes to nap in his cot so why didn't I let him nap there and then take him?!

I just knew everyone was judging me.
I was so awful to myself all the way home, name calling, bringing myself down.
It's like self harm, but mentally.

We went to the cost yesterday, I asked Hubby to take a pic of me and DC.
It was awful, definitely not one I will keep.
Other mums look great, I look like a pit bull terrier.

I can't be a mum to this gorgeous boy because I don't deserve him.

I've tried losing weight as I know that would help me massively, but I can't.
I'm addicted to food.

I don't want DC to ever be miserable like me. He's so happy and content i want him to be like that always but having me as his mum will just ruin him. 😔

@TheHappyHerbivore

Therapy therapy therapy therapy. I cannot stress to you enough how much you don’t need to live feeling like this, and just how much a therapist can help you work through these feelings.

It is worth cutting almost anything from your budget for the sake of paying for therapy. It is absolutely life changing and you wouldn’t believe just how many people would really, seriously benefit from it.

I completely agree.

You may hate yourself but I can absolutely guarantee that your 10 month old absolutely adores you and you THE best person in the world to him.

We all make rubbish parenting decisions now and again.

Look into compassion focused therapy - there are some books out there. You sound like you have very poor self esteem. Doesn't mean you're depressed. Therapy/ psychology would help.

10/1 you have PND.
GP pronto.
Big hugs.

I don't choose friends based on their looks...do you?

Luckily for me my friends don't mind that I've got a face like a spot welders bench :)

Luckily my dh and dc don't care either and they love me very much.

To your ds you are the whole world.

Please speak to someone. This level of self hatred is not normal. Get some therapy and medication.

That's exactly how I felt when my depression was at its worst.

• that I was shit at my job

-that I was ugly so what was the point of going to the hairdresser etc?

• my friends didn't actually like me
• surely everyone could see how useless I was so anyone being nice was doing it because they felt sorry for me
• random people were laughing at me (if someone laughed in the street then I was convinced they were laughing at me)
• I started to pull away from people because they were better off without me
• I put on loads of weight because I was comfort eating
• I would compare myself to everyone and I was always the ugliest/stupidest/fattest/most useless.

ladylouanna I'm sure that you can and you will be a good mum. If you weren't so sensitive to your little one you would not have worried about your feelings. Sensitivity is in many waya good. But too much sensitivity can be stressful and unhelpful. It's well meant, but unless carefully channelled can be such a burden for a well-meaning person such as you to bear.
As soon as possible - and I mean that - please, please, please seek some sort of help for your feelings. GP health visitor, private counsellor - whatever feels best to you. Very, very best wishes.

Honestly, you need to work on your self esteem and/or talk to someone about your mental health.

Your baby is loved, that means everything to a baby. I have never judged someone with a crying baby, we have all been there.

I used to feel like this and the best thing I did was lift myself out of that life by getting a job.

It most definitely helped me love myself more and feel proud of myself.

The good vibes changed my family - shame it was just a temporary contract! x

Get some therapy. If not for yourself, for your child - having a parent display such self-loathing could be incredibly damaging to his own self esteem.

@ladylouanna
You state you aren’t depressed, but your self loathing and lack of interest in appearance does sound pretty depressed to me.

If you speak to adults who lost mothers young, it has a profound affect on them, so it is nonsense to say that your son will be better off without you.

You aren’t thinking rationally at moment- losing weight and exercising will help lift your spirits-
No one needs to wear drab clothes-
My mum only dressed from Charity shops and looks really stylish - she lives in a relatively wealthy area though which helps for nice second hand clothing.

You are the most important thing in your son’s life, of course he needs you💕

Please talk to someone, your gp or possibly a counsellor/life coach who can help you work on your self esteem. I recognise those feelings you have, I've felt them too but I now have learned to love me and realise my overweight body, limp thin hair and spotty skin in my 40's means nothing. I am fabulous! ... I'm not kidding took a long time to realise that who i am matters more than what I look like. I'm actually training to be a life coach and counsellor currently.

Please seek help or self help, you are amazing!

Also I want to add I had PND. Which I didn’t notice but someone else did.

I felt SO bitter

OP, anger is also a symptom of depression as well as the other things you've spoken about. Please put some faith in your GP. It sounds like you would benefit firstly from some antidepressants to relieve some of the terrible feelings you're having and secondly, from some counselling to tackle any bigger issues.

I realise you're not in a position to believe it, but just to reiterate what others have said, you are everything to your son and the most beautiful face he will ever see. You deserve each other and you belong together.

I really hope you are able to get some help - you absolutely are worth it.

It's a genuine question. For example. He's 5 years old. He's drawn a great picture. Or he's learned to write his name. Or he's crying because someone upset him at school. Or he's worried about "monsters" what will you do? Do you feel in those situations you will be able to talk to him and cheer him up? Will you praise him and tell him what he's good at?

Absolutely. I champion him now, even at such a young age. I'm always telling him how well he does things.

I just worry that he will end up not liking himself by picking up on how I feel about myself.

I also don't want my son to hate me as much as I hate me!! 😔

What you describe is classic, typical feelings of PND.

Pitbulls are lovely dogs, very friendly and gorgeous.
Don’t undersell yourself 🥰😉

You definitely lack self love. Does your husband compliment you? It sounds like you could benefit from seeing a therapist, this will also help get to the bottom of your food addiction as well to enable you to lose some weight.

Losing weight will definitely help you as you know but its not the answer to your problem, its deep down. You believe you have no self worth & that everyone would be better without you, when in fact everyone would be worse off without you. Especially that gorgeous louyl

@OnceUponATimeInHollywood

You definitely lack self love. Does your husband compliment you? It sounds like you could benefit from seeing a therapist, this will also help get to the bottom of your food addiction as well to enable you to lose some weight.

Losing weight will definitely help you as you know but its not the answer to your problem, its deep down. You believe you have no self worth & that everyone would be better without you, when in fact everyone would be worse off without you. Especially that gorgeous louyl

little boy of yours!!

If you ever need someone to talk to, please feel free to PM me.

You say you're not depressed so I'll take you at your word.

You say there's nothing you like about yourself. I'll take you at your word.

My question for you: what are you going to do about it?

Are you going to keep going through life like this or are you going to do something or be something that you do like? What do you admire in other people? Is it their looks? Their hobbies? Their career? What are you doing to follow in their steps?

The real issue here is that if you keep being this monster (which you must be if there's absolutely nothing likeable about you - which I doubt but I'm taking you at your word!) then the person you're going to affect the most is your DS.

You have a baby and a husband. That is more than most people. As others have said perhaps you need therapy. You need to appreciate your worth. Surely your husband and baby loves you and that’s all that matters. No one cares about looks...they fade as you get older anyway

This is definitely some you need to talk to your gp about op.

I hated myself. It does cause depression and anxiety, even if you don't feel typically "sad" it's clearly impacting your mental health. I had talking therapy on the NHS and while it's not a miracle cure, I am much better at identifying and questioning my negative self talk now.

Slim pretty and attractive women also feel empty on the inside when they have depression.

The solution for you isn’t plastic surgery, a diet and a wardrobe of designer clothes. You are right - your GP can’t do any of this for you.

It’s unlikely to be parenting lessons as you sound like a normally good mum to me.

What will Probably help you is

1. Seeing your GP in case you need medication to fix an imbalance of chemicals in your body

1. Seeing a counsellor or therapist to help you sort out anything in your thinking That’s holding you back.

One of the issues with depression is that you are not very good at working out what’s wrong with you and what will help.

"I just do not like who, or what I am."

Everything you've written points to mental health problems (I know, I've been there too, before I had kids, and at the time - for many years - I felt like I was making others' lives around me worse. If you'd talked to me back then, I would have said it was fact, not just my opinion.

The truth was, I had clinical depression. It took ages to seek help, have medication and talk to professionals, but once I did, it was life-changing. Once you realise that that is not fact, but is something that depression can sometimes do to the brain, a kind of lens where everything is distorted so you feel responsible for everything, and that with help you can find real reality, then everything shifts perspective and your life can be radically better.

It does take time, and it does take finding the right professionals to speak to, but you really don't have to live with this level of self-hatred. I get how hard it is to be convinced of that right now, but just trust what people are saying here, go and see your GP even if you think nothing can be done, because it can.

And your little one loves you whatever you look like - you're Mum! And if parenting was judged by how often a child cried from tiredness at the park, then I think quite a few of us would lose parenting rights, I would have done over the years! It's what young children do - get excited, have fun, and because they don't really pace themselves, it's very easy for them to get grizzly, whether you mistime it or not. And we're learning how it all works as parents too (then when you think you have learnt, they go into a new development stage and it all changes again!).

Try to be kind to yourself - or at least stop being unkind to yourself for this evening, and I hope you can get help fast.

Op please go and see your gp. You really are describing classic depression symptoms. It sounds like you've been suffering for quite a long bless you. You can get help for this.

This is not really to do with looks. My hair is pretty thin and flat at times and I couldn't care less about it. Babies love their mothers whatever they look like.

You are doing fine and all of us have taken children to the park and they have cried and been tired. That does not mean going to the park was wrong. In fact getting the parents with the baby out of the house on a walk is very important, more important than whether the baby wanted to go out or not.