Hey, just wondering if anyone could give me a helping hand.
I had my baby boy 4 months ago. I had quite a stressful pregnancy. My baby’s dad isn’t around at the moment for reasons that I really don’t want to go into, but let’s just say he’s spending some time with her majesty sad
I’ve suffered badly with OCD since the age of about 5 years old, it manifested in weird ways and I got obsessed with cleaning and re arranging objects several times a day, I went through a lot of stresses at this age and they think OCD was a way of me being a little girl coping.
My midwifery care during my pregnancy was raised to enhanced, luckily I have a really good relationship with my GP who has been brilliant and kept an eye on my mood as he knows my past has been difficult with my mental health.
After I had baby we were in hospital for a while, all of this was a bit of a blur as me and baby weren’t well. In fact the weeks after I gave birth were a blur, I’d say 2 months after - I remember nothing. It’s a strange feeling.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Fast forward to now and most days I am in tears, I just feel really down. Lockdown isn’t helping, it’s isolating, no mum and baby groups, obviously no partner currently helping me etc. It’s not the norm after having a baby!
My little one is either good with sleeping or really bad and wakes a lot during the night which causes me to be extremely tired, I don’t have a partner helping me the day after the long nights so it’s becoming increasingly draining.
In the beginning I felt as if there was a glass wall between us and I couldn’t quite get to my feelings that I felt towards him. I knew I loved him more than I thought I could love a person but it’s almost like there was a block stopping me from quite getting there. It’s a weird feeling and sometimes I still feel it.
There’s been nights where he’s woken up crying and I’ve tried the dummy for a few minutes to see if this sends him back to sleep. One night I put the dummy in his mouth and it didn’t work so I got him out of his cot after trying to get him back to sleep with the dummy. This is where my obsessive thoughts come into play - did I shove the dummy in his mouth and hold it there? Was I so sleep deprived that I got angry with help and held it there and hurt him? I don’t remember doing this, I know I held his dummy there for a little while to see if he’d settle but I feel like I have physically hurt him and shoved it in his mouth and am not remembering exactly what happened.
Also one night he woke up for a feed. I was feeding him and he kept waving his arms around and smacking himself in the face, prodding his poor little eyes out so I quickly grabbed his arm to stop him doing it so he didn’t gauge an eye out! I was extremely tired this night too and am now convinced I grabbed his arm and physically hurt him.
Some nights I wake up and say ‘oh please go to sleep’ and say his name and shush him while making his bottle. A little while ago he’d also strain while feeding and just come across irritated and uncomfortable during nights and sleep deprived days and I’d say to him why aren’t you taking the bottle probably in a tone more frustrated than I’d normally be. This also makes me feel so guilty because he’s a little baby and knows no different. It’s just so hard when you’re that tired, I just feel like I’m constantly abusing him and hurting him. It’s making me feel awful to the point during the day when I’m playing with him etc and things aren’t stressful I feel so guilty that I don’t want him round me because I feel as if I’ve abused him. I feel like as well when things aren’t stressful and I’m not tired and we’re playing with toys or laughing and I’m singing songs etc, it’ll cross my mind in the middle of spending time with him that I’ve been so horrible to him and I’m being nice to him so it must be fake just to make up for what I done to him, it’s hard to explain the feeling but really we’re just enjoying each other’s company and being happy. It’s like I think to myself how horrible I’ve been and how I have the audacity to be nice to him now and that I don’t deserve him. A feeling of how can I be so nice to him when I was so horrible to him
I look at him and feel so sorry for him having a mum like me. I hate the idea of hurting him.
I’ve read things about people throwing their babies in anger and I’d never do that to my little one. I just feel like I’m mentally scarring him and that he’ll grow up messed up because of me.
Yesterday he was crying an awful lot, I hadn’t slept the night prior as we were up and i couldn’t deal with his crying, I felt hopeless so handed him to my mum. He was sick a few minutes after, I felt terrible and sorry that I didn’t know he felt poorly. I took him off my mum immediately and gave him the biggest hug and we had a bath together. He seemed happy enough but I couldn’t get over the guilt of him feeling poorly and not knowing and me just handing him to my mum because I needed a second. As she was holding him I said ‘why are you crying just please stop crying’ as well.
Sorry for the long post. Am I evil or do you recommend me seeing my GP for some help? Is this normal to be stressed? I feel like an awful mum at this moment in time. I can’t shake these awful thoughts, they consume me so much that sometimes I feel as if I can’t be round my little one because it’s eating me up.
Thank you 
xx