The daughter in question is my middle child and she’s 18. She’s an anxious girl, though the anxiety seems to have been mainly high school based. She absolutely loved primary. She’s on Sertraline now which isn’t what I’d wish for, for my child. She’s a great person, if slightly entitled and high maintenance at times 😁 I love her to bits and we mostly get on great. I’d say I’m a good support to her and I’m sure she’d agree.
A few months after she was born, I started to get horrific postnatal anxiety. I had never really been an anxious person, so this knocked me for six. My biggest fear was that I was a bad person and that I was capable of doing harm. I couldn’t bathe my baby without worrying that I’d let go of her and drown her. I worried that I was capable of murder and then my thoughts would spiral, and I imagined myself in prison being given a hard time. If I heard a police car, I assumed it was coming for me (I knew it wasn’t, but the intrusive thoughts were honestly at a whole new level). At night, I’d cry myself to sleep and think ‘oh well, if it comes to it, I can always kill myself instead of hurting someone else’. The thought of that was honestly a comfort, since doing significant harm to others was my worst fear!
I still get the odd intrusive thought now, but don’t dwell on it at all and they no longer cause me anxiety.
I lived like that - in a state of perpetual fear (worse at night) - for one year. I come from a ‘get on with it’ background and plastered a smile on my face for the sake of my older child, my baby daughter, husband, etc. No one would know I was suffering as much as I was. Breaking down wasn’t an option. My ex husband worked in London at the time and I had no choice but to carry on. I did go and see my GP but she put me off going on antidepressants. I wouldn’t have told the full truth about the root of my anxiety.
It was the most horrendous year of my life and took superhuman strength every day.
My question to you is this, is it down to me that my daughter has anxiety? I breastfed her at the time, if that’s relevant. I honestly tried not to show any of it, but she must have surely sensed it somehow.
I don’t remember being anxious throughout the pregnancy, so it was postnatal.
Thanks for your thoughts.