I spend every day angry or crying. I've got PND and I don't know what to do

[awfulmumshithead]

I can't go to the doctor. I CAN'T.

I won't take tablets. I WON'T.

I shout at everyone. I can't cope. I can't sleep at night. I don't know if it's depression or if I'm going mad.

I'm a regular. I've changed my name.

I just want to kill myself. I'm supposed to be happy.

I think I can cope for a day or two and then something goes wrong like I lose something and it makes me so angry. It makes me so angry that I can't stop shaking. I shout at my husband and my baby. Then I get so upset that I slap myself in the face because I hate being alive and being such an awful person. Then I feel nothing. Then I just want to sleep. Maybe a day later I feel like I'll just magically fix everything only it always goes wrong and I get angry again.

My family would be better off without me. I know they would.

Please, please, please don't tell me to go to the doctor. I don't want anyone to know what a failure I am.

Have we got the same baby bigkids?? He used to eat too and then he learnt that he could shake his head and clamp his mouth shut.

Ok brilliant, I've been so worried that if I can't get him to eat that he'll grow up to be a midget and it'll all be my fault. I'll let him get hungry. I'm off duty at night time now anyway due to my AD's knocking me out.

No I don't do anything without the baby. My husband looks after him at the weekends but that's not restful for me because 1, he doesn't take him out and I can still hear him yelling in the house and 2, I have such an awful time looking after him that I feel massively guilty for palming him off onto someone else and making them suffer in my place (even though my husband tells me he loves taking care of him but I don't let myself hear that)

Oh yes and so much for me not posting on Mumsnet. Well bollocks to it, I really have needed all your help and kind words this morning. Thank you all.

I don't know Michelle is yours exceptionally gorgeous too?

Honestly, I think a lot of this is teeth. DS is getting his top ones and so I think eating hurts him :( so he's just having extra milk and yogurts etc till it all calms down.

If I were you I'd try to sign up for yoga or something on a Saturday. Get out of the house, wee bit of exercise, something calming not heart pounding. It's even nice just getting a bus on your own after mat leave isn't it

Yes he is! We HAVE got the same baby :o

He's got his teeth coming through too and you know he did start this shaking head thing when they started poking through. Duh it must be that. Oh how awful of me to be trying to force a spoon in his mouth when it's hurting and then yelling at him because he doesn't want it. I am a shit.

Oh I know, my husband comes home and says he got stuck in a traffic jam and isn't that a nuisance and I'm thinking crumbs I'd love to get stuck in a traffic jam.

Roar at lovely traffic jams!

Don't worry about not noticing. My childminder suggested it to me I think as mothers we are far too keen to blame ourselves when things go wrong when there is probably a boring physical reason.

I need to go now Michelle, wishing you a good day. Don't panic about food, just lots of feeds. Try to get some sun :)

Do try to tell your DH you need time apart from baby (if only a quick tea/coffee at a friends or Starucks etc.). Get out of sound range! Tell him he has to take baby to the park for 1/2 hour.

BTW Christopher Green my favourite baby Guru, says in one of his books that no child starves themselves if there is bread and jam in the house. Which has reassured me a lot over the years.

MichelleSeaShell, what a journey you have been on in the course of this thread!

I am glad you are still posting, there was so much raw emotion in your posts, that i think it was almost impossible for it not to get out of hand, but I hope you haven't been too bruised by it.

Without Mumsnet over the last year, I don't know how I would have got through.

Ds has lots of eating issues (developmental delay, problems with swallowing etc), and I remember at 9 months, I would tear my hair out that he couldn't swallow anything, choked, he was pretty much formula fed completely until a couple of months ago (he is 15 months). I rely a lot on food from a pot, because a)he actually eats it, and b)it isn't soul destroying if i end up throwing it away.

If the teeth are a problem, use Anbesol - it is the only thing that works with ds.

I hope you will feel better soon. Just wanted to say that try not to worry about the food. For the first year milk, whether bm or formula, is the most important part of your baby's nutrition. When you introduce solids, you are introducing new tastes and textures for your baby, and that is the main point, not getting them to get all their nutrition from solid food immediately. If you can try and think of it as you providing opportunities for your baby to try new textures and tastes, and take the pressure off both you and him, you'll find that he'll probably enjoy sticking his fingers in and and discovering it - and some will probably make it into his mouth. Perhaps if you can give him some control, i.e. give him the spoon and some food, or some different sorts of (safe) finger foods, then he'll enjoy playing with it and hopefully exploring it too. If he can see you eating too, perhaps if you can eat with him, eventually he'll probably want to nick the stuff off your plate and before you know it he'll be a toddler eating his meat and 2 veg like the rest of us!
Be good to yourself. If you're giving your baby lots of milk then he won't starve, so try and give yourself a break whilst you get yourself well. You are more important to him than anything.

Oh and I forgot to say, that the best bits of advice that my lovely dr gave me was to have at least half an hour each day when dh gets home, without any children (we have 3), go for a walk, lie in bed with earphones on, have a bath - just a break for you, and don't strive to be the best, you just need to be good enough - and it sounds as though you are more than good enough.

are you staying with us michelle? I really hope so. new mantra.......dont stress and i AM a good mummy :)

I'm still here. My husband sent one of my friends over with his house key so that's two people in real life that know I'm not very well. We've just been chatting about everything.

I'm afraid to let anyone know because I was (and here we go again, making me sound like I must be making things up) in an abusive relationship and that was when I was pregnant before and one of the things he used to bully me about was that he said he just knew I wouldn't be able to cope and I would get PND. Anyway, for those of you who don't know this I ended up having a termination quite late on. I left him when I found out I was pregnant but he stalked me, put me in hospital after pushing me down the stairs, threatened me with a knife outside my home and then called social services to report me as an unfit mother. The police didn't even arrest him. That's why I was so scared of him and what he would do to the baby that I had a termination I didn't want. To me, I've lost a baby which is why I said that but I know that most people would see it as my fault.

Anyway, so I didn't want to get PND more than anything and now I'm seeing it all as a sign that I'm a bad mum and that my violent shit of an ex would have easily had my first baby taken away from me.

I'm a bit wary of telling you all this because I don't want to be told I'm a liar but 500 messages or so in I feel you ought to know the truth and not feel like you need to waste sympathy on me for what happened to my first baby.

Blimey Poor you.

Does anybody else get the feeling this thread might mark the start of a whole new, happier, more laid-back life for our lovely OP?
:)

He's nearly nine months old. Too old to not eat his food. I don't know why he won't eat. Some days he eats it but then I try to give him the same thing another time and he won't take it. I actually shake with fear when I'm making him something to eat but today I was merrily making it and he had the first few spoonfuls and I was thinking great! Then he just stopped.

That's completely normal. Mine both did that and I used to stress and stress about it. Don't sit there as long as it takes until he eats, just offer a few times and if he doesn't want it just go do something else. Really it doesn't matter, he'll be fine. I've learnt from hard experience that the more you stress and try to get them to eat the less they want to.

Michelle, I remember you telling that story on a thread about abortion (to do with Nadine Dorries?) and thinking how were brave you were to tell us that. Yes, you have lost a baby. I'm not a doctor, but I think it is completely normal for you to be bundling all the unresolved feelings about that awful situation with all the feelings, hormonally induced or otherwise, of this baby. I'm so glad you have told someone else. Hang in there, you are one brave lady.

Michelle, you're not only funny, with a great turn of phrase, but heart searingly honest too. You're going to be just fine.

I have not said this out loud before, but I loathed the first year of my ds' life. I didn't feel i was coping, I was very ill, I watched other women serenely cope with everything in their stride (or so I thought) and just felt like a fraud. All that kept me going was, one day he will be at school and this will be over. Of course, when I recovered my health it was lovely to be a mum but i have residual anger that my first year of motherhood was so blighted. Nevertheless, I am terribly thankful that I recovered and can make up for all the darkest days. And you will too.

Keep on taking the meds, they work. As for the food, pah, he won't starve if you are bf. Walk away, make a coffee, put on some music and let it wash over you. And get some 'you' time tonight or tomorrow, out of earshot. DH will cope just fine, you are allowed to escape now and again, infact, you are encouraged to do it.x

Thanks garlicslutty x

He's eaten one biscuit and a few bits of a peanut butter sandwich. He only wanted that because I was eating it but I'm not about to munch baby food to pique his interest in having it too. Yuck.

Thanks everyone for the food reassurance. I've got a mum friend who was my go to for advice but she's a real perfect mum type and I've given up talking to her. She bought me a book on baby led weaning and told me I needed to get a bread maker.

Yes it was the Nadine Dorries thread. The right to choose is very important to me. I wouldn't be here without it. That man would have killed me.

I've been talking to my friend today about everything that happened back then and I'm realising that the seeds of doubt he planted in my head have been growing all this time. It's emotional abuse that does the real harm. Bruises heal but words keep going back.

Thank you so much perfumedlife. You'd probably have thought I was having a wonderful time of it too if you saw me at a baby group

M

Re: this "perfect mum" crap.

Let me paint you a scene....yesterday. Dinnertime. ds2 (3) has finished. Asks to get down from table. Asks if he can paint. Dh says yes and gets him the paints etc. Fine. Dh and I sit talking to ds1 who has just been dx as dyslexic and is very upset about it

After a few mins we realise ds2 has been very quiet for a while. find him downstairs COVERED in paint and "cleaning" the windows with sudocrem (bum cream)

Cue dh and I taking 45 mins to bath ds2 (we were due at a school event at 7pm obv!!) and clean house.

Ds2 drinks fruitshoots both mine were formula fed I co sleep and I dont care what anyone thinks about that.

I sometimes think I may be chucked off MN though!!! (esp for the fruitshoot thing!)

However, when ds1 was a baby and I was very ill I would have cared very much and the slightest unkind word would prostrate me for days

So, forget about being this fictional "perfect" creature. You may not think so but you are the centre of your childs universe and they think you are perfect x

Bluddy well said Becaroo

I've got a mum friend who was my go to for advice but she's a real perfect mum type and I've given up talking to her. She bought me a book on baby led weaning and told me I needed to get a bread maker.

Yeah I have that too. She a nice woman but takes it all in her stride and has very easy going children and has had none of the difficulties I've had. I just can't talk to her anymore . . . it's not good for me.

LeonieDelt I do understand what you mean about feeling like you're burdening DH with the baby. I still do it and she was 3 on Monday just done. I still feel guilty if someone else has her, and feel like i'm skiving in my duty if i leave the kids with DH and piss off downtown to Primark or summat.

I feel like that. Does everyone?

Leonie, isn't it the bizarrest thing that we each have sympathy and understanding for each other but not for ourselves? It is so important to look at things objectively but motherhood is such a rush and a panic that there's no time for anything other than the feeling that you aren't accomplishing enough.

Try the tablets, my dear. You do deserve a chance to be kind to yourself. At the beginning of this week I was convinced that if I couldn't help myself then I wasn't worth helping. I see now how refusing to accept help was destructive and not constructive. Depression isn't about trying harder.

Please listen to me. I'm telling you everything that I should have listened to. I've only had two of these tablets and I'm already feeling so much clarity. I had a little meltdown this morning but amazingly, it passed within half an hour. That's a miracle for me. I don't even want to think of the number of times my husband's come home to find me whimpering in a ball on the floor with a face like a wet tomato.

I'm just thrilled to be called lovely. Thank you. I'm even letting myself think you haven't been reading someone elses posts and commented here by accident.

This perfect mum thing is nonsense. I know. But I don't know. I can't get the thought out of my head that I'm going to turn into my mother or the vision that my evil ex had of me. I know that I'm completely terrified of being a bad mum so maybe that will be enough.

Things will get better for you, just hold in there. x