Am I having a breakdown?

[Idontdeservethem]

Name changer. Have felt odd for weeks, felt like I was watching Christmas and new year from the outside. Didn't enjoy either. Put it down to be pre menstrual that week. It hasn't got better. My temper is terrible. I picked a fight with DH on the way to the supermarket yesterday with the dcs in the car and I actually got out of the car and started to walk home. I shocked myself with my behaviour. Afterwards I just felt flat and sad. Couldn't sleep last night. Today I am just crying and couldn't get out of bed. DH made me get up. I have been crying over lots of things that happened years ago, things I don't even think about anymore. I've sobbed today over my lovely grandma who died 9 years ago. I can't cope. I am tired. I am sad. I feel guilty because DH is so good and kind and I'm a crap wife and a crap mum. I must have frightened my boys yesterday and they'll remember that forever. I won't have sex. I fat and I always look scruffy. I can't stop eying and I just want to go back to bed but I can't let DH down more than I already am. He has made me an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow. I am a failure. Please someone help me.

Thank you mummmylin I hope you are right. I'm going to go down and see the boys now but will be back in a little while.

Hello again, talk as much as you want, there will always be someone here to listen. I know (believe me I do) how hard it is to go to someone in RL and say how you feel, you worry that they may laugh or tell you to grow up, but your GP won't, he can refer you to someone specialised in helping people with depression, and you can get the medication you need (if indeed you do need it, sometimes just having a dr to talk to about it can be enough), it really is worth going.

I know i am right.I have a sister with bi-polar but her last episode was 5yrs ago.In that time she has recovered,remarried and now expecting twins in 3 and a half weeks,her life is competely turned around ,thanks to treatment from the right people.The doctors are here to help you,but if you dont go they cant help.Im sure that mumsnetters will virtually go with you !!

Thank you. I let dh read this thread. He said he felt like crying. Am on my phone while the dc play. I made tea. I couldn't eat it but I sat with them while they all ate. They are so funny and lovely. Ds2 (6) is on my knee now. I do love them, of course I do. Ds2 is making ds3 laugh.
Why does this happen to some people? Nothing is going wrong in my life. There are the constant struggles and stresses but no more than usual.
This has happened before. A few times. There has always been a trigger before so I could sort out the problem, work through it and move on.
Once, in my late teens, I shut the curtains and didn't go anywhere for 3 weeks. Noone noticed. I picked myself up and moved on with my life. I don't know if I'm that person anymore though. I feel even more rejected by my family than I ever did because I know now how it should be. How much we should love our children. I am a self pitying and pathetic. I know that.

No you certainly are not pathetic or self pitying,quite simply you are ill and no-one can help that. It sounds like you have a lovely dh and im sure he will give you all the support you need.And of course you will have support from us on here .

Something about an imbalance of chemicals in the nervous system. I'm blind as a bat a bit short sighted, my neighbour has IBS, a friend is bi-polar, no reason, just the luck of the draw in life I guess.

Thank you for being so nice. You are making me cry. I will go to the doctor. Im just not sure how they can help but I will go

Baby in bed early, ds2 gone to an activity and ds1 snuggled with me watching dancing on ice. I still want to hide away and cry but my children come first.

It's me again, I keep reading this thread as I feel so worried about you and I'm typing this with tears in my eyes. Can I just say first of all that you are definitely not a horrible person ... I can see this just by reading your posts. For a start, horrible people don't even KNOW they're horrible so they certainly don't seek help or try and analyse their feelings. You are desperate for help because you don't like the way you are feeling and thinking and I think you are an extremely brave lady for opening up here (and to your husband) and being very honest about what you are feeling inside. Please don't knock yourself for that. Of course you love your husband and children and they all love you. Because you feel so low and depressed, you are unable to see yourself as loveable but you just need to trust that you are.

Although I have no first-hand experience of this (as I mentioned before), my friend did go through something similar. She is happily married with an 11-year-old son from a previous relationship and all seemed 'fine and dandy' but she woke up one morning and started crying ... she didn't stop crying for days and could shake off the feeling of deep despair that was inside her. She couldn't explain it, there was no rational explanation. She even found herself rocking to and fro in a chair at one point and she really worried that she was losing her mind. In the end, she did go to the doctors and she broke down at the reception desk. They took her straight through to the doctor and they were LOVELY ... they gave her tissues, listened to her, sympathised and got her an immediate counsellor to help her. They did also prescribe a mild anti-depressent to help in the meantime (which she no longer needs incidentally). When she saw the counseller it transpired that she had a lot of unresolved issues from her past, not least undiagnosed post-natal depression from 11 years ago!! She admitted that she had never quite bonded with her son (which she felt terrible about) and it was all linked to his traumatic birth and the fact that his biological father had walked out on her shortly afterwards. She was very strong at the time and remarried a lovely man but, obviously, the issues remained unresolved.

Please believe that you are not going crazy ... you just need some mental nurturing and a little help at the moment. Please don't knock yourself, I do not see any self-pity in your posts - I see someone crying out for help and, I promise you that when you go to the doctors you will get it. Keep communicating with your husband and telling him how you feel - good idea showing him this thread as sometimes it's easier to write your feelings down.

Please do keep posting so that we all know you're ok xx

Gooshka, thank you so much. You have no idea how much your post meant. I am crying again now! The kindness of total strangers is overwhelming. Just laughed actually because dh forgot ds2 was at his activity and even when I reminded him of the time he still didn't see the significance and has rushed off to get him! First laugh of the day, got to be a good thing!

Can I talk about the things that have surfaced today? I don't want to be accused of drip feeding. I just don't know why these things matter anymore now than they did 2 months ago iyswim

And gooshka, thank you for sharing the story of your friend, I had mild pnd after ds2 and dh suggested it could be this agin but as ds3 is over 1 I thought too much time had lapsed

And gooshka, thank you for sharing the story of your friend, I had mild pnd after ds2 and dh suggested it could be this agin but as ds3 is over 1 I thought too much time had lapsed

Oh I'm so glad you have managed to laugh! Please do keep talking/posting ... it's the best medicine xx

Yes, PND can occur many years after the birth ... not many women are aware of that and I only know because of my friend x

Idontdeservethem I couldn't read and not post.

Sometimes depression is (very accurately) described as anger turned inwards; would you judge any of your friends as harshly as you're berating yourself right now?

Please, please go to your GP tomorrow. I've been in your position, I know how crushed you are feeling. I remember once sitting on a park bench during midsummer, the sun on my face, a warm breeze rustling through my hair, and children running past. Life was going well- I had a good job, a lovely dp and we were decorating our first flat together. Yet I was sitting there hysterically crying, it had taken all my energy to leave the house, and inside I just felt swallowed up with grief and clammy darkness. I may as well have been sitting at the bottom of a well.

Trust me, it will get better if you seek help; you can't fight it on your own.

I am going to tell you what came up today. There are a few things. I don't know why they came up today but they did. The first is my grandma. She was the only person in my family I felt unconditionally loved and supported me. I spent hours with her and talking to her on the phone. She died before ds1 was 1 but she adored him and me. Last night's memorial made me think of her as the anniversary was this month. I miss her so much that my heart aches, it actually aches. She would love ds2 and ds3 and she has missed so much and we have missed having her. She died nearly a decade ago. Sometimes I still dial her number but don't let it ring. Is that mad? She was my lovely, lovely grandma and I want her here right now to hug me and tell me she is proud of me and loves me. Silly I know.

I told dh today about something that happened many years ago, before we met. I was working abroad, I came home drunk one night and a stranger in a car offered me a lift. I got in. I don't know why. I was young and silly. The man told me he had a gun and wanted sex. I fought him and got away but not before he got what he wanted. I never told anyone before today. I had told him I'd been attacked in the street but said I had got away. I never admitted to Nyone that I got in his car. I never told anyone at the time and I don't know why I told him today.

It sounds like you are in a very low place and there can be many reasons how we get into them.
I have been and what you write resonates so much with how I have felt.

I am currently in a much better place and hope you start making the steps soon that gets you back to yours.

But try to remember that however dark things seem, it can, and will improve, and even if you keep talking on MN for a while and getting the things out of your head, that is a key step to helping your self.

It is possible that everything has bubbled up and become raw again, maybe because, naturally, we repress these things and sometimes the time comes where we have to deal with them. And that is painful.

It is like grieving, and there are stages to healing and the process of going through them can be tough but what brings us out of the other side.

FWIW, you come across as lovely, warm, considerate and someone who very much deserves the love of a lovely man like your DH.

I know how hard it is to see the other side of where you are now, but it is there and I wish you all the best in getting there x

Mittzchief thank you for replying. Thank you for your kind words. I hope no key minds If I am a little self indulgent and tell all the things that are weighing on my mind. They are all in the past and I will send them back there soon I promise but today I need to talk. I need to explain how I feel. I need to explain how I've always felt for all these years. I love my dh and my beautiful, beautiful boys but i know there is always a part in me that never feels worthy of the wonderful people I live with.

I was told that the need to keep talking is important on two levels... like being sick and getting a bug out of our system, and in a way we will keep being sick, or talking until it has gone, or the issues in our minds become more manageable, because locking them in our heads somehow makes them grow...

And the other things is most of us need 'witnesses' to hear and empathise with our hurts. It doesn't change what happened but in a way sharing them truly does help diminish them.

Like you, I was raped, but for many years could not even acknowledge that that was what happened, and it becomes like a cancer in the mind. Talking and talking has done much to assuage the guilt I felt...

Lovey, getting in the car was in no way a justification for some monster to do what he did and it sounds like you blame yourself for an 'error of judgement'.
He was simply a bastard. A monster. Normal, decent human beings don't go round making opportunistic attacks.

Try to imagine that you are your own friend, and how much you would want to help them and offer a hand in helping them... that is what you deserve x

Mittzchief. I have never thought of myself as being raped, I know that sOunds mad. I have heard countless stories of victims blaming themselves and never understood it or associAted it with my experience. I don't deserve your kind was or the kindness of anyone on here. I am wallowing and I have my dh and my husband to think of but I can stop and I can't stop crying. I just apologised to ds1 about yesterday and told him I was wrong but that everyone gets cross sometimes. I told him how much I love him, because I really really do. My poor, poor babies, I wanted them to have a much better mummy than I ever had. I whispered to them all when they were tiny newborns that everyday I would tell them I love them and I would never let them down but I do let them down. I am so very very sad

I am adopted. I trAced my birth mother years ago and have had a very up and down relationship. Last year she told me to stay away and that she did me a favour not aborting me because I found out my birth father was not my Borg father. This sounds so Jeremy Kyle and so far fetched but I promise you it is true. We are professional people with good morals and we do our best for our children and our family and friends. She is not like that. She hurt me so may times over the years but I kept going back for more. My adoptive family don't understand. I always felt like I don't belong anywhere. Dh and my boys and even Dhs family changed that. But today I feel like even the woman who gave birth to me hates me, and she does hate me

I know it's hard sometimes and a lot of people have felt the way you do, you are not alone and your children and dh would not be better without you just as mine would not be better off without me it's just your mind playing evil tricks on you. You will get better

I also reccommend counselling, it really does help.