To not bother much with christmas because it's only ds, dh and me?

[Biggamehunter]

I'm feeling really depressed at the moment. I was planning in trying to make the best if christmas but something's happened today that although only small really has knocked me for six.

I really cannot be bothered with christmas this year. It just does not seem worth the effort. All that build up for just one day. And it's only the three of us, it barely seems worth the pretence that we are a normal happy family like everyone else.

Wibu to just do the absolute bare minimum? Few gifts but no tree or special lunch or anything? What's the point really? Even if it is vaguely cheery the other 364 days of the year are fucking miserable.

I'm not sure what you want from your threads. You don't want advice, you don't want to listen.

The only thing that is going to help you feel better is if you get help for your depression. Doesn't your DS deserve that much from you? It's not his fault that you have secondary infertility (and yes, I've been there and so have both my siblings so I do know what it's like) but you're making it his problem. It's very unkind

Biggame honestly, you don't sound like you're in a place to be having another child right now. You urgently need to get some help with your mental health. Your other medical condition is irrelevant to whether you need other medical assistance, and that is why the NHS is there.

5yo DS is an only, and will stay that way. We always anticipated that we would have two, but that was before we met DS. He was a very high maintenance baby and toddler, and it turns out he has ASD, which means he is a high maintenance child (for now, at least).

We also started a bit late, then had a miscarriage, so we are now both well into our 40s. Frankly, we have had to accept that we simply don't have another baby in us.

DS sometimes asks about having a sibling. That is because he sees that friends at school have them, and they always want what their friends have. It is not to be confused with the deep, deep longing that you have for another child.

We try to make sure he sees his cousins regularly.

And we are able to focus our efforts on trying to make life good for the family we have. It's tough at the moment, and DH and I are both being treated for mental health problems associated with DS's recent diagnosis.

I love Christmas, and I am focusing on planning a Christmas that can be manageable and magical for our little family.

You are the centre of your child's world, not your mil. If you are miserable he will know. 5 is right in the middle of the 'magic years' when Santa and fairies are real. I have 3 neices who each have only one child. One had her dd after 3 failed ivf attempts. There will be no more. One had a ds very prematurely after several miscarriages. There will be no more. The third has chosen to have just one child as has my own ds and his wife. I grew up an only child and my parents and extended family made every Christmas magical. To have a child at all is such a blessing and you have that blessing. Please don't let him grow up feeling he wasn't enough.

I would say you need to make it nice for your ds. Ie let him decorate the tree and make mince pies, and take him to see santa. If he was two, id say just leave it but he's at an age where he'll be missing out. Feel for you though op. X

You are so busy hankering after what you can't have, that you are not enjoying what you do have.

If you don't manage to have another baby then this is the only time you will see an excited 5year old enjoy a magical christmas. Don't waste that opportunity, or indeed any of the wonderful moments that happen everyday with the precious child you do have.
Easier said than done but it can be done if you get to that doctor to get the help you need.

Do you really want to look back when you are better, and realise you've not experienced any of the good bits of having any children at all?

Do it for your son if you can't do it for you.

Christmas = a happy time to spend with family and friends- how you decide to create happiness is YOUR CHOICE!

You can replicate other people's idea of "the perfect Christmas" or do whatever you want!

In my house it is me, DH, and 2 DS- we're staying in our PJs all day watching Xmas tv eating Chinese take-away for lunch- as those are the things that make US happy

OP I have sympathy for you - your depression makes everything seem so bleak and pointless.
But it's also making you selfish - your son is 5 - Christmas is the be all and end all when you're 5.
Please seek help - none of this is your son's fault. You are allowing your obsession with having another child to fuck up the child that's actually there!
It's not on. You need to take responsibility and see someone about how you are feeling.
Good luck xx

I have 2 friends in their 40's who are single and childless through no choice if their own. You are not that unlucky.

However, I don't think what anyone says to you is going to make any difference to your mental state.

Yes you are suffering and you need to see your gp and get some help. You're not 'overusing' the nhs. It's there for you.

Go and make that appointment.

What does your DH think? Does he agree that your family is a sham, and worthless etc because it only has one child in it? Does he think it's best if you don't spend Christmas Day with your son, because only mothers with more than one kid should be happy at Christmas?

Or does he, like us, despair at this situation you are making, and desperately want you to seek help for your mental health issues?

Alibabaandthe40nappies What you said was extremely harsh!!!

As someone who has been depressed I know how doing the simplest of tasks can seem like climbing a mountain!

I think you need to think of things that would make your son happy on the day and just stick to doing them as a family. So make him his favourite lunch- even if that is just one massive ice-cream sundae and watch his favourite films as a family.

Christmas seems to have a lot of expectations (I blame the perfect TV ads) but please don't get swallowed up by them- stay in control and do it your way :)

Get some help for your MH problems. They are seriously clouding your judgement and will be effecting those around you. Depression is a treatable illness for the majority of people. Seek help asap.

As for the smear test, well woman clinics and some STI clinics will do a smear for you. I have annual smears, so get people can be difficult. If the nurse was rude complain.

Depression makes you feel hopeless and helpless and distorts your reality so I get why it all feels too much. You're a parent though to a little boy that needs you. He's only five. You don't want to look back and realise you missed his little years.

100% of posters telling you to get help for the depression. We all have sympathy for you but there is no point you posting, or us taking time to listen, if you are going to ignore the most obvious thing you need to do

Pick up that phone now. You feel miserable. Do something proactive to help yourself and your poor innocent son who will be affected everyday by your low mood.

I'm with Diving. I have had MH problems myself but you need to stop posting in forums and get yourself some help.

I have only one DS and don't plan to have any more due to medical issues. I also have a D family member who had one DS with much difficulty and was unable to have more - she was upset - devastated even but she has doted on her one and only as I will. Of course we are both families - little families join with extended families to make big ones with friends thrown in too. It upsets me to think we would be viewed as 'incomplete'.

You are really unwell if you can't see what you are doing. You are willing to ruin your DS's childhood for the sake of a child who may or may not be born in the future. I find that incredibly sad. What does your DH say about this?

You need to speak to a GP today you really do.

I also think maybe when you start to recover you could look at doing voluntary work and perhaps get some perspective about who is lucky and who isn't.

If you think you are unluckier than 99pc of people because you have a husband, a kid and enough disposable income to get private medical treatment then you are not seeing things rationally.

HoHo I have suffered, and do suffer, from depression. I know all about how hard it is. I also know that when you are a parent you force yourself to seek help and get better for your child. All this self-pitying is all very well if you're a single person, but when you have a child then you have to find some resolve from somewhere.

The NHS is better geared and better prepared to accept and help with mental health problems than it has ever been. Is it perfect? No, far from it, but it is better than it has been and there is no excuse not to seek treatment, none at all.

Morris - quite.

You need to get help.

You need to. Now. Before DS grows up thinking that no matter what he said and did, he was not enough.

I feel terrible saying that to you. I don't want to kick you when you're down. But it is the truth.

Yes, it appears you are unlucky at having babies. I'm sorry. But that means that only in that instance are you more unlucky than others. There are women in poor countries having baby after baby...to watch them die of diarrhea or malnutrition. There are women who have babies...and husbands who cheat on and abuse them. Just recently someone near-ish to me was pregnant with her fifth child, quite far along. She was stung by a bee and had a freak allergic reaction. She died. So did the baby, obviously. So there her husband is, mourning his wife and daughter and four kids under the age of seven, all looking to him. Do you honestly think you are more unlucky than they are?

And Christmas doesn't have to be a build up to just one day. It can be lots of little things...a special DVD with hot cocoa a few weeks before. Decorate some cookies (you can buy it all if baking seems too much). Special Christmas PJs. Write a letter to Santa. Read a special book. Take a drive and see the lights. Just little things here and there.

You posted before about seeing your pictures of your DS as a baby and toddler and feeling pain. If you don't get help, you are going to let that happen again. When he is a big ten year old, you will look back on a picture of him at five and think "oh he was so little!" He still is very little, and you are letting this time slip through your fingers.

You think he'd be better off in a "proper" family? Well, you and DH are the only parents and family he will have. You are the only mother he will ever have. If what you say is true, this is the one chance you have to be a mother, and you are letting it go.

I know you don't believe me, because you believe the depression. But depression lies.

Morris, her 'D'H is against antidepressants, which doesn't help.

Big, you obviously think there's a chance you're being unreasonable as you keep posting on here. Listen to the advice you're getting?

I don't know what I want from these threads. What does anyone want when they post? Just to put it down somewhere I guess. I don't have anyone I trust irl and am completely alone. So if it doesn't go here it doesn't go anywhere.

Alibaba you are totally right. He WOULD be better off without me. I've considered that numerous times over the last few months. I just don't know how logistically dh would get ds to school if I wasn't here though as he works such long hours and travels away. I guess they'd have to go and live with mil which she would be overjoyed about. But then ds would have to leave his school and he loves his school which would be a shame. I don't know.
I'm sorry to hear about your friends. They are also very unlucky I agree.

Dh has no idea I feel like this.
He has no truck with people feeling down.

Biggamehunter It is another 44 days until Christmas- go to your GP now and get some help!!! With help from your GP, in 44 days time you might actually want to make an effort for Christmas :)

Nobody said he would be better off without you. Everyone said your son needs his mother.

Could you clarify what you believe the people on this thread are advising you to do? What has been the main, nearly unanimous advice?

Sweetheart making the first step to get help can be very hard. But please seek help for yourself and your beautiful boy.

You aren't 'feeling down', you are clinically depressed.