I have posted here before but I'm just reaching out again as I'm having lots of suicidal thoughts and my mental health is getting worse.
I had my son 11 months ago and had quite a difficult birth. Pretty much straight away I started feeling anxious. Awful in the hospital then with a brief reprieve. I don't feel overwhelmed with his care I find that bit easy and he's such a wonderful child. sleeps well, happy, gorgeous and when I have my good days I feel so in love with him. But on my bad days I find it so hard to connect with my emotions. I worry till I'm SICK about not loving him and not appreciating him. I feel terribly guilty and ashamed that I have brought this innocent life into the world and now I'm failing him. I feel like I want to have that feeling of ownership 'he's mine' but sometimes I feel like I don't know where he came from. I want more than anything to connect with my darling son but when I can't I HATE HATE HATE myself. On my worst days I feel so extremely anxious. I think about the next hour and I feel unable to look forward or back happily or with enthusiasm. mostly I'm just wrangling with myself to FEEL what I want to feel. I cry all the time and feel robbed of what was meant to be 'magical'. I'm not the mother I wanted or expected to be. I'M Terrified that I've ruined his little life and I'LL NEVER FEEL normal about him and my chance is gone and I won't heal and I should just fucking kill myself because I can't rectify it.
I have suffered chronic depression on and off for 13 years now and been on 3 different meds. I've finally been referred to secondary care rather than just primary and I do so much to try and take time for myself and relieve symptoms and I practice my CBT but I'm making no progress.
When I have those 'dark days' I'm a different person with seemingly no control over my ability to perceive things or grasp the reality of the situation. It's like having a delusion or being paralysed with inescapable negativity and fear. It also centres around my menstrual Cycle so I think I have pmdd or premenstrual exacerbation and Pure OCD as I can't stop scratching this mental itch "you don't love him".
Mostly I just feel like a nasty horrible monster, who shouldn't have been allowed to have a child.
But I feel like if I can look on this forum and have written acknowledgement that this is just an illness... it might help.
Please please help me x