Depressed: feel like I'm drifting and I won't go on to achieve anything- anyone felt like this when kids were small then gone on to accomplish goals?

[Sakura]

I know I'm depressed for various reasons, though much better than I have been in the past. I'm pregnant with a DD 2.5, which I know is part of it all.
But I just feel like there is increasingly no point in aiming to achieve anything regarding a "career". I feel like the time I've been out of it has been too long- I'm 28 and I've already been a SAHM for nearly three years. Add another three and thats almost a decade!
I feel like children drain me too much, like they drain the life out of me and there is never going to be much left over for anything.
Thankfully, on the plus side, I have cut my mother out of my life and have minimal contact with my MIL and since I've done those things my mental state has improved dramatically. But I think being pregnant again is making me frightened that my MIL might try to get her claws back in my family like last time (DH sided with her over her terrible behaviour- like turning up uninvited to the birth of DD and when I was lying there with my legs still open, she grabbed DD without asking and ran out of the room off somewhere. I felt like DD had been kidnapped. Midwife had to go and get her and tell her to bring my baby back!)
ANyhow, I know this is rambling but I suppose I just want to hear from anyone who felt like their life had no purpose, and who had no control over their life, but who then went on to do well (career-wize or even just happiness-wize).

ok, here's my story
on the day I found out I was pregnant with our first child my youngest brother died in a car accident, aged just 17.
Needless to say this had a very bad effect on me, and I was very depressed for years. having a baby to look out for helped. When he was 3, I had a miscarriage, then my dad was diagnosed with a terminal ill ness, which he survived, but then my mum died, aged 51. On top of all this DH worked abroad a lot and we moved a lot, due to Dh being made redundant.
But when my children were small I took them to playgroups and mother and toddler groups and I got involved in running them. Having no inclination to have a career, I was a SAHM and was faced with the prospect of having to go out to work when youngest started school.
I went to work in a nursery and enjoyed it. I did a NVQ3 while working, got promoted to Room Leader, SENCO and Health and Safety rep. I now work ina different nurery and I am doing a degree and I have a career!
My message is never give up on yourself.
Life is hard but it is how you deal with it that makes you into the person that you are.

Everyone has potential and can give something to society

I don't know if this is any help, but sometimes I think that there's no point in me aiming to achieve anything either. Last weekend, I went to an exhibition in London about the famous gardener (famous if you're interested in gardens!) Beth Chatto, and was amazed and encouraged to discover that despite having transformed gardening in the UK, writing several books, and running a very successful business, she had only started the business and the writing when she was 40, after her children were older teenagers, and her husband was already unwell. It really encouraged me to think that you can start new things and make a success of them at any time.

OMG! your MIL sounds awful! Worse than awful! Send the vile old witch the "monster in law" DVD for mum's day! ) (Hey, it'd give me a smile!)
Seems this is really concerning you! Are you not sleeping well? (you posted at silly o'clock).
Try and think what your key skills are. What are your interests? Then try to think of how you can put these skills and interests into a career? Can they be merged somehow?
There are on-line resources who are able to help with CV's.
Are you interested in going back to work or starting your own business?
Maybe even volunteer work in the area(s) that you're interested in? That'd give you good experience and grounding for when you're ready to start looking around for jobs.
If you're pg with your 3rd DD and I guess your other 2 are still young children? Is there any possiblily of getting support looking after them a few hours a week while you persue something for yourself?
Have you looked into part-time college courses? Some of the larger colleges have child-care courses and creches where you can have the kids cared for while your at your course?
There is no doubt that setting about acheiving these goals is harder when you have young children - I wish you all the luck in the world.
There are free careers advice centres (google) maybe they may know something we don't?

THank you for the replies. purepurple-so sorry about your brother. The one spark in my life is the good relationship I have with my brothers, even though I never see them anymore because I moved abroad when I married DH (possibly subconciously to escape my mother). I would be thrown and devastated if anything happened to one of them.
I was really struck by the woman who became a success after 40. I think that a big part of this is feeling that its too late to start anything "properly". I like being a SAHM but I don't think I realised how much of yourself you have to give to the role- literally give your life. And then if you decide to have another child that time you are "stuck" just gets extended.
I feel much better this morning, I posted yesterday when I was particularly down. I posted at a strange time because I live abroad (yet another stress to add to everything) and my choice of jobs is quite limited here.

Sakura, I am 42 in a couple of weeks time. I will be mid 40s by the time I have finished my degree. I might even do a teacher training course! My eldest is 19 and my youngest is 12. Your children won't always be small.
Give your time willingly to your children, it is the most important thing you will ever do.
You still have plenty of time to do things for yourself when they are older.
Live for the moment and don't make many plans

but nothibg is forever

I was a Natural History tour guide for a few years in my twenties. I met a lot of people who were past their retirement age who were very active physically and mentally. It told me that life does not have to stop at 'retirement age' and there is lots to be achieved in your 50's, 60's, and 70's, even in your 80's.

It made me very optimistic about old age.

your OP and this story may not seem connected but how I connect them is that the isolation of motherhood you are feeling is probably making you feel like you are drifting. It is not necessarily that that is true.

YOu are in Japan, aren't you? Are there any groups you can join now that will make you feel like you had more 'purpose' in your days? I am currently in Abu Dhabi but just for a couple more months and I thought that if I were out here for a few years, I would start up a 1 day a week baby group in my community. or even try to organise a not for profit daycare setting for babies and toddlers which would follow UK childcare guidelines - for our children. That way, we could in theory guarantee say 2 childfree days per person per week and know that the standard of care my child(ren) were receiving was high.

Are there any skills you could offer that are marketable?

What I describe above are things you can use on a CV when you can find work outside the home as they show that you have marketable skills: organisational, communicational etc.

sorry if I am rambling now.

I have just had my second and I am wondering about what to do with my life once I return to the world of work. I always look to my mum for inspiration. She was a SAHM until my brother went to school. She therefore had an 8 year career break, then went back part-time at the age of 33. She is now director of IT for her company and earns loads of money! She shows that you can stay at home with your children and still go on to be very successful. I am going to re-train, don't know what as yet though!

By saying that you want to do something then that is the first step. An I know how you feel because although we run a good business from our home, it is not challenging and I feel that my brain is stagnating, so I am going to do and Indexing course. There are loads of courses out there, also evening classes so you get out and meet people. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I do feel better reading all your posts. purepurple, its really encouraging that you are getting new skills 19 years after you had your first child!
Yes foxytocin, I am in Japan but I don't think there are many "fulfilling" activities here for me. ITs a strange little country in the sense that there is no interest at all in the outside world. It feels very self-contained. ITs an ageing society and its quite intellectually stifling ("we don'T like change" type of thing), so I definitely have to look for something outside these borders. THe one good thing is you can drop a child of any age off at any nursery you like for about 7 pound for 4 hours or 10 pound all day and I can do that if I need time to myself.

About 6 months ago I made a start by doing some translating (not Japanese) for a company that I contacted online. But then I got depressed again because I'm not qualified in this and even though I could try to get a "certificate" I couldn't ever get a degree or something that would be really useful because, frankly, I'm never going to have the money and I already have two degrees and piles of debt.
BUt its one avenue thats open for me because I do enjoy it, which is a good start.

But now I'm pregnant and all the experience I gained from working for that company is going to go down the toilet again because I have to write off the next year of my life at least. And because I'm never going to be a properly qualified translator I'm never going to be able to demand the proper pay for the work I do and (for various reasons) I really feel like I desparately need to be somehow financially independant of DH.
If we ever divorced (God forbid) I could quite easily lose my kids. I can't even write about this because the thought of the divorce laws here is too depressing. But being financially independant would be helpful in lots of ways and this pregnancy is making me feel so stuck.

Sorry, i know this is so rambling but it just feels really good to get it all down in black and white.

Fivegomad, its true that you have to decide what to do and when you do that things quickly get easier. I have to make some sort of viable plan. Maybe I could look seriously into the translating.
But I probably have to accept that I'm never going to be able to have a job where I can put on a suit and step into the office every day and I would have like to have given that a go.

Sakura so much of what you say sounds like the way I've felt for much of my life, even before I had kids. I have two degrees as well, and started a PhD but gave up after 3 years. That was the stage when I was diagnosed as depressd although I think I probably had been depressed for a while before that. This was all before having kids and I sometimes still feel sad that I never got a PhD and I've never really had what anyone would call a 'career'. In a way it's too easy to look back on things that you didn't finish or pursue, and see them as failures. I also share your misgivings about being financially dependent on my dp, although luckily I'm in the UK so in a better situation legally.

But recently (and it's taken a while) I've become a lot happier about being a stay-at-home-mum and being able to really focus on the kids, and on other things that I wouldn't be able to do if I were in a 9-5 office job. I've also been able to think about making money from some of the stuff I enjoy doing, although I haven't done anything to make it real yet. I found a really inspiring book was 'The Renaissance Soul' by Barbara Sher (I think). It has lots of stuff about working out what you enjoy doing, and turning it into paid work whatever your age or circumstances. But what was quite helpful for me is that it didn't fix on this idea of one perfect career or even that you have to stick with your ideas for a long time, it's fine to try something and then move on to another thing when you want to. Personally I used to attach too much importance to one single idea and then get depressed when I don't manage to live up to my expectations. Or that kind of approach might even stop me from trying anything in the first place - things would never get past the ideas phase as I would come up with lots of reasons why they would fail. So the book was helpful to me to think about just trying stuff and then stopping even without having reached some 'inaccessible pinnacle'.

Also, I know I tend to belittle my real accomplishments and I wonder if you do this too? It's certainly a feature of being depressed that people focus on the negative. So while I might look back at my life and see a series of failures, one of my friends surprised me recently by saying I'd always done such exciting things. She didn't see it as a failure to have started on various different 'careers' but not pursued them.

I hope some of this makes sense! I'm up with a baby with chickenpox and I haven't had much sleep over the past few weeks. But I wanted to offer some words of support.

forgot to say your MIL sounds awful and I really hope she stays out of the way this time round. I thought it was bad enough having inlaws around a few hours after having had ds2 (and ds3) but running off with the baby puts her in quite another league

and GrendelsMum (like the name ) that info about Beth Chatto is very inspiring

thank you mummypig, it feels good ( in a way) that other people can see where I'm coming from. That book sounds really good- exactly the kind of thing I need to read. I will order it.
I can see (objectively) that I am lucky in other ways. I don't have to work in a 9 to 5 job that I hate as other women have to do. Or I'm not "forced" to stay at home because childcare is too expensive. But I if I do work I do want it to be something meaningful i.e using my talents and my education- even if that means accepting a low wage. I very often feel that I don't know what the "point" of life is so if I just got any old job just to enable me to increase my consumerist spending I think I would feel even more useless and that life was even more pointless. At least looking after children is important, isn't it?

I think I am more depressed than I sound on here though. I think I sound really perky in my posts when I read them back and that might be because as a child whenever I showed any outward sign of sadness my mother always used to scream at me to stop feeling sorry for myself, but looking back I had very very good reasons to be sad/upset. I feel perhaps like I'm not entitled to reveal how down I am really feeling about my life situation. The best way to describe it is how others mention all the time on here: the kind of losing control feeling, like your life is skidding off course and theres nothing you can do to get it on track and you feel that before you know it your life is going to be over.
But yes, I will order that book and try to sketch out some kind of plan for myself. And at least I do know what I enjoy- translating, and perhaps writing too.

Sakura, many people would not believe I was depressed, even at my worst. Outwardly I appear like a very bouncy smily person. And yes, that losing control feeling is exactly the way I felt at times. I feel it sometimes still, but that's more to do with times when the kids have been ill and I've spent all my time looking after them and haven't been able to pursue my own interests. But the kids are of course very important, terribly so.

I also agree with you about not just wanting to get a job to get more money.

Hope the book is helpful for you. Interestingly it also has a section about getting a 'job' to enable you to achieve higher goals, not as something that you will pour yourself into and be defined by. I don't think I've properly taken that one on board, but I am lucky not to need to at the moment.

Best wishes