I dont love my child

[MilitaryWag]

Ok... this will be long so please bear with me.
I am mum to 12 year old twins and for all of that time I was a single parent. When my two were born one went to the SCBU while the other stayed with me. She was the text book baby and I bonded with her straight away. My other daughter had a lot of problems in her first year with severe reflux which meant constant daily screaming, a battle to feed her and projectile vomiting. I couldnt even cuddle her in case she vomited and I was at my wits end. While she was proving a nightmare to feed and get weight on, her twin ate everything in sight and was very easy in comparison. I was doing all of this on my own as their father left when I was pregnant and has nothing to do with them, and became quite depressed.

I never felt I bonded with her at all in the early years and nothing has changed now. I find myself always annoyed and irritated with her and I feel no love for her. I hate it when she tries to cuddle me and find myself on automatic response when she tells me she loves me and I say I love her even though I feel nothing compared to my love for her twin. I always seem to be having a go at her and feel desperate that I feel no love for her. I have tried hard to make myself more loving but I just feel nothing inside. I have been unable to talk to anyone about this as it is unimaginable for a mother not to love her child. I dont know what to do or where to turn which is why I posted on here. I am hoping someone may have had a similar experience who can offer me some advise. If you feel the need to judge me in a negative then go right ahead but I am not interested in what you have to say to keep it in your head.

No advice, or criticism from me, just wanted to say it sounds like things have been tough, and I hope that being honest about your feelings brings you some sort of release or comfort. It's good that you are hiding these feelings from your daughters as much as possible, get them out in other, safer places. Maybe you could get some counselling from your GP. Being a single mum is really really hard, and you have probably been depressed for years. Have you got much support from family or friends?

You should definitely go to your GP about this. You need a referral to a therapist about this. I am sure that you feeling that you don't love your daughter covers over something else, like an underlying depression.

Well done - you have just taken the first steps in talking about this!

Good luck.

I have a very supportive family but they would be horrified if they knew my true feelings. My GP is useless so he really is not an option. I have tried to talk to one or two friends but they just cant understand where I am coming from. I think that my daughter does know I have stronger feelings for her twin given that she is older now and probably notices the other one gets more attention. I have spent hours looking on the net for advice but there doesnt seem to be any.

Do you know what I think?

I think you love your daughter very much. Would a mother who didn't love her child feel "desperate" that she couldn't feel any love for her? Would she trawl the internet for advice?

No, she wouldn't.

You have bonding issues, sure. You would benefit from family therapy. But I don't think for a minute that you don't love your daughter.

You poor thing. It isn't unimaginable actually - it isn't that uncommon either. There were a series of amazing documentaries on the TV recently about helping mothers bond with babies who they hadn't bonded with and I seem to remember that there was a situation very similar to yours: twins with one sickly twin. In every case, and especially this one, the mothers were devastated with guilt about it all... but they were helped to bond over the course of the work done with this very gentle therapist - it was incredibly moving actually.

The important thing is that you have acknowledged it but you do need to get some help or support... and the right support (the wrong therapy can cause more harm then good). Please don't leave it as it could have a lasting effect on yours and your daughters lives.

Here are some clips to the doc. Why don't you try and contact this doctor herself? Or at least go and see your GP and get some kind of referral.

www.zimbio.com/Parenting+and+Pregnancy/articles/3/Help+Love+My+Baby+Channel+4+Documentary+Clips

You are not a bad mother, or a bad person, you need some help to get over a problem and you have been very brave.

I would recommend therapy also, but you may find it diffiuclt to get an nhs referral for this unless you or your daughter are presenting with more obvious mental health issues.

Could you afford to pay for private therapy?

This is so sad. What a sad little girl, and how sad or you too.

I really think you could grow to love her if you address this. Love isnt necessarily a there/not there imoveable emotion, as the baby bonding thread shows.

Maybe admiting this on here will be the first step to changing things for you.

How do you feel admitting this? Grief? relief? terrible guilt? looking at your emotions when you think about the way things are now will give you some insight into how you may be feeling on a deeper level.

You need a new GP if yours is useless too, can you change?

I think you need to see someone so talk about this in a non judgemental fashion and to work through the fright you must have had when your dd was in scbu and the trauma of becoming a single parent unit whilst pregnant with twins.

it's also much harder to bond with a difficult baby, well in my experience anyway

you do sound depressed
it is obvious that although you feel empty or think you feel nothing toward her she is important to you and you want to improve things
feeling nothing inside can be a big indicator of depression
anyway I really think you could benefit from someone to speak to and perhaps they could really help

Just want to echo all the great advice on here so far. Please don't give up on the help for the sake of one useless GP. Please do not underestimate the effects of the start the two of you had - it can be equated to PTSD in some ways, you had to get through the days then and it will have taken its toll, often in ways not obviously understandable.

You deserve to be happy and finding some space and time to work through this will be a gift to you all.

i think its okay for you to come on here and write down the feelings that you have inside your head that you can't explain to anyone else. looking at the words on the screen rather than them going round in your head is a release for you and please keep using it.

i have before!

i can say things on here that no one in rl would understand and it does help.

i have difficult issues with my middle child, who i found difficult to bond with. he is 3, was a massive baby at 10lb 8oz. after a difficult labour he arrived like a 3mth old and the guilt i felt that i was neglecting my older son who was a very easy baby/child is still a massive problem for me. my second child is very difficult behaviour wise and i do sometimes wish that he wasn't here. i had a misscarrige between one and two and sometimes have the AWFUL AWFUL thought that he is not supposed to be here ruining my life. he isn't ruining my life but he makes our whole family dynamic very difficult and everything revolves around him and his behaviour.

but i do love him, i feel protective towards him, i would be devistated if anything happened to him and i hope that he turns into a reasonable person as he grows up.

don't know what else to add but keep posting

Thank you to those who took the time to post replies.
I should add that one of my daughters contracted leukaemia when she was 6 and it was a terrible time not knowing if she would be one of the lucky one's that pull through. I know that affected her twin very badly and my whole being was wrapped up in the living nightamre that is a child with cancer. For a while I truly believed I would lose her as a sort of punishment for not loving her twin sister as I should have.

I guess I need to face this and look for someone who I can talk to and try and find out why I do not love my daughter. It may well be to do with the nightmare first year where my r'ship with her conisted of daily battles trying to feed her... the screaming was non-stop and when I did manage tyo get a few ounces of milk into her the whole lot would come out a few minutes later. I am unsure as to whether the fact I did not get to cuddle her after her birth may have had an impact on the whole bonding process. While she was in the SCBU I was bonding like mad with her sister. I dont want to sound like I am making excuses but I just need to get some sort of reason for this terrible situation I still find myself in and the likely impact on my daughter as she gets older.

I second the other poster that wrote that you probably do love her but that your guilt about the early ages has made you idolize one relationship and feel very negative about the other. you need stop feeling guilty and talk it through with someone

I think you love her too, just one relationship is easier than the other. You want your feelings to change and that is because deep down you do love her. What a lot you have been through, you poor thing. I think speaking to someone (try a dif gp) would help. My ds was a very difficult baby and I had pnd and it was bloomin hard. if I had had him and one other baby the same age who was as good as gold I'm sure I would have felt the same.

Be kind to yourself- I think depression is something that never leaves you completely. I didn't have pnd with dd but the guilt of having it with ds and how crap things were has never left me. Bonding when they're babies is so important but it doesn't mean you can't get that bond going.

My friend had the same thing with her first child. Hers was caused by her birth experience. She was lucky as when she was pregnant with her twins, the obstetrician recognised what was the matter and put her in touch with a counsellor. She also pulled her notes about her first labour and went through everything that happened to her. It was very painful, but she feels if it wasn't for having the twins and getting the help she would never have bonded with her first.

You need to talk to someone and go through everything that's happened to you during that first year. Also perhaps your feelings of abandonment by their father. Perhaps she reminds you of him. Your poor daughter is crying out for love, and you poor thing are eaten up by not being able to give it naturally. You have to sort it or it will have awful consequences for both your children. The loved one will be scarred as well - it induces awful guilt. Good luck.

I just had a thought, my friend was told she post-traumatic stress and not depression. She was treated with cognitive behavioural therapy.

How lonely not to have been able to talk to anyone, that can only make it worse for you.

Also, has anyone noticed? It was a shock to us, my friend's friends, when she told us after. She had always worked really hard to be a great mum and hid it.

You are also very brave to write about this, even anonymously it's difficult.

I had a nightmare with my first and couldn't imagine going through it without my DH and with another baby to look after. My thoughts are with you and I wish you all the best.

I too think you are very brave and second the idea of just getting it down here can help claifty. Of course no-one here is going to judge you - one of the benefits of an internet forum is anonymity and the freedom to express what we perhaps can't in real life.

I think you ahve had a very very tough ride - leukemia as well. What could be harder? You really do need to speak to someone and will probably find a massive relief doint so.

Just on a practical note I once read a book on how to love someone or create love when it is not there. I will share with you some of what I read and you can take it or leave it. The book taught that loving is giving so that the more we give the more we love ( rather than the other way round). So if we don't feel much for another person but start giving to them - of our time, affection and attention - we will start to feel for them.

Translated this could mean small steps like giving your dd a few minutes only of your undivided attention each day - even if you resent it or find it boring or frustrating. Begin by asking her about her day at school and trying to ask genuine questions about what she tells you. The next day you can start from that base of asking how that situation turned out or what the results of that test she was studying for were. Even if you are not interested and would rather not botheer.

If you keep this up over say 2 weeks you will find yourself starting to care about what she ssays about the test or thte situation or whatever. It is human nature - what we invest emotionally in we are interested in.

You could also start giving by buying her small gifst - could be a hairband or CD or something that interests her or just a pretty rubber for her pencil case. The delight she will show will warm your heart and make you feel like giving again . You could do this onvce per week for a few months.

I really do wish you luck with this xxx

Lisalisa - spot on.

Also agree with tawdry - you love her at some level, otherwise you would not have bothered to post or try to research.