I've ruined my life by having a child

[LittleAmy]

I never thought it would be this way. If I thought it would be this way I obviously would never have done it. I would never have inflicted "me" onto a child. I feel like a really shit mother because I'm not 100% happy with motherhood. In fact I'm not even 10% happy most of the time. It's not my poor daughters fault. She's only 3 months old.

I have 2 first class degrees so I could have had a different future but I wanted to be a mother. I thought I would make a good mother. I used to be a nursery nurse then a primary school teacher. I've written for parenting and teachers magazines. I thought I had maternal stamped all over me. But I'm sitting here downing as much vodka as I can. I'm getting drunk and I'm EBFing. I've never done this before because I've always tried to be the perfect mother. But I can't be the perfect mother. I feel like I've reached as far as I can go. I wish I could just leave the house with no money, no car, no food and just run, run, run untill I had no energy to take another step then just colapse and not be found. I've often wished I could become seriously ill and sent to hospital so I can rest and be alone. My doctor has given me pills but I've been on antidepressants before and they numbed me and made me feel nautious. Also I put on weight. I'm already hideous-looking compared to my former self so I obviously don't want to make myself even more hideous by putting on more weight.

Probably the worst thing is that my marriage is going down the shit hole. We've been together over 5 years and having a kid seems to have completely ruined our relationship. We argue a lot. I admit I pick a lot of the arguments. I feel like I want to saboratge my life. I feel as though I'm trapped and have no choices anymore.

I'm a SAHM and I have no friends. I attend a baby group but I'm too embarrassed to invite anyone over because we live in a tiny flat and the cat has destroyed the sofa and our baby's nursery has still not even been started :( People will judge me and I don't blame them. My husband takes years to do one little thing, hence why nothing ever gets done. As I have no money (not even enough for driving lessons) I don't feel that I have any control over my life. I can't get a job because childcare is too expensive and I cant get free childcare because my husband earns too much yet we always seem so poor. We don't have a joint account so I have to ask for everything.

Also since having a child I feel as though I have become retarded. I used to have quite an active intellect and a sharp mind. Now I struggle to complete sentences. It's probably sleep deprivation but either way it's a sad transformation.

My mother tells me to pull myself together and grow up for the sake of the baby. She says I am traumatising my baby because my husband and I argue so much. Deep down I am so scared because I know she is right.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm the lowest I've ever been in my life (and I've been in very low places before).

I can see now way out of this.

All I've got is this bottle of vodka and its nice whilst I drink it but I know it will only be hours until the hazy alcohol fog lifts.

I feel that by having a child I have ruined the following:

My marriage.
My looks.
My prospects.
My security.
My intellect.

I can't think that this can possibly be normal because otherwise people wouldn't have multiple kids, and most people do.

I honestly thought I would be a good mother. I had no reason to think otherwise. I would NEVER have subjected an innocent child to me in this state if I knew this was going to happen. I'm not an inherintly evil person. I thought I was a loving and gentle and kind person until now.

And having a child is irreversable. What the hell can I do now?

I don't expect many replies but this has been good therapy to get it all out and read it back to myself.

LA, what time would your husband normally get home?Has he come home. Hope you've let him in.

The best, healthiest thing you can do for your daughter is take small steps towards seeking support for yourself. It sounds like you'd rather hide away and I guess that is a natural self-protection instinct, but really, it's far more likely that you will get on the road to feeling like yourself again if you make the first small moves towards proper, competent RL help.

LittleAmy - do you think breastfeeding is contributing to the way you are feeling? It is a difficult balance, because PND and/or sleep deprivation can really make you blow things out of proportion and it is definitely most important that your baby has a mother who can care for her, breast fed or not. I am speaking as someone who became completely obsessed, and I mean obsessed, by breastfeeding my DD when I was at my lowest ebb. No one understood why I didn't stop and it half killed me continuing. I did and I'm now climbing out of my depression, but I had loads and loads of support from my DH and friends. It doesn't sound like you do, or perhaps you don't realise that you do just now. Just be careful not to be so obsessed that you make yourself more ill.

Can I ask how much you are drinking? I know my mum had a gin and tonic every day while feeding me - not that I'm recommending it. You can have small amounts of alcohol, but it sounds like it might be quite a lot in your case?

I totally agree about getting some respite. I have a family support worker after a referral from my HV. I don't think she's from Homestart, I think she's an early years worker for the council. There may well be something similar where you live. Please ask.

And don't push your DH away. I suspect he has no clue why you are being irritable and aggressive towards him and he's on the defensive. You need to talk to him about how you are feeling. But first you need to come to terms with it yourself.

LittleAmy - I can't emphasise enough how much your depression will be linked to your relationship with your mother and possibly other childhood/family matters.

I felt a lot of the things you do and I still find this hard to admit, but I went as far as hurting ds. I nearly shook him and threw him down on my bed once. God I was such a mess, I even thought about self harming again something I had done once in my teens. I thought about boozing, I thought about suicide. I thought I was not only the shittest mother and wife on earth but the most god awful human being that walked the planet and I wished it would all just end. I loved ds but his crying drove me insane.

Yet I know to the outside world I seemed happy and normal. I had always wanted kids, couldn't wait to have them in fact. Through the pregnancy I dreamt about how much my baby would love me and me him and it would all be perfect. Motherhood would finally give me the validation I had been seeking all my life, that I was loveable and I was good at something.

My parents came to stay when he was born because I still felt indebted to them. It was awful. They undermined me and my adoptive mother just wanted to show off at how much better she could settle ds than me. I was so low, so so low. Very overweight, I also felt ugly and hideous. I used to bf my ds and look at myself in the mirror beside my bed at a huge, miserable failure of a mum.

5 years later (and another baby) and I realise how ill I was. I am happy and content and enjoy motherhood. The birth of my dd was a joy and a very different experience.

It can be done but it has been a journey. I had to accept and process a lot of childhood hurt and I had to put up strict boundaries with my family.

Your mother is manipulating you with money and from the little you have told me she sounds emotionally abusive.

But I had to take anti depressants intially as I was too low to even begin the journey. You don't have to be perfect LittleAmy, you just have to embrace the flawed but beautiful person you are and how much you mean to your dd. Looks, money, careers pail into insignificance compared to giving a child a good and loving childhood. It builds generations. And you are and will continue to be a good and loving mother to her even if you don't see it right now.

My ds was 16 months before I got therapy but it was the best thing I ever did. It maybe you need treatment before then, before you can get enough time away from dd to do it but I would say it is essential that you do.

I am thinking of you LittleAmy. Your posts struck such a chord

LittleAmy, how are you doing? Is your DH home?

I don't suppose anyone remembers Little Amy's rather contentious thread when she suggested that WOHM were all but abandoning their children? That was in the summer and AFAIR was deleted.

LA I hope you are OK, but perhaps this is a lesson, with the benefit of hindsight, that judge not lest thee shall be judged?

I'm not sure that's particularly helpful just now Funny. I didn't see the thread, but perhaps all has not been well for some time.

Funnys no one should be judging her!

There is a time and a place for everything *FunnysInTheGardenWithASparkler" and this wasn't one of them.

LittleAmy, I hope you are OK. Do keep posting because Mumsnet is full of supportive people.

Look everyone has ideals before they have a baby. I would sit in public places and relentlessly judge parents 'oo I will never do that when I have kids etc'. You can't be too harsh on op for that and this is not the time and place anyway

Funnys - do you make a habit of kicking people when they're down? How nasty

No, just don't understand why people who hold such strong views can't see any paradox when they suddenly find themselves on the otherside of the fence

Oh FGS Funnys, the poor OP can't see anything learly at the moment.

Incidentally I was the world's best parent before I had my DCs. Weren't we all?

Would you consider asking for your post to be deleted Funnys, before the OP reads it?

maybe I just don't then. I tend to have strongly held views and stick with them. I am not tutting over her posting history, just baffled as to how a person can change so drastically

Have you ever suffered with depression Funnys? It does strange things to a person, I know!

GS no, I don't think there is any need for that. You may ask by all means.

And no, I understood, as I still do, my shortcomings as a parent well before I had children. Why would you presume to have a view about parenting before you had a child?

You never ever judged a parent? Ever? Not sure I believe you!

GS No I didn't. How can you judge if you have never been there yourself?

I judged loads of parents before I became one. Boy did I have to eat humble pie.

"How can you judge if you have never been there yourself?" I dunno Funnys, you tell me.

Or more to the point, explain to the OP.

There is nothing to explain. Just to say can't she, or anyone else, see the irony in this?