Has parenting affected your mental health?

[NutsinMay]

There seems to be a lot of links about Mental Health affecting your ability to parent but nothing about parenting affecting your mental health(beyond post natal depression).

Yet although there have been times in my life when I've felt low, anxious, possibly more than that, I've never felt as anxious, stressed, neurotic, controlling, irritable, occasionally close to the edge as I have had since having children. I have no desire to have a relationship or go out (beyond doing stuff with the children as they are always much easier when out).

I do work part-time and that provides some relief but I wish weekends were something to look forward to like they used to be pre-children. Now they are the most tiring shifts of the week.

Having one was fine and didn't change me or my life that much (and I had a high needs baby) but having two for me is a whole another level.

I am tired very tired. I've not had an uninterupted night's sleep for about 5 years so I think that might be a major contributor but I find the fighting between siblings, the noise, the whining, the whinging- the demands of "mummy" shrieked in stereo are occasionally just too much to bear. I sobbed in front of them this morning because I just wanted them to leave each other alone. I sometimes fear picking up by daughter from school as I just don't the energy to cope with the afterschool grumpiness/meltdown/rudeness.

I know parenting isn't easy and I'm full of admiration for those who have more than two, do it alone or unsupported or have children with complex needs.

I do hear stories of women locking themselves in the bathroom to escape their kids and I know a lot of women got by on valium in the 70s and laudenum in the 1870s(or earlier) so I know it's not uncommon.

But I'm wondering why there isn't more written about this? Is the stress etc actually doing damage to my physical health? Is it normal? Does anyone else think they are going mad?

Thankfully, they are out with DP this afternoon as I've been on the go since 6.

[peteypiranha]

Is there any reasons why your dhs cant do more? That would be the key to being more relaxed.

[mercury7]

Mini I'm honest with my daughter (she's mid 20's) about how hard it is being a parent, tbh I dont think she really needs me to tell her, she can see she's better off investing in a career and earning her own money

[IrnBruTheNoo]

I swim twice a week, doing regular exercise was recommended by the GP on my previous visit. He is probably sick of the sight of me by now!

[DogsAreEasierThanChildren]

peteypiranha, my DH does do his share. I agree life would be infinitely worse if he didn't. But the sleep deprivation doesn't magically stop being a problem because I've got someone to share it, it's just not as bad as it would be if I were coping alone.

I'm also still working FT, so I don't have the loss of identity that a lot of people on this thread have - I really couldn't do being a SAHP (or even PT: I'm struggling with a long weekend, to be honest).

My problem is that I'm simply not mentally equipped to deal with the consequences of sleep deprivation, or the monotony and relentlessness of looking after a small child. I'm hanging on in there because I don't want to give DS the long-term issues that would arise from being abandoned by his mother, and also because if I feel I can't cope with half the load I can't possibly abandon DH to carry all of it.

[SpringtimeForHitler]

So glad to find this thread,thank you all so much.

I love my children and don't regret them. But if I had really known how hard it was (for me) I would never have had any.

The responsibility, the bloody mess, the noise, the repeating things ten times, the arguments, everything is a bloody battle.

I have an excellent DH and DC's that sleep well. But I just want to be somewhere else.

I feel trapped a lot of the time as I stupidly didn't learn to drive before I had children, now I can't afford the lessons.

[IrnBruTheNoo]

DH does do his share, but I still find it hard. He does 12 hr shifts (nights and days). Cue lots of arguments, it comes to a head every six months or so...I feel I either have loads of support for 4 or 5 days straight and then suddenly no support at all for 2 days and 2 nights straight (because of the shift work). I don't have the energy to hold down a job, only just get by raising the DC, and even the cracks are showing these days. Like others, I just try my best and leave what housework is not a necessity.

[IrnBruTheNoo]

"I love my children and don't regret them. But if I had really known how hard it was (for me) I would never have had any."

Oh goodness, someone has expressed on a forum what I was thinking internally today....I feel just the same as you do springtime.

[SpringtimeForHitler]

irnbru

I could never ever say that out loud, do its nice to be able to get it out on here.

My friends see me as the lucky one, the SAHM with a nice DH and two lovely kids.

I see myself as the one bored out of her mind, trying to figure out how the hell I can arrange it that I can go back to college next year and earn myself some bloody money and get out of this house.

[Saski]

Really feeling for all of you on this thread who are not coping very well.

Life will improve SO MUCH when your kids are a bit older.

[MiniTheMinx]

mercury7, good for her (your daughter) I wonder also though did other generations feel the way we do. Is it a case of rose tinted specs or maybe it was something else.

My mother's generation (now late 60s) enjoyed being SHAM. Is it because pre-dc they worked at a job rather than a career and viewed working as a temporary stop gap. I think now we have higher expectations, more pressure, lower wages (two wages needed rather than one) and motherhood is seen as a bolt on lifestyle choice rather than for what it really is. Although given a choice in retrospect I might have chosen career over children but I knew I couldn't have both.

IrnBruTheNoo shift work is a killer. DP did shift work for several years. I was either tripping over him for days on end or wishing him home because I spent days on my own with DCs.

[clearsommespace]

What a fascinating thread!

I feel more anxious about little stuff. I find it hard to cope with plans changing at the last minute. But I am stronger about big stuff. If you know someone is dying and you have to share it with your children, you make yourself strong to protect your children.

The other day I realised I prefer being at home, not going anywhere. My idea of a good break is a hotel or B+B about an hour away regardless of the rubbish weather rather than the stress of travelling to a location with better weather and scenery.

I think it might be to do with getting older (40 last year) but maybe it's because the rest of life is so busy as a mother. I seem to spend most of my non-professional week time driving/hanging around the music school or arts centre/overseeing homework! I used to jump at occasions to go out, even with little kids who would get me up at 5 am, I'd still want the night out. Now my kids are quiet in their rooms until 8ish on weekends and I could sleep until then but I'd rather get up and enjoy the quiet house after having an early Friday night with a good book.

[clearsommespace]

I meant to add, sometimes going out seems stressful which it never did in the past.

[IrnBruTheNoo]

Am sure it does get easier as they get older, but that's not really helping when you're in the thick of it.

[SauceForTheGander]

I've been thinking about this thread all day and am sure it helped me have a much more relaxed morning than I would have done normally. Just knowing so many felt the same way made me feel much less "in my head" and on edge. Maybe you're on to something ghost with your AA style support groups.

I wonder if labour /small babies flick a switch and anxiety kicks in? Babies of mothers on high alert must have benefited in a time of disease, predators etc so perhaps we've evolved to be post natally anxious to protect our vulnerable off spring. . I see potential dangers in the most unlikely places and imagine gruesome scenarios. A truck can pass my car and I feel sure it's going to hit my car. I wonder if my maternal instinct to protect is just in over drive.

It also means I'm on edge so any kind of tantrum, bickering, delay etc is meant with me over reacting. I must sound deranged. But yesterday PMT mixed with a day alone with a toddler and 5 month old had me in floods of tears because I couldn't get DD to have a wee before we went to the park.

Anyway, as I said today was good. I was relaxed, thinking about you wise women on MN and felt inexplicably better.

[curryeater]

It's not just wanting more help from dps. It's the boredom; the sense that anything that might nourish you (a beautiful view, a castle, a sunset, music, your friends) is either physically inaccessible to you, or effectively insulated from you by whining and other people's shit to the extent that you get nothing and are still starving. Everything is ashes. Everything is the sort of grubby messy guddly bunfight that exhausts you. But the alternative is to stay at home and go mad. Which is worse? Who knows. You alternate and hang on.

[raggedymum]

This is a very interesting thread, thanks. I'm not sure if I've seen this one yet, and I wonder if anyone relates: I work FT, and since DD (13mo) I've really felt not as competent at work as I used to be. I have a fear that at some point it will all come crashing down and people will realise that I stopped being the person I used to be, and that having a baby has made me less "good" at stuff. I know that there is something called Imposter Syndrome, which I had known about but never thought I had before, and I suspect some of it is this. But I know I'm really not doing nearly as much as I used to (how could I? I used to spend 11 hours a day in the office, and I now try to fit in in the same 11 hours all of: working at home while baby sleeps+baby morning+commuting-work-commuting), and I worry that my reduced productively will be noticed -- and then, that it will be blamed (rightly) on having DD, and then I will doing all of womanhood a disservice by not pulling my weight at work and having it due to being a mother.

Wow, I'm not sure I realised quite how, um... ambitious? arrogant (seriously, letting down womanhood?)?... my worries were until I just typed that! But I guess what I'm saying is that since DD I now feel that any failure I have at work will be blamed on that fact that I'm a mother, whereas before it was just me not being good enough. And I also feel that I'm not as good as I was before, so it would be true.

[financialnightmare]

This thread has made me feel much better because sometimes I feel like a total sociopath.

I don't feel as though my children are the 'love of my life' and 'wonderful' - I also just want real life to go away so I can sleep or read a book and listen to the silence.

I also had a PFB and then Number Two hit me like a wall of screaming, angry, furious fucking bricks. She's a little storm of rage, rampaging through my life and telling me everything that's wrong with me - everything I already acknowledge to myself a hundred times a day.

When XH and I separated, the first thing I thought was 'OMG I am going to be able to sleep through the night 3 nights a week!' And I do - after ten years of not doing so. It's silent and blissful. Definitely the upside to divorce that no one seems to celebrate...

But of course, the children are quite old now and I have no earning capacity. Women are sold a crock of shit about the whole parenthood thing. It's exhausting, boring and relentless as far as I am concerned.

[financialnightmare]

"It's the boredom; the sense that anything that might nourish you (a beautiful view, a castle, a sunset, music, your friends) is either physically inaccessible to you, or effectively insulated from you by whining and other people's shit to the extent that you get nothing and are still starving."

Definitely. Sometimes I find myself comfort eating just because it's literally the only thing I've done for myself all day.

[DogsAreEasierThanChildren]

Interesting point, raggedymum. I changed jobs just after coming back from maternity leave and was very careful not to let anyone in the new job know I had a small child (very small at the time - he was 10 months when I was interviewed and 14 months when I started), because I didn't want people to write me off before I'd started. I work in a very male, conservative organisation and there's no scope for flexibility, so I'm not dealing with the sort of arrangements you describe.

I'm certainly very conscious that if I screw up it's going to damage other women's prospects, but I don't feel less professionally competent than I used to. However, the only condition I put on DH about having a baby was that it couldn't be allowed to affect my career, which does after all pay the mortgage, so although I'm shattered I can still do the 11-hour days when I need to. I think that makes a massive difference.

I do see friends really struggling with reduced hours and pay but no reduction at all in their workload, but in most cases that's not that they've got any less competent (in fact most of them say they've got much more efficient because of the constraints on their time), it's because they're being badly managed. I strongly suspect that may be true of you too.

[mercury7]

mine are in their 20's, I'm lucky they have both left home, when the last one went it was like being released from prison, and walking unfettered into a park on a summers day

[Salbertina]

Really, Mercury? How do you all get on now?

[mercury7]

We get on just fine

[financialnightmare]

Mercury: :)

Sometimes I wonder whether it's not just the sleep deprivation but it's also the BOREDOM that makes me want to lie down and sleep forever...

[mercury7]

It all seems like a different lifetime now and I may have blocked out whole stretches:o
pretty sure I didnt have an unbroken nights sleep for about 7 years, but I did generally manage to get enough sleep, I dont even really remember being bored, I sort of downregulated and I remember that I liked kids TV and lego.
For me it was the lack of time to myself, having to be available to them all the time, I'm a very solitary person and I found the constant company of children just very very wearing, the whole time I was with them I had an anxious sick feeling in my solar plexus.
The constant bickering was also very stressful.

I did not enjoy being a parent, I did not find it in any way fulfilling

I think I generally provide an appropriate level of parental support now, but I try and stay in the background.

[Salbertina]

Really sorry to hear that, Mercury but thats often my take on it thus far. Just wondering if/how it affects adult dc or if theres a sneaky way for them not to notice?!
My dm was/is v difficult, v unfulfilled, v damaged/damaging and i DREAD affecting my adult dc as much as she has me.