This isn't what I signed up for...

[ChickenSoupForMe]

Just off loading in writing I'm afraid!

I find motherhood is rather like being trapped in a no-mans land. One moment I’m spectacularly winning and in the next instant I’m drastically failing. And all for the sake of these little beings that demand everything from me. They take your body, your mind, your energy, your zest for life, your direction. Of course things change. I wonder if, one day maybe I will reappear from this no-mans land and return to a world in which I exist as an individual, with sparkle and wisdom. I wonder if that is when I will pine for the milky baby days, the sticky toddler hands, the days of ‘kiss it all better’ and being mummy rather than mum.

As I sit currently, I can’t imagine it. Any of it. I fear motherhood was enlisted to destroy me, to peck away at my sanity and torment my sense of identity. There are days when I dare to question what will be left of me after surviving my induction into motherhood. I can’t imagine being much more than a shell, empty and lost, wishing I’d been a bit more present during those inquisitive toddler years. There are days when I am certain it will break me. That motherhood will defeat me, not something I can embrace or even muddle through, but something far bigger and darker that seems destined to destroy me.

There is no escape. The relentless soundtrack of motherhood takes me from a place of rage and frustration to a place of empty numbness. I’m not sure which is the better of these two evils. The magic of motherhood is what it is capable of. Ripping me apart, stripping away who I am and tearing through any perspective that I have on life. It is so overwhelming, such a burden that it feels incapacitating. I wonder how things will change? When I am told that it will get better. That does not seem enough to heal my scars and repair my mind.

Firstly, OP are you writing a book? Nevertheless you seem incredibly creative/artistic with words.

Secondly, do you get out much without your DC?

About sums up my experiences OP
Have a cup of and a piece of
I am not going to lie that different phases means it gets easier, for me it's just "different"
Maternal ambivalence is always demonized and recently, as more women have broken their silence as to how hard they have found it, there has been a tendency to criticize rather than empathise with those deemed to be suffering competitively. I am not ambivalent about my kids, would fight tigers for them but by God, I'm not the woman I once was.
I am not schadenfreudig: if others have had much better experiences, good for them genuinely but my own experience of motherhood would not a Disney movie make.
The (fiction) book After Birth (Eliza Albert) I thought was stunning. I am also in the minority that appreciated Rachel Cusk's Life's work and Naomi Wolf's misconceptions. Anne Enright's Stumbling into motherhood I also enjoyed very much.
Just in case you wanted to hear of others' experiences and feel less alone. You also write well by the way.

2little- No, I am not writing a book! I could not verbalise any of it if I tried, when I write it down I just feel able to sum it up. Even if it is all twaty and flouncy- think that's just how my brain works. I started writing in a word doc every so often since first dc turned my world upsidedown. Never save them for fear of DP reading it. Just embarrassed by feeling like this I suppose. Anyway, thought I'd write here today on the off chance that someone else could relate, plus I can re-read in a few days to see how it feels. I do get out with DC most days but we're on a tight budget, live in the middle of bloody nowhere and I'm just exhausted by the whole performance of it.

Gorgeous- thanks for sharing your experience and the ! I haven't really read any books like that, hardly ready these days, so I will make a effort to get hold of one or two of the ones you suggest. It would be nice to not feel alone and escaping in somebody else's words may make it feel a bit less depressing!

I can relate to everything you have written.

I love them both so very much but I miss myself.

The never ending routine of it all. Waking up every single morning knowing exactly what's ahead - no weekends or evenings off. But equally, the acute fear that feeling bored/unfulfilled/neglected makes me less deserving of them. To lose them, or to never have had them at all is just horrifically incomprehensible.