Oh OP, it sounds really tough.
I breast fed my first relatively easily until he was 2.5 years old so when baby number two came along I thought it would be exactly the same experience.
Unfortunately for the first 5 months it was a bloody nightmare as we had so many issues: awful tongue tie (had it repaired), silent reflux (was medicated), poor weight gain, feeding problems due to a neck injury (had to have treatment), another tongue tie was detected (had to have it snipped again) and then a diagnosis of cow’s milk protein allergy (following health issues with him) so I had to go dairy free. It was a really horrible time and I became very resentful of breastfeeding. When he was 5 months old I cracked and told my DH I just couldn’t carry on and went crying to my GP who gave me some dairy free prescription formula. However, my son absolutely refused to drink it so I had no option but to carry on breast feeding anyway.
I went to a breast feeding conference recently and they said that 80% of women who stop breast feeding do it before they are ready to or want to, due to factors outside their control. It’s quite a sobering and upsetting statistic really and just shows how little support there is out there for women who desperately want to struggle but can’t.
The research then went on to say that the guilt (misplaced) can stay with the women for years and years, even into the time of life when they become grandparents. It talked about all the emotions and thoughts women experienced when they felt (wrongly) that they had failed their babies by not breastfeeding, and again, it was really sad reading.
I had a lot of guilt around my son’s birth regarding how I felt I didn’t bond with him properly, and for months and months and months I used to secretly cry over it. When he used to cry at night I would pick him up out of his cot, hold him tight and apologise for him not having had a better mom than me when he was born.
He’s 5 now and when I look back on that I can finally see how silly my feelings were but in those days my emotions were so strong and I was genuinely guilt ridden at the start of life my baby had in those first 3 days because apparently I hadn’t loved him properly.
When I had my second son I felt an instant overwhelming love and bond for him and it just bought back all the guilt I felt from my first son’s birth because it clearly meant I loved my second son more. My thought process was irrational but most thought processes are when it comes to babies but that doesn’t mean they aren’t very real to us when we are experiencing them.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that your feelings are completely normal and I don’t know what the answer is. Sometimes there just isn’t an answer and it’s just a case of giving yourself time and hopefully your thoughts will begin to rationalise a little. You’re clearly very upset about it though which just shows how much you wanted to breastfed and how let down you were when it came to help and support.
When I had all that guilt around my first son’s birth it wasn’t until he was about 6 months old and I broke down in tears to my health visitor about it did I finally manage to make steps towards moving on.
Sometimes having a big cry to a professional can really help. I think we can often internalise our feelings because we are ashamed of ourselves or feel we let our children down, but internalising it just makes the guilt worse I think.
No mother should feel guilty about any choices she made that were right at the time. We are all simply doing our best.
I see another poster as mentioned getting some counselling of some sort in order to help you understand your feelings and I agree, like I said, talking to someone, sharing your thoughts, being honest and removing the burden from your shoulders can be the first step in healing yourself 