Im alone

[Desenia86]

I feel super low today, recently realised that one of the many “gifts” having a baby during Covid has given me , is being triggered by friends with babies and huge social lives … it’s the second time in a year I get close to someone who had a baby last year and I love the friendship and I love the baby but the more I hang out with them the more my heart breaks .
my kid is nearly 5 and she was born just 3 months before covid , my maternity leave was spent sitting on the living room watching peppa pig and sinking into more loneliness and depression . Now I see what’s meant to look like , children centres activities , play dates , birthday parties , coffee dates with other mums .. I couldn’t even get the only other mum I knew ( someone I used to work with who had had a baby just the year before me ) to go for a walk in the park with me and my little one during those covid days where alL you could do was to take a stroll and hope nobody would breath too close to you .
I listen to my friend telling me how everyone is ohhh and ahhh when she goes to her usual restaurants and everyone is so affectionate with her baby , and my heart breaks thinking of how I could only “ share “ how beautiful my little girl was with some employee of Asda behind a glass behind masks …I don’t have anyone .
I have most of my old friends scattered around my country of origin , some work colleague ( everyone I work with is between 19-25 and all childless ) and that’s about it … I don’t know how much of it could weigh on it but I have ADHD … on a bad day I suspect I have autism … I come from a childhood of severe bullying ( I suspect being always the odd one out didn’t help ) and I was also a victim of child abuse in my own home so relationships were ALWAYS bound to be very tricky … but everyone around me at some point was chosen for dinners and play dates… my partner has a difficult past too and he has no friends. Just feeling hurt and grieving today .

Hi OP, my experience was the same and my baby had additional needs which just made it really difficult to enjoy. All I can say is work towards enhancing your own life with activities you love to make up for the loss. In my mind I have to balance the books on certain things so I try to do or buy what I missed out on. But our lives are not mapped out to be perfect or how we want it to be. It's better to make peace with it and move on. When your child grows up they will face situations too and may turn to you for advice so see it as life teaching you lessons that you will need to pass on. Xxx

I do sympathise with you OP.
My DH had absolutely no relatives, we lived hundreds of miles from my family - actually that was probably no bad thing as I had a difficult relationship with them - and we lived on a new build housing estate with no other children near by. Because of circumstances I'd lost my friendship groups. I was also an older mother at a time when this wasn't the norm and I found when I did try and make friends with other mums this was a barrier.

I used to be wracked with guilt and envy. Guilt because we didn't have any one to show interest and affection to DS. And envy because it was a lonely life and other people with young babies seem to have it all.

I talked about how bad I felt with my GP and the advice I got was that so long as my DH and I loved him and gave our DS a loving , stable life then that was what really mattered. That was what was important. And he doesnt seem to have suffered and has grown up into a well balanced, confident adult.

It's very difficult for you OP. But as your DD gets older hopefully you can move on with your life and the negative feelings you have ATM will fade and not be of such importance.