Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts

In the days after my son’s birth, we had to use gauze to dress his circumscision wound. We had a pair of scissors in the caddy on the changing table to cut the gauze. One day when he was screaming while I was changing him, the thought flashed through my mind to hurt him with the scissors. I was deeply disturbed and ashamed by this thought – I loved (and love) my son so dearly. Every time I saw those scissors it triggered me to have the thought again. Eventually I realized I had to move those scissors. I now know that it is common to have scary thoughts in your postpartum period and it doesn’t mean you don’t love your baby. I wish I had known that at the time.

My baby had a lot of trouble latching. Sometimes, in the middle of the night when she wouldn’t stop screaming long enough to latch, I would envision throwing her across the room and her body hitting the wall.

I had a tough recovery after a c section. I asked for help. Nobody would come. I almost ended both of us. I thought I couldn’t handle my son but knew no one else would raise him the way I feel he should be. I thought he’d be better off dying with me.

I would be driving down the road with my baby in the car and think “what if I just ran off this bridge” “what if I just crashed my car” “I would feel so much better”. I have an amazing support system, but yet feel so alone.

I thought it would just be easier if my baby caught the most recent deadly virus going around. It would just end all of the suffering.

Something bad will happen to me and my baby will be raised by my husband and mother in law and will not get all of the love and attention I give to her.

I’m terrified that my baby will get sick. While I was pregnant a friend’s week old grandchild was visited by a person with a virus and ended up in the NICU. That played and replayed in my mind. I didn’t want visitors in the hospital. The ones I allowed couldn’t hold the baby. Once I was home, I didn’t accept visitors or leave for 6 weeks. My husband couldn’t even hold the baby unless he had washed to the elbows or just took a shower. This morphed into obsessive hand washing to the point of having cracked bleeding hands, using tons of hand santitzer and many many baby wipes. If baby was to be put down, it had to be on a clean blanket. If baby accidentally touched something my mind deemed unclean, out came the wipes. Family members kissing or touching baby set off loud warning bells in my head. If I touch something that might have germs, I physically feel them until I wash my hands.My brain screams at me. I itch to take her and wash her and put her in a bubble. I know it’s not healthy but I can’t stop. I am hyper aware of when people cough or sneeze anywhere within hearing distance. If I leave the house and go out in public, I shower to remove germs before I feel clean enough to hold my baby again. It doesn’t matter that it’s not logical, my head is telling me that I must act or else. It also tells me that ‘well if she gets sick it won’t be YOUR fault’. It’s debilitating. It’s so very time consuming. Constantly cleaning. Constantly bleaching the floor, the counters, the tables. No one even comes in my house and I still feel the need to do this! I want this to pass. I pray it will pass. I just want to suddenly be normal again. I have always been a slight germaphobe/clean freak but this OCD…I am so tired. The worrying, I am so so tired of all the worrying.

Everytime I carry my baby, I am afraid that I will drop him or hit his head with something. I always check him if he is still breathinf and often times prepare myself for the worst.

That my baby and other child would be better off without me.

I had one intrusive thought and it was always the same. Similar to #2 above but more that just dropping the baby. At times I had flashed thoughts of holding my child by the ankles and slamming him on the floor. It was more of a 2 second daymare, not a “vision” or a thought really. Of course I would never do anything to hurt him and it thankfully gave me more patience and compassion the moment after having such a intense and scary thought but I didn’t understand why the same thought kept coming to me. In a way I used the thought to take away my frustrations and anger like a stress ball.

I hate holding knives in my hand, I get a overwhelming thought about stabbing my baby. Being a sahm I have to do atleast 2 loads of dishes a day, I wish someone else would do it so I wouldn’t have to do it.

I woke up in the middle of the night, terrified that I’d left my baby on the changing table and gone back to bed. I was frozen and unable to get out of bed to check if I had actually done that and was going to find her smashed on the floor. Luckily, she was sleeping peacefully in her bassinet next to my bed.