#speakthesecret
Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts
“This thread is amazing. Needs to be turned into a list and handed out to expecting moms by every ob/gyn. They tell women everything under the sun about what to expect for 9 months; why not this?!”
“I think it’s wonderful you’re making this list for new moms. It would have been reassuring for me to know I was ‘normal'”
“Scary Thoughts” is an expression used to encompass any and all categories of upsetting thinking that can interfere with the well-being of a new mother. Scary thoughts refer to negative, repetitive, unwanted and/or intrusive thoughts or images that can bombard you at any time (Dropping the Baby and Other Scary Thoughts by Kleiman & Wenzel, 2010). Scary thoughts are anxiety-driven, they are extremely COMMON, and most new mothers admit that have, at some time, imagined or worried about harm coming to their babies. The shame of having these thoughts can prevent women from speaking about them. In response to women telling us they feel isolated and ashamed of their thoughts, we asked women to share their scary thoughts in an attempt to help them express these distressing ruminations, so they can get relief and also help other mothers understand how universal this phenomenon is.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Thoughts of suicide are scary, but they are in a different category from anxiety-driven “scary thoughts” to which we refer on this page. If you are having thoughts of suicide, this should always be taken seriously and we urge you to find someone you trust and let them know how you are feeling.
The objective of our #speakthesecret campaign is to obliterate the stigma attached to scary thoughts which are so common in new motherhood.
Our page is an ongoing list of the thoughts that brave women have chosen to share in the hopes of helping women know they are not alone and that having scary thoughts is common during pregnancy and the postpartum period. We will add thoughts as they are submitted.
DISCLAIMER: This list is anonymous. We do not ask for any identifying information and therefore are unable to contact you. You can contact us at any time if you want to modify or delete your submission. We reserve the right to edit or not include a submission if, for any reason, we feel its content is unsuitable for this forum and are not able to respond to individual clinical or medical concerns. We may decide to create a meme from your words which may be (anonymously) posted on various social media platforms.
Please keep in mind that this forum is not a substitute for professional intervention and submitting your scary thought will NOT give you access to treatment. There is no follow-up after you post. If you are worried about the way you feel, we urge you to contact a support person and a qualified healthcare provider. If you need assistance locating a provider who can help you, please email us at support@postpartumstress.com.
My baby was going to die in the middle of the night and I was going to find her in her crib cold and lifeless.
I had scary intrusive thoughts about hurting both myself and my baby…smothering her with a pillow, driving my car off a bridge…they scared the crap out of me….I later learned that the fact that they scared me so bad meant I wouldn’t act on any of them.
For a few months after my second child was born, I regularly felt like I wanted to drive my car into a wall. Not enough to kill me, but enough to hospitalise myself for a week so I could have a break. My husband was working ridiculous and long hours at the time and I have no family locally who could help out. When I broke down at the drs she said I was exhausted and needed to focus on me. I still occasionally feel like this but admitting to people motherhood sucks some of the time helps me a lot.
Pre-partum stress is real too. I am terrified by the feeling that my body is being taken over by another living being growing inside me.
I can’t hold my son when we take him to hockey games for fear I will drop him over the ledge into the section below.
I had a lot of scary thoughts during the first weeks of being a new mom. Sleep deprived and stressed out, the scariest was that if I just jumped off my balcony, I’d be free of my baby. That was the lowest point and since then never thought it again.
When I was on maternity, I thought about just leaving. Leaving the little guy with his dad and getting on with my life.
I had one infant and was pregnant with a second when the Andrea Yates story broke. Everyone around me kept talking about “those poor children with their crazy mother”. All I could think was “that poor woman with all those children”. I spent weeks planning how I could do it and get away with it. In the end I decided I wouldn’t want to get away with it, because I would feel bad and deserve to be punished – which eventually led to maybe I shouldn’t do it – but it took almost two years before I stopped fantasizing about it.
It is such a relief to read these thoughts and realize I’ve had so many of the same ones. When I went back to work after maternity leave, I couldn’t watch or read any news about bad things happening to other babies or children, and would immediately picture my daughter as the person in those news stories, with horrible things happening to her.
I used to wake up in a panic, thinking the baby was somewhere in the bed, or that I fell asleep holding her in bed and forgot to put her back in her crib.
The thought of someone breaking into our house or kidnapping her for child sex trafficking.
One of the first nights when we came home from the hospital, we were so sleep deprived and panicking because she wouldn’t stop crying. I turned to my husband and asked, “can we give her back?!”
I have this fear that my daughter will fall off a play structure or down a steep incline while hiking, break her head open and die. Probably stems from my own fear of heights. I am also terrified that my 7 year old will drop or harm the baby by accident and that i will hate her for it.
♥ THANK YOU ♥
to all the brave women who continue to disclose their scary thoughts.
Together, we will educate many and help reduce the anxiety and stigma. #speakthesecret