Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts

I couldn’t stop thinking I’d be hurt while my older child was at school and I was home alone with the baby. I worried I’d fall down the stairs or get into a car accident and no one would be there to get my 5 year old off the bus. That the baby would be hurt and screaming for hours before my husband came home.

I recently saw When The Bough Breaks and realized I am only just now at the end of it.

It could have been me. How far was I from killing myself? From accidentally hurting my babies or worse? Where was my family? Why didn’t anyone intervene? Will it be easier for me to start treatment if I get it next time? Why don’t women matter?

When my son was a baby he had terrible gas issues that took awhile to figure out. We learned he was lactose intolerant and his formula was hurting him. He would just be up all hours screaming and crying and it was almost impossible to get him to stop unless you were holding him to your chest and bending over and coming back up, over and over again. Only when he was being held and moved like that would he stop crying. I was a single mom and it was just so hard. i remember one particularly hard night, i was exhausted and just feeling so defeated and he just wouldnt shut up. The image of me swinging his head into the side of a nearby nightstand repeatedly, just so he’d shut up, played in my head. No one would have to know, we could just get some sleep, everything would be ok. I felt so horrible for the thought in my head. i of course would never and have never hurt my son but it was just so hard doing everything alone without any kind of support or support system.
As the years have gone by i periodically think if i should have ever had kids, if im meant to have kids. Ive always wanted kids its always been my dream but maybe im not supposed to? maybe im forcing it? some people arent meant to have kids, maybe im one of them? i have never sought out treatment out of embarrassment or shame or just not having the tools or opportunity to. I’ve been much better and have really pulled myself along for a really long time. Im so ready and excited to finally be stable and be able to have more kids! But sometimes im still terrified… what if having another kids sets it all off again and its so much worse than it was the first time? what if i really go off the deep end? Maybe there is this monster inside me just ready and waiting and trying to claw its way out of me and ill do something horrible?
Recently ive been terrified someone is in my sons room hiding in his closet and waiting for me to go to sleep so he can come out and rape my son. Im afraid there are people who regularly come to watch him through his window as he sleeps. Every night i tuck him into bed and say good night and then i wait and i go in again and check the closet and under his bed and out his window to make sure no one is there to hurt him. i usually check twice a night and still go to bed worried someone is there.

I kept feeling the distinct warmth of blood on my hands as the thoughts of stabbing my son raced through my mind.

I feared having a knife at my disposal in the kitchen because I wondered what if I hurt my baby with it. Also fear of a househelp hurting my baby.

Sometimes my anxiety has me so on edge that every noise has me on the edge of panic. I have a three year old and a one year old. If there is no noise something bad is happening or they are asleep, but if I’m also trying to sleep every noise on the baby monitor must mean something bad is happening. It doesn’t end, because not sleeping means my postpartum anxiety and depression is worse.

I worry my boyfriends family is trying to take my son from me because they think I’m not a good enough mother and they want him all for themselves…

I was afraid that I would accidentally lose control of myself in some way and kill or hurt my baby, so much that I had reoccurring dreams about it, I knew I would never do it, but I thought about killing myself to make the thoughts stop. But I was terrified that if I killed myself no one would take care of my baby the “right” way. I never got help, eventually the thoughts went away on their own but it was a miserable year or so until they did. I lost a lot of weight and became emaciated because I struggled to eat and sleep.

I am constantly scared that my baby will get a fever. I get scared all the time that I will hurt him. I love when my partner helps with the baby but I also get jealous and fear that my baby won’t like me anymore.

My husband doesn’t understand that I can’t possibly take care of our 4 month old son and keep the house spotless while he’s at work all day. It makes me feel so useless no matter how much I do. I feel like I’m jumping through hoops to keep him happy.

All I could do was cry …day in day out. The thoughts oh being a worthless mother fled my mind every second of the day. If I wasn’t think about hurting or killing myself I was thinking of ways to end us all…. blowing up the house, driving in front of a semi, jumping off a cliff, taking all my meds and going to sleep forever or finding a lake and just driving in…then everything would be ok …no more crying no more pain. I finally decided to get help, it was a long journey of switching meds and probably will be but every day gets just a lil bit better.