Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts

I would place my son in a laundry basket when doing laundry. Many times I almost cried because of how intense and overwhelming the thoughts of putting him in the dryer were.

I was already on meds and in therapy, but couldn’t tell anyone just how much I was struggling because then I would be hospitalized, stripped of parental rights, and lose the bond with my baby. In reality, it led to a mental breakdown while I was watching my 18 month old on my own. It left me with almost 50 stitches from self harm, a two week hospitalization, and a major loss of trust with my husband. I was so worried about losing my family that I lost myself instead. Breastfeeding kept me alive during my lowest moments, but it also stopped me from getting more intensive help.

When my first child was born we owned a gun. My husband asked if I could bring it to him so he could clean it. As I held it, a horrible thought raced through my head: “what if I shoot my baby? What if I shoot myself?” I held it for a minute and pondered: “If there is a bullet in the chamber, just one little squeeze. One squeeze changes it all. One squeeze ruins it all. I lose my life.” I urged my husband to get rid of the gun for our child’s safety. I never told him the real reason.

When my son was a newborn, I couldn’t sleep because of how he looked in semi-darkness… I constantly thoght he looked blue and he was going to die from positional asphyxia.

I tell my 8 month old son I love him all the time, but what if I’m actually faking it when I tell him I love him? Please God, watch over him. I don’t trust myself to be a parent sometimes. What if I can’t have another baby? (Why would I even want another baby?)

I can remember with my first child my mom telling me “don’t shake the baby” and I thought she was out of her ever loving mind. Why would she ever say that to me, I loved my child more than anyone ever loved another. But then it happened, I was going on days without sleep and no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to comfort my son. It was in that moment that I had the thought “I could just drop him and it would all stop”. The crying, my feelings of inadequacy in being a first time mom, all of it.

Something terrible would hurt or kill her as a result of a mistake I’d make (looking away while she’s on the changing table, falling asleep while nursing her and accidentally smothering her in my breast). The worst part is that when I imagined these things happening, my first thought was about whether my husband would ever forgive me, not about how terrible it would be to lose our daughter.

I’m scared that I’ve made a terrible mistake in having a baby—that what I really loved and enjoyed was being pregnant, not being a mother.

I found myself hoping I’d fall asleep at the wheel of the car with the baby in the back. I didn’t want either of us to be seriously hurt, but I thought that if I did – my husband would have to take how I was feeling seriously.

I had a traumatic birth and was rushed into surgery straight away. When being taken to surgery I was thinking to myself that I was definitely going to die and how sad people will think it is that I never got to see or hold my baby. I worry about everything that most people worry about, but one day from exhaustion I had a complete breakdown that came out of nowhere. I was scared about my baby waking up and that I would have to pick him up, convinced that I would drop him taking him downstairs, scared to even change his nappy. I had changed his nappy and couldn’t remember doing it. I then had awful intrusive thoughts about when if I hurt him and not even realized. I got scared that what if I’d hurt him at any point before or if hurt him again in the future and not know. I literally didn’t know what to do and just kept saying to myself that I couldn’t have another day of having those thoughts. I got help the next day, and it was only then I realized how common these thoughts are and that EVERYTHING I was thinking was normal. That alone made me feel so much better. It took me around 2 months to get over it. I was very scared to get help as I thought my baby would get taken away from me. I told my boyfriend everything I was thinking first (as I thought if I wasn’t safe to be around my baby then he would tell me) and then spoke to my health visitor who then sorted help for me. I still find myself daydreaming and imagining horrible things (imagining crashing the car etc but I snap out of it and tell myself that it is silly thinking like that) but I know that it’s ok if I feel as awful as I did before that I would just be having a bad day again and that I would get over it with help. I wouldn’t have had help and support of it hasn’t spoken up – and it makes me really sad that others may not speak up in fear that they think their child may be taken from them. Always speak up, do it for you and your child 🙂

I have often visualized driving across the path of a big truck and the car being crushed and me dying.

I have this fear that while my baby is playing on the floor I will step on her by accident. Or I will drop her over the banister at the top of our staircase so I hold her extra tight around that corner. I’m afraid that she has stopped breathing in the middle of the night. I’m afraid to leave her alone for too long. I want to cry all the time. I hate sex. I hate when my husband makes me feel like I made the wrong choice about anything having to do with our baby.