Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts

My first intrusive vivid thought was when my baby was less than two weeks old. My husband was holding her while standing next to a wood stove with a large lid on top to add wood. I kept thinking he was going to open it and toss her in. I knew it was irrational,and he would never do anything like that, but it scared me to the bone. It took me days to shake the feeling.

I was absolutely miserable for the first 2.5 or so years of my eldest child’s life. As a baby, she nursed almost around the clock, and would only stop when I pulled her off to go to the bathroom or get something to eat. I wouldn’t listen to any of the lactation consultants when they told me that nursing 55 out of every 60 minutes all day and all night wasn’t necessary. I couldn’t believe they were right. My baby always seemed hungry and cried when I stopped! Because I was so tired, I couldn’t even sleep on a bed or a couch, because one of us would fall off. Until she went to daycare, I spent my entire day and night on the living room rug, so that she and I could drift in and out of consciousness all day and all night long. But I was in so much pain from the nursing (she nursed until my nipples bled), so hungry from lack of time to eat and so dazed from lack of proper sleep that I would hallucinate. I’d wake up with a start and could swear she was missing or had fallen off the bed (even though we were safely on the rug). I’d look at the clock and couldn’t read it – I’d get the numbers all mixed up. She became a toddler younger than average and had several terrible tantrums EVERY day. No one close to me could relate at all. Strangers would approach me and tell me I needed to “get her under control”. I felt so alone through those years because none of the other parents I knew seemed to be experiencing the same thing. Sometimes I wondered if she was normal or if I was doing everything wrong. She’s much older now and looking back, I think that her tremendous need to be with me all the time as a baby and then the tantrums as a toddler were just part of her intense personality. Although she still experiences all her feelings with intensity, she’s a gentle girl, with a heart full of empathy, kindness, tolerance and generosity. ………….It was all worth it.

I took my daughters to the playground as I often do, but ever since the Vegas shooting I keep picturing what I would do if a shooting happened at the park. I’ve looked for hiding places, wondered how I would carry both kids. I can’t even enjoy time with the kids there anymore.

For the first ten months of my daughter’s life, I wouldn’t wear socks because I thought if I did, I would slip on the stairs and drop the baby down them.

When I was carrying my baby I would have a vivid image of him smashing into a wall and being hurt, or of me throwing him to the ground. It took a long time but eventually these scary thoughts went away.

Sometimes I imagine myself leaving because I think my husband should find someone who will make a better mother than me. I love my kids more than anything, but I feel so inadequate.

on days where I feel like I am so overwhelmed with mother hood, work, and being a wife, I think that getting hit by a semi truck while driving by myself wouldn’t be so bad. I wouldn’t be able to fail my family anymore and i won’t let them down anymore.

I used to obsessively imagine how easy it would be to go into my car in the garage, shut the garage door, roll my windows down and start my car and kill myself. I just KNEW my kids would be better off without a shitty mom like me, because I would never be good enough for them. I am so afraid of my kids growing up and realizing that I’m not all that great, and never wanting to talk to me or keep a relationship with me. It is currently my biggest fear. I obsess about what is best for my kids, and am still convinced that it’s not me because I am so unstable.

I imagined dropping her down the staircase, letting her stroller go into traffic…I used to joke nightly to husband that I was winding up the baby catapult to fling her into someone else’s yard. It was the worst time of my life, and having a MIL and SIL talk about me behind my back and judging everything I did was the most painful thing I’ve ever endured. And believe me, that’s saying something.

The first night my son could be away from the nursery in the hospital, I had the nurses put his bed in my room. In the middle of the night, my 6 week early, 4 pound infant started crying. As I sat in the dark room holding him, I imagine myself dropping him on the floor and wondered if anyone would know it wasn’t an accident. It only go worse from there. I was constantly worried he would stop breathing at night or simply not wake up. This all culminated with intrusive thoughts in which I would try to figure out how to kill myself, my baby, and my husband so none of us would have to live without the other. I needed help but I was afraid to talk to anyone for fear that they would take my child. I was very, very lucky that these feelings eased once my baby started sleeping longer. My husband, who was travelling extensively at the time, didn’t even know how bad things were until my older child was almost 13.

I was terrified that I would smash my baby’s head into the corner of the wall when I was walking back into our bedroom in the dark after feeding him and it would break open and bleed all over.

When my twins were barely 2 months old, I had a nightmare that I stabbed one of them. I awoke crying and was ashamed and scared of where my mind went while I was asleep. I knew I needed help and called my doctor the next day.