Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts

Every situation was a potential danger to my babies. Within days of being home with my 1st, I imagined her in the trash bin so all of the depression could just go away. I was so sleep deprived and had no idea what intrusive thoughts were. Spent 18 months in shame and debilitating thoughts. Finally saw a therapist who helped normalize my feelings and get me on medication.

Every morning, when I wake up and she’s still asleep in her crib, I stare at the monitor and I have a moment I am convinced she’s passed away in the middle of the night. And there’s nothing I can do.

My daughter turns six months soon, and the last time I wrote something here my thoughts felt like a roller coaster. I was so down I figured I would have to live with the thoughts till the day I died. Now I feel so much better day by day, and I tell my self that my thoughts are not real and that they will go away! It’s scary to write that I feel better and that I feel more normal again, because I’m afraid to jinx it somehow. Yet I can’t help feeling happier that I feel more me than ever since birth.

While walking pushing the stroller in front of a truck.

I’m pregnant with my second child. And I’m relieved because instead of 100% of bad things happening to my son, 50% of them could happen to this child which takes the burden off of him. Why do I think this way?

I hate my baby. He’s cried every moment of the last 7 months and I regret ever having him.

She was the sweetest little baby in the whole world. A pure joy and delight to be around…until she turned 2 yrs old. It’s like something in her hit a switch and suddenly we’re dealing with daily 3-6 hr long tantrums, getting kicked out of multiple daycares for fighting, taking her to counselors and a psychologist, finding out she has severe ADHD at 5yrs and Tourette’s at 9yrs, struggling for years to find the right meds, she didn’t stop peeing the bed till she was 8yrs old. Now she’s 10yrs and I feel stretched thin from dealing with her issues for so long and now this pre-teen ungrateful attitude on top of it all is like a slap in the face. I feel like she’s broken my spirit. I can’t do anything right, she complains about the food I cook, the things I buy her….she doesn’t listen, I ask nicely over and over (put your shoes on, brush your teeth, etc..) until I eventually snap and start screaming then she cowers and cries and I feel like a jerk. She is so smart and straight “A” student, super creative…why does she excel in school, but treat me like crap at home? I think I’m resentful of all the years of stress. Sometimes I wanna leave her with my husband and not come back. I can’t help thinking this way. Maybe we would be better off without each other? I do praise her for good behavior, and we have a reward system in place as well. Sometimes it works. I kissed her forehead for the first time in years yesterday evening and thanked her for actually doing chores for once and I almost broke down. When did I stop wanting to show affection to my daughter? Why did I have to force myself to do it just now? Were some of the thoughts I had in the moment. How can you love someone so much and work so hard to keep them safe and wanting them to succeed in life, but then wanting to run away from them forever all at the same time!? I find myself disassociating at the end of the day. I feel like I’m a failure.

I wished my baby would die from the very second she was born and placed in my arms. I prayed for it for months. I was scared of what I’d have to do if I found her dead, and scared to make the phone call to my family members, but overwhelmingly, I just wanted more than anything for her to be gone.

All my life I never wanted a daughter and never really knew why. Straight after I birthed my baby and found out it was a girl I felt like my world was crashing down. I looked at her a felt nothing only resentment. It took a while to come to terms with it all but I realized the reason why I never wanted a daughter was because I hated the relationship I had with my mum. I’m scared to parent like my mum, I’m scared she will hate me, I’m scared she won’t come to me to tell me her problems, I’m scared she will cry herself to sleep most nights without me knowing, I’m scared I’ll make her believe appearance is everything like my mum did! I want to break this generational trauma.

I was holding my 6-7 week old on my lap and stood him on so we’re were eye to eye and I thought about squeezing him hard around his ribs.. why I don’t know, as to what outcome I don’t know. I didn’t act upon it and told my husband later that night and it scared him more than me I think. I was lucky because I knew it wasn’t something I’d do, but it still came into my mind

We hired a full time nanny and all I can think about is our nanny hurting my baby. I think about her pressing on her soft spot, about strangling her or hitting my baby when she cries. Our nanny is such a sweet lady and I feel like a terrible person for not being able to trust anyone with my baby. Sometimes when my husband is holding our baby and she is crying, I’m convinced it’s because he’s intentionally hurt her.

I have so many thoughts which plague me. They’re almost impossible to articulate, but they revolve around the idea that I do not LOVE my son enough. That I will ruin him or am simply going to damage his development with my own emotions of fear and anxiety. I imagine him in every scenario before it has happened (completely normal things like walking up to his toy box) and this triggers awful panic – that when these things happen I will feel nothing for him, or perhaps I will feel irritated by him or bored of him doing the same things every day and those thoughts and fears of feeling something negative, or worse, NOTHING at all (in the future) almost spur a panic attack. I think it comes from the weight of expectation I put on myself but it’s crippling! There’s not much on here about this and it doesn’t sound severe but it destroys my ability to be natural and just live day by day when I’m frightened of my own baby.