Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts

I always thing something bad is gonna happen to my baby I know it’s the devil but the thoughts are constant given that I have OCD it doesn’t make things easy , at night I fear someone will break in and steal my baby so I spent a lot of nights being awake we live in unsafe place where everyday we read about a baby being stolen or missing so my thoughts aren’t completely made up it helps a lot when someone else is in the room with us people say am crazy to have these thoughts the more I beat my self about the the more really the thought becomes I didn’t know it’s common I thought I was all alone if you are out there know that you are not alone.

When do these scary thoughts end?! She’s now 13 months and they still come screaming into my thoughts. I’ll be watching the TV happily and then BANG.. she falls into a freezing river with me standing helplessly, stupidly on the riverbank frozen to the spot and she dies. I can see her panic stricken face staring at me, it’s so clear it makes my heart race and I feel sick…. when does it stop.

I wake up in the middle of the night still sleeping and I grab my 3 month old and start patting her on the back as if she’s choking but in reality she would sleeping and I would wake her up, I don’t know what I’m doing my partner is the one who has to shake me and yell to wake me up to ask me what am I doing to our daughter. Our daughter would be crying and when I realize what I did I would start crying to I think I’m going crazy. I don’t want to keep waking my daughter out of her sleep.

Every time i go out without my daughter and I hear a crying baby I want to grab them a sooth someone else baby. I also want to hurry up and go back to my daughter to make sure she’s ok.

I often think about what it would be like if I just left, like pack some clothes and never come home. I’ve also had thoughts about what life would be like if we didn’t have her anymore, like she just didn’t exist or someone else had her. I’ve had worries about her being kidnapped from me while in parking lots.

I had PND and PTSD with my first child but not with my second. Because of this I worry that I love my second child more because I feel we have “bonded” better.

He’s already one but he won’t sleep through the night and he still needs night feed. He’s hungry and he has aversion to milk. He doesn’t want to drink but he’s hungry; he cries Becoz he’s hungry but he pushes the bottle away. I just want a good night sleep, maybe longer than 4 hours? For once ? I want to throw him down the stairs , or out the window , I really do

I’m a first time (pandemic) mom. My baby was born March 2020, at the height of covid and during the initial lockdown. I was terrified the whole time I was at the hospital of myself, the baby or her father getting covid and dying. I remember thinking I hoped the birth would be quick. It was not. I remember I thought I would be excited to hold her for the first time. I was not. I remember I thought I would fall in love with her upon meeting her. I did not. I felt, nothing. I felt like I wanted to get up, leave the hospital without her and go home to see my dog.
As she got older, I would avoid stairs. I was sure I was going to drop her down them or my ankles would give out, we would tumble, and she would surely die. Every night I was convinced she wasn’t breathing and would secretly lay awake while her dad slept and checked on her obsessively. I resented every time someone would tell me she looked like her dad. I hated that I worked so hard to create and birth her, only to not see myself reflected in her face. My newest intrusive thought revolves around water and her drowning. I can see her slipping from my arms, or getting out of her stroller and falling into water, struggling, and drowning as I stare-frozen in helplessness. We don’t live near any water…why am I thinking this? Why would I just stand and watch her die? Why is my brain like this? Why do all the other moms seem happy and love motherhood? Meanwhile, I’m stuck in these horrific scenes on repeat. Why can’t I find anyone else who experiences this…I am so alone in my postpartum journey.

What if I just ran away. Just to sit and breath in the fresh air in silence. I can’t remember how it feels to just be me- not mum or wife or my job role or home keeper. I don’t even know who I am anymore as a person other than a ‘role’. Then I look at her face and feel so guilty for even thinking that, she’s just wants me to be mum.

Whilst all the Jeffrey Epstein saga was on, I became obsessed with what was going on in the world, child sexual abuse and exploitation was everywhere I looked. I started to worry about my own baby, what if someone did something bad to him? I had bad thoughts about myself – what if I did something bad? What makes people pedophile how could they possibly do that to a child? What if I was one? I became so highly anxious around the subject. I couldn’t change my sons nappy without looking away from his private parts! It was terrible. I was torturing myself. It is the worst thing in my mind that could happen to him and I was catastrophizing this, with bad thoughts that I could be responsible. I seeked therapy and I no longer have those thoughts, although it does feel like its always on the back of my mind.

As soon as my daughter came home I couldn’t sleep. I would constantly check if she was breathing. Licking my finger and putting it near her nose to make sure I felt her exhale. I’d touch her little belly and make sure it was still moving up and down. I’d change her diaper every 2 hours to prevent a rash. I’d feed her every 2 hours so she wouldn’t pass away in her sleep. Constantly worrying about SIDS. Making sure her swaddles weren’t too tight. Making sure her nose didn’t press against the edge of her bed. When my daughter came home I wasn’t sure if I’d sleep again.

It has gotten somewhat better with time, but one of the reasons my 4 year old daughter still mainly sleeps with me is because during the periods when she has slept in her crib/current toddler bed, I would have these overwhelming, arresting moments of sheer panic in which I was completely 1000% convinced she was dying in her room at that very moment while I was right in the next room doing nothing to help her. For awhile I had to either go watch her until I could see her chest rising and falling while she slept or have my fiancé check on her before I could do anything else, go back to sleep, or sometimes even breathe. It was so paralyzing and so real, even though my rational mind would tell me I was being nuts. The ironic part is that I’m still scared sometimes I’ll somehow manage to cover her face and block her airway while she sleeps with us, even though she is 4 years old and typically takes up half of our king size bed while we huddle in the fetal position on whatever space we can get!