Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts

I hate being a mom, I don’t feel like myself anymore. I never wanted kids and my husband did… I thought I was being selfish by denying him a chance to be the great father I knew he’d be, but now I resent him. If I could go back and not have our son, I would.

That my husband and I will suddenly pass in our sleep and our daughter will be left alone in her crib where no one will find her.

I have a background in social work and mental health, and the first months of my baby’s life were so smooth I thought I definitely “had it beat.” (“It” being PPD). Around the time I went back to work and my baby was about 4 or 5 months old, everything went haywire.
I started having fits of rage towards my baby, my husband, and myself. The house wouldn’t be clean the way I wanted and I would kick things, throw them across the house, scream uncontrollably at my husband. I felt so bad because I knew my husband was doing his best as a dad and a partner and was going above and beyond for me.I started having intrusive thoughts of hurting my baby whenever he would cry – putting a pillow over his face, putting my hand over his mouth. One night, my baby would not stop crying no matter what. My husband had left to go get us food and I squeezed my baby’s face between my hands and yelled at him to stop. I knew I didn’t squeeze hard enough to hurt him but I felt so bad immediately afterwards and when my husband got home I told him I couldn’t be alone with the baby anymore. I started googling horror stories of babies being squeezed to death and had convinced myself I had caused him serious harm, even though my husband looked him over and promised me he was fine. I couldn’t sleep that night, I kept looking him over for bruises on his face or signs of a concussion. I convinced myself I needed to stay awake all night in order to monitor him for signs of pain.

I had a dream and now intrusive thoughts of a sexual act with my daughter and now I can hardly look at her without feeling like a monster. I’m so afraid to be near her.

I’m a mother of three children. Recently I’ve come to just cringe at seeing OTHER people’s babies… I feel so much hate towards it. I feel grossed out or something. I can’t tell if it’s “cute”. I have a baby myself. He is 1 and I don’t feel that way towards him at all. I’m just wondering why I’ve developed this suddenly.

I sometimes feel that as a mother you can’t express to people how you really feel, like the unfiltered truth. Sure you tell them that you’re tired and sleep deprived. But you’ll always tell them with some kind of smile. Like ‘oh yeah I am so tired haha’. That’s how you tell people. But in your reality, at home, you’re in the bathroom alone, telling the same thing to yourself only with tears coming down the face instead of that smile.

I think I’ve had almost every thought that others have posted here, the most common for me however is dropping my baby, the mental images in my mind are terrifying and cause so much anxiety. I even have a fear of the bed/bath etc falling through the ceiling and landing on my baby Which affects where I place her when she’s in her chair downstairs. So exhausting!

I’m so sleep deprived that sometimes I think about physically fighting my husband or totally abandoning my toddler and newborn. I haven’t slept in days and I just don’t know what to do

This year was supposed to be different. After 2 years being a stay-at-home mom my daughter was supposed to go to daycare so I had a few months to myself before her brother would join us. Just doing the things I love, resting, things that don’t evolve around my kid or the household. Then corona came. Now I am stuck at home for more than 9 months with two kids and a husband that works in the living room. I need to make sure everyone is happy. But I am not. Don’t I deserve some childfree time? Is that such a privilege for me as a mother that I have to ask, beg or cry for it over and over again? It never changes and I continue crying everyday.

I’m 19mo postpartum and I still haven’t gotten help for my ppd. I want my son to have a happy, mentally healthy mother but I can’t help believing that I deserve to feel like this. Kept my pregnancy from my family and friends and didn’t take care of myself because I was dealing with an emotionally abusive boyfriend who swore I wouldn’t have this baby. Once my family found out (at 8months) he suddenly pretended like he’s been the most supportive and loving person to me. I have issues leaving him with my son alone or even with his parents bc I’m afraid he will get upset and hurt him. But I need a break so bad especially with the pandemic it’s hard to leave the house. I have no one to go to to talk about this because 1. I have no friends and 2. I don’t want to make myself seem like a horrible mom.

I’m scared of my son being uncomfortable and me not knowing. Especially when he sleeps, he currently has a sniffly congested nose and I watch him when he sleeps because the breathing scares me. I bought a humidifier to help out but now my fear is the humidifier will hurt him? I hate feeling like this.

I’ve had intrusive thoughts of me and my son’s bond being broken in a severe way since his birth.
It was hard for me to see others hold him, speak of watching him even as a vague offer for the distant future, or call him any doting name that seemed possessive such as “my boy” or “our little guy”. I simultaneously experience physical reactions along with these thoughts including rapid heart beat, my face getting burning hot, and it being nearly impossible to think straight. For sure initially I was truly struggling to bond with my son, but at the same time, there were intrusive thoughts telling me everyone and everything was threatening, weakening, and disrupting our bond. It felt like I could not win and the fear of the thoughts was as bad as the thoughts themselves. Unfortunately my in laws, specifically my mother in law, have been significant triggers of these thoughts and even still now as my son is 14 months old. The frequency has calmed and I do therapy and take medication, but there are still things that trigger those thoughts. When this occurs, in an instant I feel in my body and emotional being that I am being threatened – that my son and I are being threatened – and that the person speaking is trying to get between us and separate me from my son. In that moment and often for a few days after, these intrusive thoughts seems completely plausible and as if the person speaking (likely without much thought) is forewarning me of truths that cannot be avoided.
I am not giving up hope, but I feel discouraged that these are still occurring. It’s difficult that despite a sea of real experiences to the contrary, when the thoughts come, the threat to our bond seems just as real as ever.