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Anxiety
- Mother Nature's Way of Making Me Feel Like a Sh*t Mum
When I was a child, I remember being acutely
aware that my parents were perfect. Literally, they were the kindest, most
generous (seriously, they bought me a pony…) and funny people in the world.
They provided everything I needed, wanted, and extra on top of that. I couldn’t
imagine them being anything other than the parents that other parents aspire to
be. Then one day, when I was about 13, I found out that my Mum smoked
cigarettes. Not long after, my Dad was banned from driving for being over the
drink drive limit. My world as I knew it came crashing down around me in a
hysterically over-exaggerated and teenager-like fashion, and I shut down
emotionally for about a month before I realised that life was carrying on
around me and actually…no one had died.
This situation taught me 2 significant things….1)
Nobody is absolutely perfect, and 2) I have anxiety issues which make me see
things as so much worse than they are.
Fast forward 20 years and here I am, the proud
owner of a loyal and brilliant husband, a nice house, nice car, good career and
an 18 month old tearaway. But I have a secret, a horrible gnawing secret that I
have to try and keep under wraps. Every. Single. Day. Having had something of
an ‘anxious tendency’ for as long as I can remember, having my baby has lit a
rocket underneath this and it’s become a beast that I’m struggling to control.
When my son was days and weeks old, I sat in the obligatory baby groups, and
while I joined in heartily with discussions about sleepless nights and poo, I
quietly wondered whether anyone else was dealing with scenes running through
their heads of every possible scenario in which my precious baby could get
hurt, then trying and trying until I gave myself a headache to come up with
plans and methods to keep him safe. I wondered if I was the only one who would
feel so guilty after a glass of wine that I would lie awake and cry and wonder
whether he’d be better off adopted by another couple. Was I the only one who
was obsessing over every mistake or bad judgement made in my pre-baby days,
like there was some kind of criteria I was ticking off which made me
unqualified to be a parent?
Materialistically and emotionally I was providing
everything he needed and he was smothered with love, but I was struggling
inside my own head and that was enough to make me feel like a terrible mother.
Normal guilt-inducing triggers like going back to work bounced off me like
water off a ducks back…but an awkward silence from a conversation months ago
with an NCT friend would plague me and make me doubt if I was popular enough to
be a good mum. Sounds crazy right?
A visit to the doctor confirmed what I already
knew, I was doing a great job and my son is a happy and healthy little boy. But
in the mind of someone with anxiety this does nothing to dampen the worry and
guilt. A work trip away recently resulted in me getting outrageously drunk and
not remembering a large portion of my night. Cue the panic and fear the next
morning, and even after confirming with colleagues that I hadn’t made a
complete fool of myself, my dominant thought for almost a week afterwards was
that my son deserved so much better than me as a Mum. I was praying the days
away so I could put him to bed and not have to look at how perfect he was and
feel the stab of irrational guilt run through me.
So back to the doctor I went, and this time I
broke down. I told her everything I had felt since my son was born, and
comfortingly her response was to give me anti-anxiety meds, which I now firmly
believe I need to be on. I’m yet to see the full effect these will have but
knowing that I ‘qualify’ for them means my levels of anxiety aren’t
normal.
Mental health issues after a baby is something
that I’ve learned so many people are struggling with, and it’s something I want
to raise awareness about….even if I’m not ready to be the face of it just yet!
If you would like to send me an anonymous piece please email me or DM me on Instagram.
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