Being a mom with bipolar is SO HARD! So much guilt.
I only have one kid, and even that's too much for me! He's in daycare full-time. Then when he comes home, I'm stressed and anxious so worried that I won't be able to handle him. Worried that if I interact with him too much, it will drain my energy too badly, and then I'll suddenly find myself over the line of what I can handle, and then I'll fall apart and it will take hours of me doing distress tolerance and trying to calm down and hiding in the office just to avoid insanity. My worry is realistic, too, because if I spend too much of myself on him, I really do have to take hours of hiding to recover.

I feel on edge when I watch him. It's so constant that I don't realize it's there until he's gone or someone else is watching him, and then I suddenly feel a lovely, peaceful relief.

I feel so guilty about not being able to take care of him. I can't be a mom like all the other moms of toddlers that live right here in student family apartments with us. I can't even watch him for longer than an hour unless I'm chemically good. In any kind of episode (which is literally 75% of my life), I can't watch him longer than an hour without starting to fall apart in panic.

This is compounded because he had unbelievable colic from hell that older women in my life would say, "I didn't know a baby could physically cry that much." It left me with really bad PTSD and flashbacks and the belief that if he gets upset, I can't handle it.

It's really hard to be a mom with bipolar.