Quote:
Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight
For me, childhood issues that I hadn't resolved resurfaced when I became a mother. I returned to therapy about 5 months after I had my daughter (and have been going ever since). Some of that was due to intense postpartum anxiety (and postpartum depression, though I didn't fully recognize that part at the time).
My daughter's initial diagnosis of a developmental (speech mainly) delay, followed by her diagnosis of autism dredged up even more stuff, like my dealing with OCD and anxiety as a kid, but not having help for it. Well, and things with ex-MC triggered some of that, too, in his talking about helping his daughter with her anxiety.
I was talking to Dr. T recently about why I became very attached to a teacher in high school, then didn't really have any sort of paternal/maternal attachment again until ex-MC. I thought at first that maybe it's because I was becoming attached to people I dated instead. I think that was part of it. But then I realized that a big factor was becoming a parent. He agreed that it made sense. I do wish I'd worked on some of this stuff more before becoming a mom.
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Hugs if wanted, LT.
Y'know, this rings familiar to me "childhood issues that I hadn't resolved resurfaced when I became a mother." except for me it was after my son was a little older like preschool age, like when he started really becoming a person with his own opinions maybe? cuz I wasn't really allowed to think anything different than i was told when I was growing up maybe? not sure, but that was around the time depression started affecting me and my gp put me on prozac. And that worked until it didn't anymore, and the depression came back full-force, I had a messy breakdown while working one day, and I went to pdoc and got changed to Zoloft and then finally went back to therapy and started working on those childhood issues.
I wish I'd worked on my issues too, before becoming a mom. I might have been a better parent to my son.
eta after seeing other posts: I used to babysit when I was in high school, taught swimming lessons to gradeschool-aged kids, etc and I always enjoyed working with kids; it just felt natural to me wanting to be a mom. Regardless of who I ended up with - alone, with a woman or man. I just wanted to be a mom. I think I mean i KNOW parental/religious/societal pressures at the time kinda made the decision for me to marry h before i got pregnant. There
was a big part of me back in 1988-ish well before i ever met h, that was trying to figure out how to just do it on my own without a partner at all - as I watched a couple single friends at the time have children - but I knew how hard it would be, also, seeing their experiences - and wasn't ready to be disowned by my parents for being an unwed mother - so I never pursued it.