admitting things to t

well, i wrote t another email because i realized that while he's pegged that i've got ppd, i've down played it. i realize i do this a lot. things happen, he points it out and i dismiss that it's affected me. or i act like i've got it handled.

what's funny is that i don't even realize that i'm doing it until later. it's like habit.

i had some slight failure to thrive issues with my baby. i can't even express the level of distress this caused me and i wasn't seeing my t at the time really. he brought it up as he heard it from my pdoc not me. i was like 'yeah, there were some issues, but we have it figured out.' and i dropped it. i never told him about the guilt. the shame. the fear. i may have given him a brief overview but we literally spent less than ten minutes in one session on it.

on top of that i had a traumatic birth which i did talk about and did work through but then add the above and i've spent the last year feeling like i've failed as a mother. like how did i not know my baby was having trouble? what a sh***y mom i am.

worse, i'm struggling even a year later with feeling connected to any of my children. like i want them to all go away and i realize my suicidal ideation was that i wanted to get away from them. i live for when i can get away to group and therapy because i'm gone for hours and they're asleep when i get home (even tho i don't want to come home at all).

and i realized i never talked about any of this to my t. i've made hints, overtures, but i've never said, 'this is what's going on.'

so i wrote him a long email last night when i had trouble sleeping outlining what was going on, admitting i was a mess inside (not that i don't think he didn't notice) and admitting that i was insecure that he was going to drop me as a client even tho there's no evidence of that.

i feel much better after that email which is funny because i hardly ever feel good after an email. i feel lame. instead i feel unburdened, like i said the things that needed to say.

i wish i was more connected to myself. that i could realize what i was doing in the moment instead of months later. ugh. i am such a mess

Actually, I think where you are is a pretty common place to be, and I hope you know there's absolutely nothing pathological about wanting to get away from your kids. Guilt also comes with the territory. You just sound extremely burned out.

Have you given any further thought to getting away, even just for a little while? It could give you some much needed rest and perspective. Everyone, especially stressed moms, needs some downtime.

Hey kid - youve got a lot on your plate. Months later is better than years later or never. Some of us could never do what you do.

we haven't discussed it further. i'm going to bring it up with t tonight and see what he thinks. i have mixed feelings on all of it. like i want to get away. on the other hand finances are limited and maybe it'd be better to get away when the weather gets cold because i also get SAD. and then i have the guilt from the finances lol. i have family that live out in the southwest so while of course it's not *warm*, i live in the upper midwest with negative degree weather so it would practically be summer compared to where i'm at.

thanks for the reminder that it's normal. i feel so crazy!

thanks for the validation. sometimes i think 'my house is a disaster and i spend way too much time on the internet. how can i have that much on my plate. but i'm on call 24/7 to little ones who need my care. so maybe i do have a lot lol.

Your feelings are shared by MANY mothers, but most don't have the guts to say it. It's only by talking about it that you can find out why you feel this way and how you can get better balance in your life. It will help you, and your children.

I do a lot of reframing how I think about things. The title of the thread, "admitting things to t" for example, I would change to think about as "sharing things with T".

I find a lot of disconnect with myself comes from splitting myself in thought in the first place, like my body and my head have two different agendas? Wishing one were connected to one's self. . . almost sounds silly? One is connected to one's self. The realizing thing takes practice I think. It is hard work to look at things honestly instead of trying to do things "quick and dirty" as my stepmother claimed I did things as a teen My signature move, according to her, was that I would eat 2 bananas a day instead of "fix" something for a snack, a banana not taking any work to peel, no dishes to wash :-) The only way to get less "lazy" is to do what is being avoided, whether one likes it or finds it comfortable, easy, etc. or not. And that's hard.

i think half of it is trying to admit it to myself! it's like i shouldn't feel x so i won't feel it. except i am feeling it, i'm in just utter denial. i learned at a young age that certain emotions weren't okay so i just disconnected them. or rather i just trained my head not to pay attention.

therapy is tough!

Therapy is tough. Glad you are recognizing at this juncture that you've been trained that various emotions aren't acceptable to be expressed. It's the untraining that takes time.
On the flip side of the housework guilt, when being on call 24/7, and getting some form of human connection online, that dust bunny will only return. Not saying don't do it, but can do it in between putting yourself first. Save yourself, and you can caregive to everyone else better.
That's half the benefit I find with the phone app.

I think you deserve some much needed time for yourself!

session went really well. I don't know why I'm always surprised when t skillfully handles my issues. Within minutes he had me at ease and we were talking. Thanks everyone for supporting me in my mini freak out. There's still some stuff I need to discuss that I couldn't quite bring myself to verbalize but I feel much safer now because I know he can deal with it.

I am so sorry you have gone through all of this. I wish I could say the right thing to help you feel better about your baby. All I can offer is that I can relate to what you are going through.

My mother died 2 months before I found out I was pregnant with my youngest child. So I was dealing with lots of emotions during the pregnancy. After my baby was born it continued however I just wrote it off as grief and never said anything to my dr. My baby also suffered from failure to thrive. I felt there were issues but the pediatrician kept telling me that he was fine and I was comparing him to his brother and sister. So I believed him. At the age of 9 months my guy weighed 12 pounds (his birth weight was just over 9 pounds). He could not sit up on his own an if you tried to hold him in a sitting position he would cry and wiggle out of it. at his 9 month check up the Dr. was on vacation so we had an NP. That is when things changed. However,to this day (kiddo is now 13) I feel horrible that I didn't stand up when I knew things were wrong. I often wonder if things would have been different had a stood up for him?? Fortunately, he is a happy healthy teen now.

thank you. so much was going on and i was trusting my doctors. i also feel guilty because i thought maybe my doc didn't push me because i was insistent on trying to breastfeed. with my oldest, he had a hiccup in weight and i was immediately pushed to formula feed (read: i have no problem with formula feeding but I personally wanted to breastfeed as i deal with ppd and this was a way to help me feel connected). so when she expressed some slight concern about my baby's weight (different doctor with my second baby) i was like 'his brother was small' and she dropped it.

it wasn't until he lost weight that she was like 'oh, we need to have him checked out.' and i cried and cried thinking it was all my fault.

he's a little behind on his gross skills (he's a year and only pulling up to his knees) and i keep worrying i did something terrible to him. i'll feel better when i see him as a healthy older kid. but it's not helped my ppd to deal with this guilt and i need to be open about that with my t.

thank you for sharing your story with me tho. that sounds like it was rough and i'm so very sorry