Parenting can be isolating... parenting with anxiety and a tough baby is even more lonely

Hello all,

Needing an outlet so wanted to write. These chances are few and far between these days. I'm on borrowed time, in a much needed hot bath, propping my Mac up and hoping it doesn't become a tub toy.

I've been feeling quite isolated lately. With Baby D in school and Baby X just wee (yet an absolute adorable, non-stop HANDFUL), there isn't much time to socialize.

Many of my mom friends who I connected with, through Baby D and her friends, have returned to work or other daytime responsibilities now that their kids are at school in the day. There are still a few friends around some days of the week, but with Baby X's naps and our walk to and from school twice a day, there isn't a ton of time for getting together. Add to that the fact that Baby X can easily take 60-80 minutes for his meals... and... well... yeah.

Parenting is a challenge. It doesn't matter if you are working or staying at home. I think it feels harder the more you care. And it is definitely harder the more you overthink things and the more you worry.

I have been very, very unsuccessful in managing those last two things. And it is tough.

I know exercise has always been helpful in battling the blues and my anxiety demons. I have been working towards working out more, but it is hard when Baby X cries so much if I am not giving him my full attention.

I can run for short runs in the basement while I ply him with Mum Mum crackers and little puff snacks in his booster seat with the Wiggles cranked loud enough to both be heard over the noise of the treadmill and cause some hearing damage for good measure. But it lasts only so long, he throws everything off of the tray, I stop and play snack fetch repeatedly, then eventually he starts to wail because he can see me, but I'm not holding him.

I go to a mom and baby fitness class where we are all in one big room, but again, he last only so long before he totally loses his shit. I've had to wear him in a carrier for part of the class before. The two childminding ladies there generally split the rest of the babies. One lady gets Baby X, and the other lady gets ALL THE REST OF THE QUIET AND CONTENT BABIES. Le sigh.

I'd like to leave him at the gym childminding, but I just can't. He screams and wails with other people. He may let someone other than family hold him briefly, but it goes downhill quickly. I can't go exercise knowing he'd be so upset. And what about all the germs? The cases of measles in my neck of the woods that he is too young to be vaccinated against? The older kids trying to poke, prod and touch him? And before you think I'm imagining that risk, I literally have to block kids at Baby D's school regularly from touching him when he's in the stroller. There is something about him that makes people want to touch him (his face and hands especially!!) and it drives me up the goddamn wall.

I'm trying to make some new mom friends, but even things like going for coffee are tough now. All Baby X wants to do is crawl and move. He will not sit happily in his stroller, ever, unless he is watching the kids at the school. He hits his max tolerance around 15 minutes. So then I end up avoiding those situations, or going and being totally stressed while he starts to cry and shriek and I try to console him and get all frazzled and leave.

I wish I cared less if he was a bit distraught. He's safe, fed, nursed, loved, and tended to so often. But when he cries, my anxiety goes sky high. Adding to that is when miserable strangers glare at me, like I'm prodding him with hot coals to make him cry at Starbucks.

People with "easy" or calm babies don't get it. People with anxiety don't understand. And lots of people tell me to just "teach him he doesn't call the shots" like he is a king manipulator when he is a small person who is clearly upset and doesn't have adult skills to cope with his big feels.

So I exercise through chronic pain and rush around his tears. I feel tired and worn down. I know this stage won't last forever. And I do adore my kids. He is just so precious and hearing him giggle is one of the cutest things ever. Even cuter when it's Baby D making him laugh!

Not a funny post. Nothing great to see here. But needed to get that off my chest.

This too shall pass.
Right? RIGHT?!?!

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Coming off of an antidepressant, with a preschooler, and very little sense of hope

Here I sit. Quite still actually. There are hot tears rolling down my face and I'm pretty sure that my lab is merely sitting beside me out of pity. And you know what? I'll take it.



Say what you will about stigmas, and widespread knowledge of mental health, and acceptance. Say what you want about fighting a good fight, and remembering there are brighter days ahead.

Then imagine yourself curled up in the fetal position on the dog-drool covered couch, face mashed into a blanket, fancy mascara crumbling in a hot stream down your cheeks, too ill to move. Every eyeball shift, every head tilt resulting in a brain zapping hell that can't be described unless truly experienced.

It really sucks because it feels so lonely. The text to your hubby that says you're suffering probably just comes off as melodramatic. The physical pain and the physical withdrawal from the antidepressant Cymbalta.

But add in one more factor.

Have your wonderful, lively, bright eyed preschooler ask you repeatedly to please play with her Paw Patroller toys. You just can't. And then she sees your sobbing, messy face. And wants to know why you're crying.

My feeble attempts to explain that mommy's body is ouchy and that mommy just feels so sick just feel meaningless. I can't explain that this is a long fought battle that seems to keep ending in failure. That mommy is trying to find a way to be happy after a lifetime of hurt from various places, and a chemical imbalance in my brain.

That mommy hasn't slept through the night in over three years, and that Cymbalta has been the culprit for a good 18 months of that. I now see it's made me an angrier person and I've wasted some of her most formative years suffering physically from the effects of the drug.

And it isn't my first rodeo.

And I can't actually walk upstairs on my own accord at the moment, so I listen to her jam away on her piano Gramma bought her, while she sings her own made up song that she wants mommy to be happy. And that she is sad when mommy is sad. Seriously. Feeling low and then lower.

And as I can gut wrenchingly visualize her sitting in her therapist's office 15 years from now, she still manages to get a brain-buzzingly silent giggle out of me as she wiggles her butt to her song.

She tells me I'm a good mommy and all I can reply with is choked sobs. Counting the minutes until my mentally stable husband walks through the door.

Why am I writing this? I really don't know. I guess it's just really painful so I wanted some of it out of my head.

We went to a play date earlier in the day. I've been altering between no medication and a tapered dose. With Cymbalta, you can't just cut pills in half, you just dump granules out of a capsule. I haven't counted, I've just been slugging through. So I didn't want to miss her play date.

In a room full of joyous kids and happy moms and I feel like I'm dying. But I try to smile. I try. I try to joke, I try. The more of a downer I am, the less people want to be around me, for good reason. Everyone is fighting their own battles. No one wants someone in their life that is constantly negative or focused on all that is wrong. I've been told, more than once, that person is me.

It is just getting really old. Exhausting.
I want more for her.

And it hurts to feel so alone.

Oct. 28, 2016.


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