Parenting with a Mental Illness

When my kids frustrate me and I lose my temper, I often have thoughts like “I hate you so much right now. I wish you were someone else’s problem.” Some weeks I want as little to do with my kids as possible. I don’t want to look at them. I don’t want to listen to them. I don’t even want to hear about what charming little things they did.

To put it bluntly, I don’t want to be a mom. I admit, some days aren’t so bad. But raising my own kids feels like a punishment rather than an adventure. I feel like Sisyphus – I wake up, do my best, only to make a mistake and watch all my progress roll back down the metaphorical hill, right to where I started.

To be fair, I’ve only really experienced parenthood from depressed and anxious mental state. I hated being pregnant from week 6 onward. I cried whenever the nurses left me alone with my son right after he was born. I have struggled with finding lasting peace and acceptance of this change in my life- and I now have two kids and my son is almost 4. I don’t think any parent would be enchanted by or happy about parenting when the outcome has led to lasting damage.

I had serious postpartum depression after my son was born and I spent a few weeks in the hospital being treated for suicidal ideation, because I couldn’t see a reason to keep living. Right after my daughter was born, for a small fraction of a moment, I kind of understood why people wanted more than one kid. But then my symptoms came back. My premenstrual dysphoric disorder reared its ugly head, and I have to battle this along with being a parent.

 PMDD has no cure. There are band-aids like medication, therapy, and exercise, but none of them stop my brain from feeling suicidal every month.

For all my fellow parents out there- you know the struggle of having to put an energetic child back in bed for the 50^th time. What it’s like to clean up vomit out of the carpet because they missed their bucket. The giant messes. The tantrums. The backtalk. These things alone are draining.  

I’m one of the several thousands of women who get the added bonus of feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde every month. My own mind is working against me and I have to hold it together and be a decent parent. I feel like a concert pianist with my hands tied behind my back and I can only play with my nose, but I’m still expected to play Chopin perfectly.

Crying “life isn’t fair” will get me a Captain Obvious award. But I don’t know what else there is to say. I could go into a whole historical rant where expectations of modern mothers far exceed any expectations of historical mothers when it comes to childrearing. But none of that is going to stop the fact that this is my reality.

My reality is that I’m so frustrated with trying to keep myself together. I’m frustrated that I wake up some mornings with “I should die today” as my constant thought and still have to get out of bed and feed the kids and deal with tantrums like nothing’s wrong. I’m frustrated that toddlers are destructive and full of energy and I like a semblance of order and I have little to no energy. I’m frustrated by people sharing their “look how perfect my baby is. I love them so much. They’re my whole world. There’s nothing better than being a parent.” Not because they’re wrong, but because I have never seen parenthood that way, but feel expected to react that way when talking about my kids. I’m frustrated because my own capabilities are so limited, and so instead of hating myself- I end up hating my kids.

I know myself well enough to know that when I’m sad, I try to be productive through anger. Anger will make me clean up a mess. Sadness will make me stare at it and cry. Anger will make me save a crying child while sadness will make me let them scream. Anger moves me, sadness roots me. I have told myself and even got to a point where I legitimately believed that I hate my children. But the truth is, I hate myself. And that self-loathing has been a constant companion throughout my whole life.  I just projected it onto my kids because they are mine and I taught them to talk like me, act like me- and I hate what I see. But I know it is not them. It’s all me.

My biggest struggle is staying sane every month when it’s easier to yell and scream, and cry, and the only solution I find in this state of mind to fixing this stupid mess of my own self-sabotage is death. Because if I was dead, I wouldn’t be scarring my children for life. My husband wouldn’t have to wonder if today was a safe day to leave me home alone. Because the future looks so bleak, especially when I know that I’m going to deal with this for a vast majority of my adult life. Every month I turn into a monster, and every month I have to rebuild my relationship with my husband and kids and sometimes my extended family and friends. Every month I feel suicidal- sometimes it’s a passing thought, and other days, like today, I just want this torture to end.

Being a parent while feeling like a walking time bomb just sucks. I wonder what I did to deserve this situation. Emotional experience chalks it up to me being a terrible child. I made my parents hate me, so this is what I get. I know logically that doesn’t make sense- but emotionally it feels like the only answer that makes sense. Because bad things happen to bad people right?

But that’s not true. Things happen to people regardless of their “goodness” or “badness”. People get sick. People lose their jobs. Accidents happen. Attributing a punishment/reward mentality to life does nothing but make things more confusing.

Nobody “deserves” a mental illness.

I wanted kids when I talked about marriage with my husband when we were dating. I wanted kids after we were married. But once I had them, my own negative childhood experiences and my physical and mental state have painted parenthood as bleak and soul sucking. It’s nothing against my kids. This is just my burden to bear. I’m sure there are plenty of other parents out there who have felt something similar.

For those parents who too feel inadequate, guilty, or otherwise just plain awful because of what cards were dealt to them, I’ll gladly be the first to tell you it’s okay to not like parenting. It’s okay that your kids aren’t the center of your universe. It’s okay that you don’t feel as in love with being a parent as you “should” be. You don’t need to have an incredible bond with your child in order for you to be a “good” parent.

I admitted to my doctor that I wished that I could have taken motherhood off my plate. He didn’t berate me. He knew that my feelings were a legitimate concern and we had a good talk.  If you have similar feelings- share them with your doctor, therapist, trusted friend, or on a hotline if needed. You aren’t an awful person because of those feelings. Your feelings are a symptom, not a cause.

It’s scary to admit things like this out loud. Some people won’t take it well. Breathe. Keep trying until you find the person who listens, who understands. There may not be a magic cure to make it all go away, but it’s easier to find hope when you have an ally, than when you’re all alone.