I don’t even know what to title this tbh
I literally feel like I’m losing myself, losing my mind & nobody around me can understand. I dont know if I’m experiencing PPD cause honestly my sadness isn’t linked to parenting, it’s just everything outside of parenting then the stress of parenting is just like the cherry on top. Im a new mom, my daughter is 7 weeks old & I love being her mom so much. I’ve wanted a daughter for so long, I mean she’s literally my dream come true. She makes me so happy. But everything else in my life is just overwhelming me so much. My relationship with my mother has always been difficult. She is a literal narcissist & it’s only gotten worse during my pregnancy & after. She’s always mad at me for something. Mad I didn’t let her pick my daughters name, mad I didn’t let her make the decision on whether my daughter should get her first shot or not (which I did but she’s against vaccines), mad I won’t feed my daughter goat milk (cause it’s the closest milk to the kind we produce & breast feeding was difficult for me so I stopped, but she’s anti formula) even though she’s too young for any animal milk. She won’t even be mad at me & just say how she feels so we can talk and move past it, which I would prefer. She’s mad as handles it in the most passive ways, like she won’t speak to me unless she needs me & makes passive aggressive comments about how she doesn’t want to over step or how she would never make the choices I’m making. It just hurts so bad cause she’s my mom & the only one I have & sometimes I just wanna be able to pick up the phone and talk to her about being a mom and ask her stuff and share stories but I can’t cause she makes everything an issue if it doesn’t go her way or revolve around her. Then my living situation. I’m literally in a shelter cause when I got pregnant I couldn’t work due to COVID & I needed to get a place for my daughter & I. My daughters father & I were really rocky at that time so even though he offered for me to stay with him I didn’t want to because of the toxicity that I ended up having to deal with my whole pregnancy anyway. Being here isn’t as bad as it sounds, I have my own room and bathroom, but the environment for a newborn is not what I want for my baby at all. Constant loud noises all day, she’s always irritated cause she can’t sleep the way she needs to at this age. Everything I eat has to be microwaveable cause we can’t use the kitchen downstairs. We can’t have visitors so it’s me some doing everything with no help unless I take a cab to her dads house which is literally draining my pockets of whatever money I touch. We can’t spend the night out either. I can’t get out of here until I can get a job so I can qualify to get a new apartment but I can’t get a job yet cause she’s so young and I have nobody to watch her that I actually trust. I trust her dad but he doesn’t live alone and I don’t trust the people he lives with by far. He’s barely any help. And he is trying but trying can’t do sh*t for me right now. I feel like I can’t depend on him, I feel like I’m in this alone like 90% of the time. When we’re around each other he’s really hands on but he’s not doing what he needs to do to make sure we can all be under one roof, in a safe environment for our daughter & its pissing me off to the point where I’m starting to hate him. He put me through hell during my pregnancy. We moved past it but I feel like a small pet of me will never forgive him and as much as I want to I know it won’t happen as long as he’s failing us as a family. My dad is my rock, he’s always there for me but he’s a hoarder & I literally cannot live in that environment with a baby, CPS would take her so fast smh. I literally don’t know what to do, I feel so stuck & depressed. Today I’ve cried on and off for about 4 hours straight, I tried to talk to him about it and he literally told me to snap out of it and started yelling at me …at this point I’m just sitting on the floor of my bathtub eating a cold TV dinner after finally getting my daughter to sleep after over an hour of her screaming cause she got woken up out of her sleep & is going through a growth spurt. I’m literally just sitting here sobbing & can’t even stop no matter how hard I try. I feel like I’m losing myself & melting away right in front of everybody but nobody notices. I’m so disappointed with myself for even letting my life become like this. I stare at myself in the mirror like … how did I get here? How did I become the girl looking back at me in the mirror. I don’t like the version of myself. I don’t even take care of myself, I haven’t shaved my legs in over a month, I haven’t done my hair, I barely get a chance to shower most days. I’m so unhappy unless I’m focused on my baby. I don’t know what to do, or what’s even happening to me cause I’ve never felt like this (& I’ve experienced severe depression & pretty bad anxiety before, I wouldn’t say one is worse than the other but this just feels so .. different), or who to talk to. I guess I just had to get this off my chest. Im not religious but I do believe in prayer so if anybody reading this could just say a prayer for me please, I don’t care who you pray to as long as the prayer is sent with good intention. I’ve never done anything like this before & I swear I’m not asking for sympathy, I just really don’t know what to do anymore & I really need all the positive energy I could get right now cause honestly I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been before & idk how to handle it but I’m really trying my best.
Edit: yes, I have friends & amazing ones at that. I usually go to them but sometimes you just get tired of telling the same people the same issues over & over when they’re really not in a position to help anything anyway. & I don’t really want people to know how bad I’m doing emotionally. I know it sounds so dumb & ironically I’m the friend always advocating for mental health & to be open with feelings & never be ashamed of valid feelings but it’s just hard for me to let people know how bad it really is I guess I’m embarrassed or don’t want sympathy.
Achieve your health goals from period to parenting.