My children are 5, 3 and almost 2. My 5 year old is OCD, my 3 year old can't really talk, and my nearly 2 year old is a very normal toddler. I am not such a great mother.
I try, I really do. But somehow, I don't have the patience, or the energy, to keep up with them. Sometimes I wonder if I was really meant to be a mother.
Due to recent events, (namely the economy being what it is), I'm working nearly full time, while my husband stays at home with the children.
The truth is, I don't know how he does it. I know mommy's are the nurturers, but I'm not! I can cuddle the kids and give them love, but I can come home from work and find the house clean, dishes done, food on the table, kids happy and bathed. I can't do that. I never have been able to. Either the kid is happy, or the house is sort of picked up. I can't do both, maybe it's a me thing?
I feel inadequate. I was put on depression medication before the birth of my second child. When the first was born, I spent the next year so depressed I sat home and cried. Then one day, for whatever reason, it went away. suddenly I wasn't crying, and I could get things done and enjoy my child.
That was when I realized I had a problem. And I went on medication. I've tried so many medications over the years, and eventually, either I stop taking them, or the dosage stops working. Many times my husband and my mother will tell me I need to get my medication fixed, and they will make sure I do it. (Once they gang up, I can't fight them).
I've been on prozac (the generic stuff, whatever it was called). They doubled the dose, then gave up and tried a different medication. There was one that worked, but I couldn't afford a hundred dollars a month, no matter what the push to my sanity.
Now I'm on something that is on Wal-marts four dollar plan (thankfully!!!). Or I should be on ... we just moved, and I only have one refill. Alright, that's an excuse. I've forgotten to take my medicine since before we moved down here.
Here's the cycle. You get on a medicine. Stay on it for a while, until it starts working and you are ok. Then I forget it ... get off it ... and I go back down. Then I start over. This roller coaster is constant and hazardous to my health. But for some reason, I can't get off it. When I do get off the roller coaster, it's at the bottom and I stay depressed until my husband can't handle me any longer and convinces me to take meds again.
Ironically enough, my MIL thinks that depression is something you can "snap out of." A mother should never be on medication, if she's "close to the lord" she'll be fine. (Heaven help me if my MIL ever reads this). Through the years, I have not yet succeeded in explaining that it's hormonal. It's not something I can snap out of or pray out of. (Yes, I'm religious, but I believe the lord gave doctors brains for a reason, lets trust them!)
So I get heck for being on medication (though if you look on HER fathers microwave .. there is a bottle of prozac for his problems .. hmmm....).
I guess it almost makes it harder for me when I am told I'm a rotten mother (again, the MIL), mostly because I "make" my husband stay home with the children while I work. It's an economic factor, his job doesn't work well now, mine does.
Strangely, when I'm at work like this, I am ok. I still cry easily, and get upset by the end of a weekend, and have serious issue finding the patience necessary. But I'm not gone. I am here enough not to cry all the time. I can pull myself out of bed in the morning. I can force myself to keep moving.
Being a stay at home mom is not for the depressed. I still feel like a rotten mom, but the truth is, I do better when I'm not home 24/7. I NEED to feel I'm accomplishing something. I'm not saying raising children isn't wonderful accomplishment, but emotionally, I need out now and then.
Today I have a hard job to do. I need to admit to my husband I don't know where my med's are ... and I probably should be taking them. Wish me luck!
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