mothering with mental illness

[Have2hope]

hello,

I’m a 33 year old wife and mother of 2 beautiful young children. I am struggling with severe anxiety every single day and it’s making me rather depressed. I have found a good therapist and my primary is nice. I was started on Lexapro this month but I think it’s making me feel worse which upsets me because everyone said it was a big help to them but I seem to be having reactions to it. I know I had postpartum anxiety and intrusive thoughts after my firstborn that I just toughed out, my first panic attack ever was 5 hours after I had my second child in 2020. I struggled connecting to them which carried a lot of guilt. I developed bad social anxiety but felt better after I would cancel plans. Then in June of this year I had a long stomach bug and began having panic attacks, I lost my sense of self, didn’t connect to my family for days. It was really scary! Ever since then for the last 3 months nearly every day sometimes every moment of the day I have crippling anxiety and panic. I can’t seem to understand why? I have the family, stability, support, physical health, everything I’ve ever wanted! I should be the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, I worked so hard to get here! Yet I struggle making it moment to moment without panic. It makes me cry for hours/days at a time. I hardly sleep. I made my whole life about being super mom and am usually very good at it, it’s primarily my whole identity so now struggling with mental health I feel like my identity is gone. I don’t know how to feel better even with grounding techniques, the stigma of mental illness is hard to overcome. How can I be a mother, an individual, my own savior? It’s a lot to take care of all at once. Everyone says it gets better, but after 3 months of daily excruciating mental health struggles that doesn’t feel possible. I know I just started treatment but when the first treatment doesn’t work after so much hope I feel discouraged. I find it hard to get out of bed to face another day of the anxiety mental marathon but have no choice my children need me.

[CLB1125]

Some medication takes awhile to fully work. But if after a couple months and you still feel the same, go back to your doctor. Not all medications work the same on everyone. I have been on depression /anxiety medication for the last 30 years. I am still working on getting just the right combination for me. As time goes on it has to be raised/lowered or changed to a different medication. You’re on the right path. Keep on working on it. And know we are here when you need us. ❤️

[b1b1b1]

You say you "made your whole life about being super mom". This is not good. To be a good mother you do not have to be super mom. In fact, that is counter productive. Can you put more emphasis on being your own person. Is it possible for you to go out for half a day without your children say once or twice a week? It is good, though that you are seeing a psychiatrist. Give the lexapro a bit more time. Then, keep in mind that there are other and stronger medications that can be taken for shorter periods of time.

[CLB1125 in reply to b1b1b1]

I have to say I agree with b1b1b1. I put my whole life into my kids and then took in daycare for 6 years. When the kids were grown and I closed the daycare because of health problems I was lost. I didn’t have a life of my own. Try to do something once a week or so for yourself.

[Have2hope in reply to b1b1b1]

That’s true, the super high standard is destined to fail and I have came down a lot on a much more reasonable level of motherhood expectations. I just want to be able to do normal things again, a trip to the park or zoo without crippling anxiety. Even just being around the house and being present and content. I would take as average and mundane as it gets over this crippling anxiety and now depression. I had a family so I could give them a good life and now I’m worried my mental health will negatively impact them and it just doesn’t seem fair to them or my loved ones. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who knows I need some me time, but what do you do when you’ve lost yourself in motherhood? I don’t even know who I am as a person anymore. I have been looking into hobbies, I go bike riding when I feel ok. Sometimes it just feels like climbing up a mountain with no real peak.

[Candy_23]

With medications, sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. But once it gets better, it is all worth the wait. Hang in there, if lexapro doesn’t work your PCP will find something that will.

[Have2hope in reply to Candy_23]

Thank you, I am really trying to believe that. The Lexapro caused really vivid “dreams” I don’t know if I was even sleeping. They weren’t bad but almost trippy, too realistic. It’s exhausting and I’m losing hope that I’ll ever find something that will work (dramatic after one medicine I know) but I’m just so tired. I had a family so I could have and give them a good life and now I’m so scared that I’m messed up and that my mental health is going to mess them up. It’s just hard when you love your kids so much that it scares you. I know I’m looking for reassurance but please I need to believe it gets better.

[Candy_23 in reply to Have2hope]

I can understand.. I don’t even have a family yet and am almost scared to have one because I know this is holding me back and has almost consumed 3 years of my life. Just remember you feel this way because you care. You will learn to live with it and manage it a lot better but it does come with time.

[Twistedopher]

From my experience, both personal, and reading countless other folks experience...first if all, I had so much hope in lexapro. In the end, it only left me more depressed. Which was hard to accept. And a lot of the struggle to accept it is not working is people online assuring me they knew better than any doctor or psychiatrist. Assuring me that if I took it just a little longer... If you take it for a month, there will be a plethora of people that swear you have to take it for 6 weeks. If you take it for 2 months, they will say you have to take it for 3. There are also countless witnesses that attest to how much it gave them their lives back. I wish I would have been one of them. I wish you would be one of them. Again, my personal experience...if you have not had even one benefit by week 4......... forgive me if any of this comes off as crass.

[Have2hope in reply to Twistedopher]

Thank you that really is comforting. I wish you could of benefitted as well. Part of why I pushed to stay on it was what people said online and now coming off just a little bit of it is really difficult and I should of called it quits on it when my gut said it was time instead of dealing with what I’m now seeing is a bit of traumatizing reactions (the dreams, woof!). You didn’t come off as crass, your response helped and I appreciated it.