Sucky but rational decision and mitigating harm as much as possible.

I realized something important today.

I am going to ruin my kid.

Like. Hes super happy and fearless right now, because hes a baby and they dont know shit. I was happy and fearless as a little too. But im doing this same fucked up brain rodeo all over again now and i realized. Its never going to wnd. Babes gonna have to grow up with this poison in his mom, seeing this, learning the helplessness and numbness and fear and worthlessness. Its going to infect him, if i let it. And as long as im around, im going to end up letting it. Im ok at faking normal, but no ones that good that consistently for that long. Im going to fuck up eventually, in all sorts of little ways and eventually the big one and the longer i let it go on the worse itll be for him. If i do it soon then he wont even remember me.

I /think/ its probably still okay. He needs breastmilk for another month or so, and he probably wont have any memories really for another maybe even year-ish. But thats really pushing it, and i dont want... I want to do as little harm as possible. I dont kid myself i can get away without doing any, but im trying to figure out how to do my best.

 

Have been convinced to entertain possibility that i might be thinking with crazy people logic. Like, this all seems perfectly self-evident and obviously true to me right now but i have in the past been convinced of things that turned out to not be while unmedicated so.

If nothing else it seems possible that it might not be /monsterously/ evil, so much as just sort of selfish and cowardly, to wait a few days before killing myself. And since im still alive right now i might as well talk to a doctor even if it wont matter. Saying i would made people calm down.

People cried. It was bewildering and somewhat alarming.

 

Please don't kill yourself.
It won't mitigate harm.
It never does. Never has.

 

I think if you were being rational about mitigating harm, killing yourself wouldn't be your first thought. Like, even if you were unfit to be a parent, there are several steps besides killing yourself that could fix that or at least get your kid somewhere safe.

 

Are you going to be an abusive parent? I don't mean "be mentally ill and exist in his presence" but plan on neglecting his needs, physically hurt him? verbally break him down until he has no self esteem left to question you or your authority? If you answered no to the above questions than congrats! You re not going to teach him helplessness, numbness, worthlessness, or fear.

real talk I grew up with parents that had bad depression and anxiety issues, but still tried to keep it together for the kids. I still think they were pretty great. They had their flaws and still do, but they are still pretty great. It's hard sometimes, especially my a who is majorly depressed but doesn't take care of himself or attempt at recovery. But I love them, and my anxiety and depression have nothing to do with them "poisoning" me. Unless you count inheriting their genes, but it's not like I regret being born.

You know what's guaranteed to fuck him up though? You killing yourself. He'd grow up never really knowing who his mother was, and I can only imagine how much it would suck if he figured out why. Maybe he'd blame himself, thinking you had some post partum depression that wouldn't have happened if he wasn't born.

I mean break it down in a way that isn't depression moon logic and look at it this way:

Mentally ill mom, doing her best, loves you very much, not abusive: not really harmful
Mom committing suicide (at any point in your life): really fucking harmful!

I mean, even if you want to be generous and say "well, maybe it is a little harmful" the harm is significantly less than if you were dead, at least in my experience. I know kids whose parents died when they were really too young to remember them and I know other kids who had to deal with parents who attempted or comitted suicide and it is/was really painful for them.

 

I read these and im trying to grok them. Will respond more later when i can think better, today was too many things. But i am reading them and thinking about them hard. Thanks, you guys.

 

Hey. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. As others have said, there are other avenues you can look into. Adoption maybe, if you still feel this way down the line. But the world is better for your being in it. I would be devastated if anything happened to you, fwiw. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you, distractions or art or anything else.

 

@Goth Polygon my brain is quieting dowm some and its possible you might be correct. Im not currently totally convinced but i can tell im working on a lot of moon logic right now, so.

@secretidentityman this is ridiculous levels of stupid? But other options didnt even occur to me. This is the strongest evidence i have that im operating on depression-brain instead of real world logic, and im going to look into those other options just in case.

@liminal if its not too difficult for you, could i ask some about what it was like growing up with mentally ill parents? Because i never ever want to harm baby in any way. Im completely terrified hes going to see me being depressed, and splitting or using moon logic or giving up and hes going to learn to think like this. Or else just feel like hes not safe, or not loved, or like he cant rely on me or has to take care of me when thats not his fucking job. Hes a kid, he shouldnt have to worry about his mom. I guess im just asking like. What did they do that helped? What was bad? Um. If you dont want to talk about it tho i 100% understand.

@KathyGaele you are super kind. Thanks. People keep asking me how to help me and i never know what to say, but the offer itself is touching. <3

 

I think it depends on the kind of mental illness, and how you deal with it. Both of my parents have anxiety and depression issues, though my dad is definitely more severely depressed and my mom is more anxious. It's hard to tell how mine/my brother's experiences are compared to others (though I guess every family is different anyways) but generally speaking both of my parents tried to keep it together as much as possible to not fuck us up. Though we both sorta ended up with out own brainweird anyways because genetics, but tbh I on't feel angry or blame them for that or anything. Like I said before I don't regret being born. My mom was the only one who periodically would be on medication or any kind of treatment. My dad... nope.

My mom talks about how horrible she was as a mom, how stressed out she was all the time, and how she didn't do as much stuff as she could with us, or should have done with us, but I don't really remember that to be honest. I think she is way too hard on herself.

My dad is a lot harder to deal with. Not because he is abusive or anything we've had our fights and issues before, but that isn't the hard part. The hard part is that he never get's treatment. He is a nice person, and he's really funny, but it was hard sometimes as a kid when he'd be laying down in bed and I could tell he was upset when he insisted that he wasn't. We lived with him after my parents split up because he was the more stable one. We didn't learn/have a ton of self care enforced because he never really took care of himself. It get's even harder as I get older and his health is deteriorating and he talks about how he's not long for this world and stuff (granted he's been saying that for 10+ years). Like my mom, he pretty much thinks he's the most horrible parent ever. And after reading all of that you might think something like that too.

But ultimately while they have their flaws, they aren't abusive. I wasn't scared around them, they never made me feel like things were hopeless. They didn't transfer their illnesses over to me with the magic of bad parenting. I remember the good things about them long before the bad things. I remember how kind they are, how gentle my mom is, how funny my dad is, how they would sacrifice anything for their kids and how much they did their best in spite of their difficulties in life. The unhappiness I had (or still have) had nothing to do with them being "bad". Ultimately I love them and I want them to be happy.

My brother is a little different than me, in that he had more conflict with them growing up. He fell through the cracks in school an had some behavioral issues they had no idea how to deal with that lead to our abusive dynamic. But I know he feels the same way I do, but until recently I don't think he was very good at demonstrating that.

Whether or not your kid worries about you I think depends on their personality. My brother never really worried about them until he was an adult person, but I was worried about them. I don't know what to tell you on that one. Except I don't really see it as a big deal? I think it has made me a more patient an empathetic person. The only time I think it was really hurtful is/was with my dad, who has never been treated for depression/seasonal affective disorder and he doesn't take care of himself, and talks about how he's a loser, or how he's gonna die and stuff. I think you can pretty much avoid that like my mom did if you just stay in treatment and refrain from saying that kind of stuff to your kid.

Ultimately I don't think anyone leaves their childhood unscathed. Nobody ever has, or will have the perfect flawless parents, but ultimately I think if you stick with treatment and try and take care of yourself you are going to be a really great mom. So... even if you mess up you'll be ok. I remember talking to my friends who had addict parents, suicidal parents, abusive parents, narcissist parents, and I think about how lucky I am to not have crazy parents. Which is kind of ironic, but.

 

Dude.
Moon logic is generally shitty to deal with generally, I definitely feel you.
But moon logic is moon logic and not to be listened to.
I think what other people have been saying here is definitely important.

Example from life- one of my closest friends, his brother killed himself for reasons I don't actually know, it was before I met him.
It's been ten years and it still haunts the family, probably still will until everyone who knew the brother dies. Because you may not think this with moon logic but you would not be helping your son if you killed yourself. You would be hurting him.

Don't let your brain hurt your son, because in this case it's not just attacking you.

o/notsureifmake sense

wish i could send hugs through the internet.

 

also I forgot to mention that if either of my parents killed themselves it would be at least 40 times more fucked up and traumatizing then them being flawed. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.

 

Thank you for engaging my fight again, because i read this and went "oh like HELL im letting anything attack my boy fuckin come at me bro." That's a nice change.

And you made me actually laugh out loud. You are the best, please collect your wins at the ticket desk.

 

@Lissiel my dad killed himself and yeah I was older than a baby so I remember him more, but it wouldn't have made not having him suck less or be less hard. There is a lot of stuffed I want to be able to talk to my dad about, ask him about. Stuff I think he'd get going on in my head because he had the same problems. It's a never ending game of what if. I don't doubt that he loved from the bottom of his heart to the top of the mountains and thought he was doing the best by me. But the best buy me would have been staying.

If you don't stay for you, at least stay for your baby. He'll want to hear how much you love him from you. Please take care of yourself, if you want to talk I'm not very good at knowing what to say but I can listen.

 

@Lissiel I don't really know you, but you were the first person to answer when I made a freaked-out about sabotaging myself. You calmed me down and gave me good advice. I took your advice, back in therapy, on better meds, am okay. So basically thanks. You're good.

Also both my parents have undiagnosed brainweird and some traumatic baggage. And they were pretty great parents - despite the fact that they fucked up a LOT. They were/are very kind and loving, they always involved me in the stuff they were interested in, they were honest with me. But I've seen my mom cry hysterically and throw shit more times than I can count. My dad sometimes runs out of spoons and then we eat shitty frozen pizza. It's okay.

Both their kids ended up with brain weird, but my sister's psychotic episode doesn't really count because that happened because of brain damage. I'm kind of a mess, but I'm also a fundamentally happy person, and I have never ever doubted that my parents love me or have my back. So having fucked-up parents is not necessarily terrible.

(Also the 'i am poisoning people by existing' is something I heard almost verbatim from my lil sis when she was psychotic. She was afraid that somehow the darkness of her thoughts is literally torturing and killing the people around her, when in fact she was the sweetest, nicest person ever. So moon logic.)

 

I keep (like on an hourly basis) flip flopping from understanding the stuff people have been sayin to me here and believing moon logic. Husband is coming home early from work. Texts here cause im not up to summarizing.

I saw a little kid, maybe two or three, at the supermarket today running around with his dad and i started crying a little cause i want to see baby run like that, i want to see what hes like a a kid, and im so scared im going to fuck up irreversably during one of the times when i dont care. That ill be convinced killing myself is needed and fine and do something i cant take back and only snap out of it once its too late.

Currently trying to keep myself distracted.

 

I know you don't want to go to a hospital, but at this point it is looking like a smart option, and going there willingly is far better, I think. I have never been committed, but I had a break of sorts that sounds similar to what you are going through, and they hooked me up with a psychologist to chat too for an hour so I could be talked through my thought processes and figure out what I needed to do.
Hugs. I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. You're doing really well.

 

Ive been to two, once voluntary and once involuntary and while im really glad i didnt die either of those times and i dont regret going, it was really really fucking traumatizing. My husband was there for the second time and knows i will go if i have to but my standard is "i will probably not see tomorrow if i dont."

I know im almost at that point. Im just sort of desperately hoping for another option, because it seems like there should be something between "*shrug* go outside and exercise i guess? How you tried not being depressed?" and being locked up in a cold isolating place with people who hate you until you manage to convince them youre fine no really.

 

I'm sorry your institutionalization experiences sucked. You're right, there really should be a middle ground, and mental health care availability isn't as good as it should be.

 

The other day i walked into a doctors office, carrying a one year old baby. I hadnt showered or put on clean clothes or brushed my teeth or hair, and i wasnt wearing any makeup. I told him point blank in writing that the whole list of depression symptoms (disordered eating, sleeping, thoughts, etc) were "severe" across the board and affected me daily. I told him out loud explicitly that i was thinking about killing myself on an hourly basis, and that i am home alone with the baby all day all week.

He gave me the lowest dose of a faily mild drug because, in his words, "you dont look like youre doing too bad! Maybe you just need a little something to pop your mood back up more where it should be! :)"

#afab healthcare