My Husband has Nailed Toddler Parenting

'Ok, I'll just wait until you are ready...'

MrB is a genius, anytime that Ewan won't brush his teeth, or just doesn't fancy the piece of toast that I had the temerity to cut or most other toddler refusal situations, he breaks out thE above phrase.

No negotiating, no ultimatum, no promises of a chocolate biscuit.

'Ok Ewan, we'll just wait here until you are ready to get dressed'.

When I heard it, I thought he was off his rocker. Good luck getting that to work with Mr Stubborn.

It works, calmly and patiently, in a few seconds and probably prevents a good proportion of the negotiations and refusals from going into full on shouting.

I really need to do it more, MrB is so laid back he is simply marvellous.

So there you go, give it a try, relaxed and calm and much faster!

Motherly Love is like sharing a cake

It is 21 months since I last gave birth and 37 months since I became a mother. Recently, I read this article on motherly love http://t.co/Jkc2sWYIGq  .

It hit me really hard, the love I have for the boys isn't the warm love I have for MrB, that is nurtured and cared for... It's a love that needs me to give love, security, warmth and comfort back to them. That's what they deserve and it's what I never had.

I had a huge meltdown a couple of weeks after discovering i was pregnant with E. Perhaps it was partially because of first trimester exhaustion and living off cream crackers and well timed meals. Most likely, it was because i realised that I was required to give this sort of love. It has taken me almost 4 years to see it .

As part of my post - CBT staying well plan, I need to practise self-compassion. This involves having emotions and accepting them and not analysing them. Writing a blog post fits into self compassion because I'm allowing myself to have this shortfall in love.

Being a loving mother is unconditional and the payment for it is mostly in cuddles (which may or may not involve food, mud or paint being smeared over my person).

So I don't hate being a mum, nor do I hate my children. I hate that I need to give love and get nothing back, it's like sharing a cake... where you don't really get to share it, you get one slice and have to give 3/4 of the cake to the person you are sharing with .

so a bit of the problem is that I'm still coming to terms with the emotional neglect I suffered as a child and teenager . It is a lot to deal with when I thought I had a normal-ish childhood.

I need to do a CBT exercise on the 'I hate being a mum' belief ... because I have a lot of reasons to not believe it.

If you think you hate being a mum, it's ok. These early years are hard in an exhausting way.
      

It's all in the chemistry

Look at these two boys, lovely, funny, clever enough to hold their own at nursery and exhausting.

When I was ill, and people asked 'how are the boys', I would reply with 'exhausting'. I was better, I  wrote about how I knew I was better here .

At the end of November I started to change my meds. I had to wean off 150mg sertraline and start on 15mg mitrazapine. I came off sertraline after 2 weeks of 'weaning off'. This was advised by a psychiatrist and I would advise anyone to NEVER STOP antidepressants suddenly. No matter how well you are. I was very  scared of myself and hit a real low during the sertraline discontinuation symptoms (you can call them withdrawal symptoms , but SSRIs aren't addictive so discontinuation is more accurate [insert citation here 😉])

Where am I now? I am on my third week of mitrazapine (2 weeks of 15mg and 1 week at 30mg) and I feel miserable. I hate my children, myself, MrB. I don't like the way I feel and I don't know where I stand in my life.

I feel like I'm no use to anyone in real life. Luckily, being at work this last week has been good for my head - distraction, problem solving, out of the house and away from 'family surroundings' (children's clutter). My head is starting to cloud a little on my new drug but I feel useful at work - PLEASE REMIND ME OF THIS! 

I could wang on some more about how shit I feel and how scared I am about life and my feelings and emotions, but I'll tell  you that I went to see my GP for some reassurance. He explained that my feelings that were suppressed by sertraline were released when I stopped taking it and that my new drug (which works by targeting noradrenaline and serotonin within the brain - I have phrased that incorrectly but it doesn't just work on serotonin like sertraline and citalopram do). He said that the new drug is trying to dull my emotions but until it can do that fully, there is a push between my emotions being felt and the drug trying to stop it.

What he said helped, he only told me what I already knew but we all know that in hard times we just can't tell ourselves the kind words we need.

Thank goodness for the #pndchat hash tag. 
Lovely (mostly) ladies send kind words my way when I am least able to tell them to myself. I am so grateful for every tweet telling me that it is ok. I hope that I can start giving back to the community soon.

Thank you