Mental illness isn't about not coping

My depression and anxiety have spiked this last couple of weeks. It has sucked. I will be going back up to 75mg sertraline tonight. There is just one major point I need to get off my chest, to work through here and share. 

My mental illness isn't about my inability to cope with my life choices. It isn't about not being able to cope with my two children, with my lovely husband, nice house, fab career and my lifestyle.

It isn't that I can't cope with the boys, it's just that I can't shoulder the weight of responsibility of being the best mother I can possibly be.

I want to be Mary Poppins - she wasn't a mother, she was a nanny, she was paid to be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

My mother was shit, her mother was (I believe) shit, my learning has come from them, my parenting mistakes I made whilst helping to bring up my brood of younger siblings, TV, and from MrB's mum. Who, is the polar opposite of my mum.

It is REALLY hard to go against the programming in underwent as a toddler and as I grew up. I didn't learn to give or receive compliments, I don't remember my mum reading to me, but I remember her rubbing my face in my wet bedding* when i wet the bed for the ??? night in a row.
(*My dad insists he didn't know this happened).

I am programmed to be angry, resentful, selfish and shaming. The thing is, I have to fight those impulses regularly, it is hard to do the right thing when it is basically taking a path that you don't have the map for.

I grew up in fear of being thrown out, of being smacked and being verbally shamed. That is what my brain automatically wants to do, that is my autopilot. This means that I cannot relax with the boys, because I can't draw-on any real experience of relaxed motherly love.

It isn't that I can't cope with my children. It's that being a great mum, tires my soul out. So, forgive me when I don't say 'But they make it all worthwhile', because they don't (it isn't up to them to validate me).

I'll be ok, just struggling this evening.