Mommy/daughter baggage

In my last post about educational choices, I noted that I was deliriously happy to send my daughter to kindergarten this past fall.  Partly I just needed a reprieve.  My summer of 2009 was spent trying to keep N and G occupied, take a graduate course through the U of Wisconsin, and suffer through the last trimester of my 3rd pregnancy.

But I also carry some baggage in my relationship with N that played into my feelings at the time.

For those who need a quick review, when N was between 7-8 months old, I had a nervous breakdown.  I fell apart completely.  Crying jags, insomnia, waking from what sleep I could get in full-blown panic attacks, weight loss, feelings of hopelessness and guilt.  Awful, awful stuff.

I was put on an antidepressant and began therapy but the medication dosage was waaaaayyy too low.  So for another 10 months I continued with low-grade suffering.  Not wound up in a ball of nerves, but definitely depressed.  When she was about 18 months I was diagnosed with OCD and GAD and put on a sufficient dose of medication to manage my conditions.

But my baggage dates back to N's beginning.  From the moment she was born, I had some pretty unrealistic ideas about how I should be as a mom.  I was totally overwhelmed with love for her, and I wasn't expecting the frustration and resentment that also come with having a child.  I didn't know what to do with my negative feelings, and so I chalked it up to being a bad mom, rather than just being a human being.  

I felt like I had to be everything to my daughter and do everything for her myself.  I kept myself isolated, not realizing how much both of us needed to be around other people, other moms and kids in social settings.  Just being with N caused me anxiety because I constantly worried whether I was stimulating her enough, helping her develop her baby intelligence.  I felt like everything N would do and become depended at least 98% on what I, as her mother, did to her and for her.

Also, as a stay-at-home mom, I didn't realize how boring it can be to be around a baby all the time.  And when I felt bored, I thought this too meant I wasn't a good mom.

This "baggage" has never really left me, despite my meds and therapy and knowing full well that I am a good mom to her.  She is 6 years old, and I still find myself struggling with excessive feelings of guilt and worry about how I measure up as a mom to her.  Is she bored?  Does she feel like I love her?  Am I giving her the attention she needs?

I don't have this anxiety with my boys.  I don't spend countless hours worrying whether I am meeting their needs, or feeling guilty when I can't play with them because I am tending to some other duty I have to do.  I don't feel guilty taking them out just because I am sick of being at home.  I don't obsess about whether I am stimulating them enough.  I just roll with life.  And I know that my more even-keel nature with them is due to being on medication throughout my pregnancies and their early years.

I don't know whether N picks up on any of this.....baggage.  I have told her that mommy's brain sometimes feels a little sick and that I take "brain medicine."  And I've tried to convey to her in simple ways some of the problems my brain gives me.  Like when she comes home from school,  my anxiety is in high gear until she washes her hands.  I find myself nagging her to wash her hands while she putzes around saying hi to her brothers, or looking for a snack, or whatever random things she does when she walks in the door.  I finally explained that my brain simply freaks out like "AAAAAGGGHHHH!" until she washes her hands, and then it settles down.  So now I just say, "N, my brain is freaking out," and she is much more apt to quickly wash her hands.

I want N to understand, through reading my blogs about mothering her or in our conversations when she is older, how all of my anxiety about mothering her was rooted in deep love.  I knew being a mom was the most important, most special job I could ever have, and I simply wanted to be so good at it.

I've always been the type of person to give 110% of myself.  But being a mom is endless, and it is simply impossible to give that much all the time.

Even though I'd give just about anything to be able to.