Step 1: Acknowledging the need for help

So I’m really struggling at the moment but I’ve just kept going and denying that anything is wrong. I’ve been pushing myself and trying to dive headfirst into being a mum and forgetting about myself as a person. I’ve noticed I have been quite irrational, argumentative and overly emotional over the last few months but I’ve been too scared to admit it to myself.

My depression and anxiety is well and truly back and with a fiery storm behind it.

Understanding why I feel the way I do is probably one of the easiest and hardest things for me. I know what most of my triggers are but knowing how to change my thoughts and reactions to those triggers, is the hardest part.

What if one of your triggers are people but you know that there’s no way that you can cut them out of your life?

That right there is what I’m struggling with.

I have severe depression and anxiety. Not everything makes me depressed or anxious and I’m not depressed and anxious all of the time. I just have a lot of triggers, a lot of irrational thoughts and feelings.

Recently I’ve found I have a lot of anxiety surrounding my self esteem particularly in reference to my children. Have I done that right? Have I done that wrong? Am I doing enough? Is she developing at the right stages? Do I need to support her more? Am I feeding her enough of the right stuff? But the biggest and most significant thought I have is that no matter what I do, I am never going to be good enough.

It’s difficult living in a world where no matter what happens, you feel like you’re constantly failing. Failing yourself, your children, your partner, your family and friends. Its lonely and it’s scary.

It’s even harder when certain people make comments about particular things, comments that probably most mums would brush off and move on. Yet with my mental health, I absorb it, I analyse it, I obsess over it and let it slowly eat me away.

I am vulnerable. Mentally I am probably the most vulnerable I have been since being diagnosed 7 years ago. A large part of that is probably to do with my children. I feel like a lioness who may be a little too over protective of her children because she’s obsessing over every potential danger in this world, big or small.

Acknowledging that I am having these irrational thoughts, is the easy part. I know I’m thinking irrationally but I feel helpless, I am a prisoner to my own brain. Noticing the main triggers for my anxiety and depressive thoughts, again, somewhat easy. But tackling them? Terrifying.

As a mum, you don’t want to feel weak, you want to be strong and prove that you’re capable enough to raise your children. Poor mental health, destroys that. It destroys you.

Finally, I’ve taken the first steps in tackling the difficult parts of depression and anxiety. I am going to break the cycle of self doubt, self hate and the invasive, obsessive thoughts.

I have finally accepted defeat and asked for help.

It doesn’t make me weak, no matter how weak I feel. It doesn’t make me any less of a mum just because I need a little more support in controlling my thoughts.

It just makes me human.

I should have asked for help a while back, when I noticed the signs, the thoughts and the triggers. I was scared. Scared of being judged, ridiculed or that someone may even try and call me an unfit mother. But what matters is that I’ve done it.

I’m going to have intensive cognitive behavioral therapy. I am going to learn how to retrain my thought processes, I am going to learn how to love myself, to feel like I am enough and that I am a good mum.

Depression and Anxiety have stolen so much from me over the years. It’s time that I stop falling victim and complicit to my mental health and took control. I’m taking back my freedom, my happiness, my family.

It’ll be a long process, a terrifying journey but I know what the end goal is. I know what I want, to love and enjoy myself and my family.

I’ve taken my first step. I know I’ll get there, eventually, some day.