When You Really Don't Want To Be A Mom

A couple years ago, I was going through a writing course as I began to write my story. I have a folder full of stories that I wrote, and never shared with the world - they were just for me. For my own healing.

But as I go through them, I’ve realized that some of them need to be shared. Because when you are going through postpartum depression, you feel so alone in your pain.

You think there’s something wrong with you because you don’t feel the love and joy that you thought you would feel as a mom - and thinking that there’s something wrong with you leads you to that spin of not knowing what to change or if you even can. Which is a complete and total lie.

So this post is for you - the mom who doesn’t want to be a mom, and wants to know what to do to love her life again.

——

Sometimes I just really don’t want to be a mom.

And not like, I’m just tired of motherhood. But like I really don’t want to be a mom anymore.

I want to just rewind the years, and remake that decision somehow. To somehow not fall in love with my husband. To change the course of my life right in that moment – no wedding day, no babies.

This is something that I don’t share lightly.

Have I told anyone this?

I’ve said so to my husband, but I think he just brushes it off as me in the heat of the moment. The emotions rushing high, words said that aren’t meant.

And maybe this is just that thought error, the thought from my depression that seems to play on repeat. Like a stuck record. Life goes on, but then it comes back to this same thought again.

I really don’t want to be a mom.

I wonder, do any other moms feel this way?

Am I the only one?

I wonder if it’s because of my depression that I have these thoughts – are they normal or is this another relapse?

I’ve always thought that I’m not as happy as I should be in motherhood, partly because of the depression but partly because of these times when I just don’t want to be a mom.

When I feel like I could happily become a non-mom again and life would be amazing.

At which point I always feel the need to insert “but YES I LOVE my kids. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I know if they weren’t here I would be pining for them.”

Why the need for the qualifiers?

I feel less than.

I feel that my love is somehow flawed. Not enough.

That I don’t love my kids as much as other moms love theirs.

And when I think these thoughts and feel these feelings, I proceed to prove them true.

I don’t act like a loving mom, snarling when the office door gets flung open in the middle of my writing.

I don’t treat my kids with patience or with love as they fight over legos.

I cut myself off from them, distancing myself in mind, in heart, in body.

I sulk in the kitchen, doing yet another mindless task. Blocking my heart from the pain that I’m creating for myself with these thoughts.

I resist the hurt. The hurt of denying myself the love of my children, the love of myself.

I use these thoughts against me, to spin in them and prove how bad of a mom I am.

Somehow it turns from I don’t want to be a mom, to I don’t deserve to be a mom.

To my kids would be better off without me.

The same story, told again and again.

Becoming an ingrained path in my brain, one that is so easy to follow.

So again, I remind myself – thoughts are simply sentences in your brain. Neither true nor false. Simply a sentence that your brain is offering you because it’s the easiest one. One that you can choose to believe or to let go of.

And with this reminder, I feel the load lift.

My shoulders feel lighter, removing the slump in them. The weight that was on my chest begins to lighten and I can breathe deeper again.

That fog that came over my brain begins to thin, and I begin to think clearly again.

Yes, sometimes I am a mom that doesn’t want to be a mom.

But can I love myself through these thoughts anyway?

Can I recognize that these thoughts are also just thoughts, and even though I sometimes choose to believe them, they don’t mean anything about me?

Can I see that I am still worthy of my love, of my children’s love?

——

Can you see that you are still worthy of your love, of your children’s love?

Accepting and receiving love is one of the most challenging things we do in our life - which, if you look at it logically seems kind of silly, no? Like who wouldn’t want more love in their life?

But the truth is that it can feel like a very scary and vulnerable place to be - especially for those of us with an insecure attachment style. It’s something that we want most, and yet we feel afraid to open ourselves up to it because of what might happen after.

The biggest thing that I want you to walk away from this blog post with, is knowing that you are not alone and that there are things you can do to become the mom you always thought you would be. This is what I help you do inside of Operation: Happy Mom, and you can join the group of incredible moms doing this work right here.