I remember trying ‘controlled crying’ with my first son. It worked really well in the sense that he was crying in his room, and I was crying in mine
.
I definitely suffered from pnd and suffered a lot of the same symptoms as Nicki. I was overly controlling of my son (with sleep and food in particular), didn’t know how to play with him and/or didn’t want to, and distracted myself with superficial and really unimportant stuff to detract from my unhappiness bcos I wasn’t fulfilled by motherhood.
I’m not proud of that first year with him (although in the grand scheme of things he was fine and is a fantastic 12 yr old now bcos of a load of factors), but I do passionately wish that someone had helped me to accept my unhappiness and difficulty with motherhood and found a way to move forward sooner.
I wish someone would kindly step in to help Nicki. She is human after all and is, sad though we might find it, genuinely trying to do her best while probably being really really bloody sad inside. Most of the time I find her funny but ever so often I am just struck by how sad the whole set-up is.
*i dread to think how I would have been perceived if I had tried to convey that first year on social media*