PPD ten months in...

I received a comment today on emptiness and the need to use addictions to fill it. In that moment, I realized just how empty I feel, and just how hard I'm trying to fill that hole. I haven't been able to find a 12-step group since we moved here. I can't make the hour drive to see my therapist anymore, not with a baby.  And I know a baby isn't meant to fill my emptiness--I am strongly aware of that, and I keep a level of detachment in that area. Not that I am not loving and caring of my child, but I realize that I must keep my self separate and not enmesh like my father did with me. That's the reason I continue working full time, and volunteering until I am so fatigued that I can't see straight. I try to do it ALL-keep myself intact, keep my child emotionally and physically safe and it's sapping the life out of me. I am not the same person I was just ten months ago. I feel sadder, more burdened, and unfortunately, more prone to my addictive tendencies. I find myself sometimes thinking too much about my lover, unable to detach as I need to. I keep myself up at night reading and rereading his emails and stories, forgetting at times the nature of this. I get sad, angry, then try to detach out of frustration. He doesn't fall for any of it, and I end up feeling helpless and depressed at times. Then I repair myself, become consumed with my everyday life, and it starts all over again. This is called obsession, I believe.

One of the emptinesses right now is that my daughter weaned herself very recently, about perhaps two weeks ago. It was gradual and I felt I was losing her. I had come to love breastfeeding, the closeness it brought to us, the earthy womanliness I discovered in myself, and the sense of worth and self-sufficiency I had gained through the act of being able to provide sustenance for this beautiful, dependent creature; how she grew plump and healthy on my milk. And now, it's all gone. I am left with a depression and a loss that I don't know how to cope with, aside from indulging myself with fantasies. Sexual fantasies and plans for a meeting, these things keep me going now. The fact that he will appreciate my body, as changed as it is; that he still wants my breasts in his mouth, that he makes me feel sexy and gorgeous and alive, the opposite of my feeling on most days. I'm clinging to this like a life raft, and I am so sad.

Another manipulative surprise...

I am fuming. My father is trying to weasel his way back AGAIN. After what he said about my daughter! After disowning my family! A package arrived from him for my daughter yesterday. After he said he wanted nothing to do with her!!!! This is so messed up, I can't believe it. What is this man thinking? That a ten-month old can open a package without her parents knowing about it??? That after what has happened, that her parents would even allow his manipulative gestures to affect her??? And I just love the way he goes about this--he can smugly say to himself that he was just being nice, just giving her a gift. After all, if a person criticizes a gift, who looks bad--the giver or the refuser??? This is the kind of manipulative shit he's pulled all my life, making me doubt my own feelings and being consumed by guilt. After all, I must be the bad one to refuse or be angry about a gift! It's what came beforehand that makes all the difference. It's his words, "it is ----'s loss that her grandfather won't be in her life." This is a pretty typical narcissistic ploy, is it not? Can anyone confirm this for me?

In other areas, this Christmas is turning out not to be what I had hoped. My daughter has been sick for a month with a double ear infection, and somehow I have ended up with one, too. Dh has been sick as well. I've given up on trying to go to work right now because I simply can't cope with all of this at once. Whatever happens with that will happen. I can't do more than I am capable, and I finally hit my limit.


My daughter has decided to self-wean, and in a futile attempt to preserve our bond in case she wants it back soon, I am working very hard. But my body knows and is deciding to take matters into its own hands, so to speak. I am grieving the loss of this, and it hurts to watch her draw closer to her father. Sometimes when I pick her up, she cries and reaches out for him. It just breaks my heart and I run upstairs and cry. I haven't been as available for her as I wish I could be, having been sick all this time--seven infections in ten months. I thought this might be the case, as I knew I was not physically strong enough to handle pregnancy, birth, recovery, and nine months of breastfeeding without some major problems. I wish I were stronger, but it is what it is, right? At least she's here, safe, and getting the most we can possibly give her. We love her more than anything in the world.