Dear Helcat:

Thank you ❤️ for your empathy and kindness. I slept last night for 6+ hours straight (good thing) and lay awake.. thinking, for 3 hours (5-8 am), not good.

“The baby dysregulated my nervous system, particularly to do with the hormones (cortisol levels get progressively higher throughout pregnancy) and partially due to stressful circumstances. I haven’t recovered from that yet. I’m not able to cope with stress at the moment. Because of the baby, I’m not really able to do much self-care either. Just busy looking after him really“- how can you recover from a long time of elevated stress when all you do is take care of a baby. As adorable as your baby is, you need to spend time with another adult, or other adults who show you consistent, dependable kindness and affection, so that in their company, you can rest and recharge.

“My husband was the person who taught me to love myself… When he loved me, he saw me as worthy. I felt like I was good enough for the first time because he told me I was. Having these relationship difficulties, feeling the loss of love. It makes me feel unworthy and unlovable… I have been worrying a lot about losing my husband“- you used the word loss/ losing twice in this quote: the loss of love and losing my husband. Even though losing your husband is only a worry at this time, there has been a real loss already, as I see it, and that’s the loss of your trust in his love. It’s not solid enough for you to rest in it, and recharge.

We are people who need people (like the song says). We can’t feel worthy and lovable when all alone for too long. We need someone/ some other adult people to reflect (as human mirrors) our worthiness and lovability back to us. Such reflections lower stress.

“What will happen if things don’t work out. That has been painful too… if he doesn’t want to be with me anymore that is his choice and I wish him the best.“- you are preparing for the loss of him, but loss has already happened. It may help to think of the loss not as something yet to happen, and therefore, something to be feared,  but as something that already happened, and therefore, it’s something to be grieved.  Fearing something yet to happen elevates stress; grieving something that already happened lowers stress.

There are support groups perhaps that you can attend in-person twice a week, let’s say, where you can experience positive reflections of who you are: Helpful, Empathetic, Loving,  Considerate, Astute, Tenderhearted.

anita