Men are not taught to communicate by society. They are taught to hold everything inside, encouraged to not feel. Hide it, because you’re not a man otherwise. Society is wrong.

My husband used to be a therapist and he still has only started opening up more in the past couple of years. We have been together for a while now. It’s that hard for someone who used to be a therapist. Imagine how hard it is for people without those experiences.

And unhealthy behaviours are everywhere. Literally every person has unhealthy behaviours – behaviours which are considered abusive. We are all raised in an inherently abusive society. Is it such a shock? All we can do is try our best to manage our issues and try to help each other and accept that perhaps not being perfect isn’t such a bad thing. It opens the door for understanding.

Language is inherently flawed in that people attribute their own meaning to it. You shouldn’t feel like that. To one person means that your feelings are being denied and dismissed and to the other, I didn’t mean for you to feel that way.

When you are short on time, quality of communication is really important. The difference between a relationship that is struggling and a strong one is the number of positive and negative interactions. At least 5 to 1 is recommended.

I’ve been dealing with post partum depression. Trying to manage everything at once feeling overwhelmed constantly. Living in denial telling myself it’ll get better, hoping that I could change nothing and it would miraculously get easier. That’s not how life works. For things to get easier it helps if you do things to make it easier. So I had to let something go to make my life a bit easier.

It’s unique how anxiety just latches onto something else. It just turned into worrying about the future. I was reading about ppd and it turns out hormones are linked, especially if you’re breastfeeding, stress, lack of sleep and inflammation are also major factors. What is interesting is that a medication for ppd actually works on reducing inflammation to treat it. It makes me wonder about the mechanism of inflammation on depression and anxiety in general.

I had been blaming myself for the anxiety and stuff that I was feeling. It’s nice for it not to be my fault and there are things I can do to help. Reducing stress, exercise, eating healthy, sleeping well, socialising and changing to formula could help too in the long term. It’s good to know that it will make me feel worse during the process though.

*Trigger warning for this post*

Because of the abuse I endured in childhood I was terrified of passing it onto a child. For a long time I would not even entertain the idea of even becoming pregnant and used birth control religiously even when I didn’t have a partner and wasn’t sexually active.

There is additional trauma here because I was sexually assaulted in my early 20s while I wasn’t on birth control. I was too out of it afterwards to get Plan B and waiting to see if I was pregnant because of that was an awful experience.

Anyway, I surrounded myself with pets to block out the biological clock ticking away. I was terrified that I would become my mother. That’s what I was told over and over again. She told me that I was exactly like her. She told me that before she became pregnant that she wasn’t a bad person. Something about having us made her snap and become a bad person. We made her like that. I was afraid that would happen to me for so long. I think part of me still is. It has been hard having a baby because of these fears.

I am afraid that I’m not good enough for him. Afraid of tainting him by being around me. My fear is that one day he might develop an anxiety disorder one day because of being around my anxiety or have difficulty coping with the difficulties in the world. I’m afraid that I’m going to be a terrible mother. I’m doing my best to protect him and prevent this from happening.

It doesn’t help that he has been having difficulty changing from breastfeeding to bottle feeding. He hasn’t taken to that change easily. I just want him to be happy.

It doesn’t help that I’m neurodivergent and have found it difficult to learn the unique ways of babies and non-verbal communication.

I’ve been horribly critical of myself when the truth is that I’ve been doing my best. He is really important to me and perhaps that is part of why I’m being hard on myself. My standards are so high. I might not be the best mother in the world granted. Some take to it more naturally than me. But I make up for what doesn’t come naturally by trying really hard. I try really really hard. I want to be a good mother to him.

My mother was wrong. I’m not like her. I’m not carelessly feeding a 6 month old baby left over Chinese food. I don’t even like using pre-made baby food. That’s only for when we go out if we can’t cook for him or ask for something to be made for him or completely run out of groceries. He gets his food made from scratch. Fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh meat. I didn’t even get fresh fruit until I was doing exams as a teenager and even then only on exam days. We never got fresh vegetables or meat. Ever. Hell, she didn’t even cook for us at all. I remember standing on a stool to use the stove myself when I was 4 or 5 years old to heat up a tin of beans. She told me that she tried once and we didn’t like her cooking.

He’s never going to flinch when someone moves their arm. He’s never going to silently starve because of being too afraid to ask for permission to eat food. He’s never ignored. Not when he’s sad. Not when I’m tired or not feeling well.

When we weren’t being verbally, physically or sexually abused. We were being ignored. Neglected, quite often abandoned. She would go out of the house and leave us alone. Or she would be home sleeping all day. Or drinking and watching her soap operas. I would get yelled at for crying. I learned to cry silently.

Thanks mother, for the anxiety disorder, traumatic memories and the jacked up nervous system that causes constant pain.

Now, don’t get me wrong she did some nice things. On holiday she wasn’t terrible because other people were around. She knew how to hide her cruelty. And rarely she would wake us up in the middle of the night to go get pizza from the grocery store. And she let me have some pets that she would later abandon when she got tired of them being at home. The kindest thing she did was try to have other people take care of us. Luckily, we weren’t harmed by those people. I enjoyed being on the farms of members of our church. I enjoyed practically growing up in a library. Another fun story. She tried to give us away to members of her church. Absolutely wild stuff! Honestly, I could probably not try at all and still manage to be a better mother because all it takes is just not being cruel. It is that simple!

One other good thing was she didn’t bring men home. I was just told that all men cared about was having sex and that’s all that I was good for. Super healthy stuff! Definitely didn’t cause me any problems later on. 😉

At least I got a half assed apology before I cut her off. I’m sorry for whatever I did, I don’t remember what it was.

I get it, she was too young when she had me and abused herself when she was a child. Raped as well. And abandoned by our significantly older father who seemingly had a fetish for knocking people up and legging it. And was severely mentally ill. She was also largely alone with very few friends. Maybe only 1 at a time when she joined the church.

She wasn’t capable. Clearly. I’m entirely surprised that I survived being a baby. I just hit the unlucky genetic lottery of being born to someone who was unable to love. My boy is loved.

I just hope that my mother grows and learns to become a better person and that she doesn’t harm anyone else. That is what forgiveness looks like for me.

Hi Tommy

Thank you 😊 It is definitely a happy thing to have a son. Unexpected and fraught with challenges, but happy nonetheless. You are right about all of the changes that parenting brings.

I think that you said it all with your stories of holding your daughter when you fell and that you moved states for her even when it made your own situation more difficult. As a parent you do things for your children to protect them and it feels like they are more important than ourselves. And they are lemmings, happy to get into everything and anything with no regard for their own safety!

I know I thought well I don’t matter anymore, as long as he is happy that is the most important thing.

I hope that in the long run he may help me to improve my health. I plateaued, because it meant enduring a higher level of pain. He is a very good reason to endure pain.

I’m sorry to hear that you have had chronic back pain since your 40s and a painful injury in your hand. That fall you described was intense. I’m glad that you’ve found ways to manage your pain over the years.

Children are brutal when it comes to bad posture.

Congratulations on your retirement! Do you have any plans for it? It is lucky that your wife is a gardener and grows vegetables. There is nothing better than home grown! You cannot find that kind of quality in a store.

That is very kind of you to say! You are an inspiration to me too! 😊 It’s wonderful to have a male perspective around here. I’m sure that I will learn a lot from you. It will make my husband happy for me to learn more about the male perspective.

I don’t mind hard stuff. I think that I have been through a lot in my life so my scale of what is hard is a bit wonky. 😂

It can be hard sometimes when people don’t want to discuss problems?

I think having a child has helped my husband and I to become more of a team. We are both headstrong and stubborn so our personalities would clash. But we know that we can’t raise a child like that. It has softened us or at least made us a bit more patient. Perhaps both?

If you ever want to talk about anything at all, my door is open. I really enjoy our conversations. You may have been selling yourself short and not giving yourself enough credit earlier. It’s lovely to see this side of you. You made me smile today, so thank you for that! 😊

Love and best wishes to you and your family! ❤️🙏