16: “I started to have terrible intrusive thoughts about hurting my kids"
Release Date: 12/10/2019
44: “The whole family is walking on eggshells.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
“I would like to hear your thoughts on how parents can speak about the elephant in the room.
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43: “My daughter is overweight.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
My 13 year-old daughter is overweight and I don't know how to handle this.
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42: “It's the world that's crazy -- not us parents.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
“Hi Lisa and Stella. This is not so much of a question, but a warm and heartfelt THANK YOU. I think (hope!) that we're slowly getting to the end of some really tough years.
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41: “I don’t trust her decision making.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
A year ago when our ADD student daughter then aged 21 revealed to my husband and myself that she was on a waiting list to have cross sex treatment, our 16-year-old son took the role of her trans ally.
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40: “I know we should love the child we have and not wish them to be different but I can't help having these thoughts.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
“I worry that my boy is not very clever and I am secretly embarrassed and ashamed about this. My family is over-invested in achievement and especially educational achievement and the cousins' fabulous exam results are continuously talked about within our family WhatsApp. It is very distressing to feel ashamed of my boy who is both kind and funny. I'm not sure how I should navigate this - should I just declare that he isn't 'academic' and thereby lead the rest of the family to make insinuations that he is a bit stupid? Although I don't equate intelligence with...
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39: “My work has "juice" for me now while parenting just feels hard and draining.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
“I'm feeling incredibly disconnected from my kids right now.
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38: “My sense of disappointment feels selfish.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
“I'm a single mom and I've always worked full time while raising my kids. My youngest is graduating from high school this year and I've been anticipating the empty next stage of life with mixed emotions. I've known it will be tremendously sad, but at the same time, I'm looking forward to having more time to myself for the first time in over two decades. Now with the coronavirus, it looks possible that he won't be leaving for college in the fall and I am feeling very disappointed about this. I know he is disappointed as well. My sense of disappointment feels selfish. It's...
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37: “Now, with the Coronavirus, she won't have any of the ceremonial endings that seem important to her.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
“My 12 year-old is leaving school this year and now, with the Coronavirus, she won't have any of the ceremonial endings that seem to important to her.
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36: “We never told my parents.”
Secrets of the Motherworld
“I come from a close family. My parents have been involved in all aspects of my children’s lives and are extremely special to them. I have one adult sibling who has special needs and is cared for exclusively by my aging parents. At the time of his birth, it was common for children with special needs to be placed in an institution rather than raised at home."
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35: “Should I ask him if he’s still transgender?”
Secrets of the Motherworld
A year ago, my 16 year old son told us he is transgender. I was completely shocked, as he is not particularly feminine.
info_outlineHere’s the story we discuss this week:
This is part of the story when I could have used help.
I was under a tremendous amount of stress. My marriage was in major trouble, my mother was having mental health issues and leaning heavily on me, we were having massive financial problems, and I had just given birth to my 2nd child, who has special needs. She was having feeding difficulty and had colic which made her cry for hours a day.
I started to have terrible intrusive thoughts about hurting my kids. One day, I basically broke down. I was so terrified that I would follow through on the intrusive thoughts that I went to the hospital.
The hospital admitted me to the psych ward, involuntarily. Because it was a holiday weekend, what should have been a 24 hour hold turned into 6 days in the hospital because no psychiatrist was available to see me. When I was finally able to see a psychiatrist, he spoke such heavily accented english that I couldn’t understand his question. He ended up labeling me homicidal even though the worst thing I said that I feared I’d do was spank my toddler.
I really needed someone to tell me that intrusive thoughts were part of postpartum depression and anxiety and that having the thoughts didn’t mean I would follow through with them.
I wish there was a way to go in and amend my medical record to remove the “homicidal” diagnosis. I also wish I had had more support. My husband didn’t feel that he could take time off work to help me recover after my 2nd c-section, I had no family near that could be trusted, and didn’t feel comfortable asking my new friends, most of whom were childless, for support.”
Lisa and Stella mention Brooke Shields’ book ‘Down Came the Rain: My journey through postpartum depression’ https://books.google.ie/books/about/Down_Came_the_Rain.html?id=J23wnk7XWR4C&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y