Out of My Head

Sometimes I could just hate myself. See, I heard that becoming parents can be a challenge for a married couple, but...you know...the stuff I heard was mostly generic: "Oh, you'll want to be with the baby all the time, and your husband will feel like he's getting less attention, but it's all good," etc., etc. What I didn't hear was that these postpartum hormones would drive me batsh*t insane.

Seriously, I could yank my hair out.

Now I've done some tough things in my short life: Army bootcamp, college, two out-of-state moves within two years, wrote a novel. But all that pales in comparison to what I'm currently experiencing.

Yes, my poor husband feels neglected. It's no wonder. The baby absorbs nearly all of my time and energy. During the day, he must be fed every three hours. I spend at least a half hour nursing him, then another 15 minutes giving him a bottle. Then comes a diaper change. Then comes whatever else needs to be done: laundry, dinner, a hot bath so I can have some time to myself without every living creature in the house vying for my attention. Even after a good day, I usually crawl into bed feeling raw and jittery.

But the worst of it is in my head. I don't want to get too close to my husband most of the time because I'm irrationally convinced that all he wants is sex...like he's just waiting to pounce the moment my body is completely healed. To be honest, I've never felt more sexless in my life. As much as I desire physical intimacy, the pain of childbirth is still fresh in my memory and I don't know how to shake it off. On top of that, I've become more critical--even downright suspicious--of my husband. I have thoughts like, How could he NOT notice that the absorbent pad was missing from the cloth diaper when he put it on the baby? and Why is he making a face when all I asked him to do is bring me a glass of water? At times I have felt cold and angry toward him for no clear reason at all. It's terrible and makes me feel guilty. At the same time, I also feel stingy and frustrated. Why should I give him pleasure when I cannot have any for myself? How is that fair?

And what's worse is how the baby makes me feel. He's all I can think about sometimes. I have to fight the urge to check his breathing in the middle of the night. I walk around fearing the hell that would descend upon my life if I lost him somehow. At the same time, imagining the future conjures up scenes of the constant messes that I will have to clean in the course of raising him.

But that's not all, folks. In her desperate bid for attention, my cat Ling has taken to randomly licking me and the living room walls! I can only pray the paint isn't toxic.

I may need therapy...again.