Things get tough when alone

[mel]

So I am doing well overall. However, things get tough when it's late at night or I'm alone and thinking too much. My sleep over the past 2-3 days has been broken and I think it's contributing as well.

Basically, I start criticizing myself and my abilities to parent DS and I start thinking about everything that I'm doing wrong and it just snowballs from there. I start thinking of ways to be more involved/a better parent and then I start pointing out the stuff I do wrong and start thinking how in the world am I going to be able to be a parent full time. Then I start getting angry at myself for being a single parent. Why didn't I work harder at making the relationship work? Why didn't I fight for my family? Now I'm thinking about the court case and beating myself up for ever letting her adopt him in the first place. I wouldn't be in this position if I had listened to advice others gave me about not letting her adopt him. So now I'm anxious and wondering what the outcome of the case is going to be and wondering how long it's going to take and once again I'm letting the fear of the unknown get to me.

And then I am thinking about how I'm not where I want to be/thought I would be in my life at this point. I'm 31. I thought I would be married with children and growing in my career. Instead I'm a single mom, starting over - I don't even put myself out there. I don't really have but 2 friends, I sit at home and make no attempt to be social. I dropped out of grad school and see no possible way of finishing that degree. DS is an only child and I never planned for him to be and I really want #2 but then I start thinking about how if I'm failing at parenting #1 is it really fair to bring in #2? And my physical appearance? Oh god don't even get me started...my self esteem sucks so I always think I'm not pretty enough/worthy enough of attention from others. My therapist recommended dating and my immediate thought was who would want to date me?

So here it is 2:30 in the morning. DS is sleeping peacefully in his room and I'm up criticizing every aspect of who I am and what I'm doing with my life. Contemplating a glass of wine thinking maybe that will help me relax a little and shut off my mind.

[MauMau]

I just want to tell you that I'm here and the feelings you feel are real. And I'm sorry.

[Deleted]

I'm sorry you were having such a miserable night, mel. Hopefully things are better in the light of day.

[mel]

I'm feeling slightly better today emotionally. Those thoughts from last night are still there but they don't seem so powerful. I talked to my attorney this morning to get an idea of what to expect realistically. She said look for this to drag out about 8 weeks. I feel better knowing that and it's helped relieve some of the stress from simply not knowing what to expect.

I ended up having some wine and not falling asleep until close to 4. So it sucked getting up at 7:30 with DS and I'm thinking that it probably wasn't a good idea. I'm going to start taking melatonin again to see if that can put my sleep back into a regular pattern.