Parenting a baby is intense.

You didn’t know how difficult it would be to rest, even when your little one is sleeping. You lie awake for hours, chasing sleep, but those anxious thoughts keep popping into your head making your body feel so tense and like nothing is safe. Your partner tells you that you don’t need to keep checking to see if the baby is still breathing, but they don’t know what it feels like to be so worried all the time.

You love your baby. You don’t love being a mother.

It’s been so overwhelming, this mothering role that just took over your entire life. Instead of looking happy and glowy like those women on Instagram, you look in the mirror and see an exhausted and unhappy version of you. Sometimes you wish you could walk away from all of this, or go backwards in time. You miss your job, your old life. You love your baby so much, but it feels like you’re drowning.

Sometimes the guilt is too much.

What if you weren’t meant to be a mother? This thought circles in your head often. It’s just not what you envisioned. You thought you’d have more help, that your mom would come over more, that your sisters would call you every day, and that your friends would check in on you. You feel alone, and lost. Don’t they know you’ve never done this and you need help?