I think you meant "Lady Succubus"

Holy Jesus, and thank god I'm not married to you. Granted, I was going to cut you some slack, with a newborn and an autistic kid at home, but in the name of all that is holy, STFU.

Seriously, let's review. You spent 6 to 8 years in college, making your husband support you while you pursued your higher education, then, rather than using your degree to pay off some bills and get ahead financially, you decided to throw all of his sacrifices away to squirt out a couple of kids.

True, that could have been a joint decision between you and the poor haggard sap that made that unfortunate choice to be your mate, but instead of being realistic about it, you have to make your own baby food, you have to use cloth diapers, everything has to be so perfect, otherwise, god forbid, you could turn into one of those mangy cur of a mother who uncaringly feeds their kids store bought pap while smoking cigarette, swillng their cheap gin, before passing out to the sound of their bawling brats! No thank you very much.

But wait, your husband, suggested getting a maid! Yeah right, some uneducated immigrant who will re-arriange your precious choctski, carelessly leave germs on every surface, claiming they're clean, as they steal you blind.

Not that he cares, anyway, always going off to work, getting out of the house, working long hours away from you and your precious offspring. Probably wants the maid so he can get some action on the side.

Seriously, babes, even Martha Stewart would say "What a fuckin bitch."

KA

OK, even under the best of circumstances it would be profoundly stupid to shell out for grad school if you plan on having babies right after you graduate. The BEST-case scenario is that you go to work as soon as the kids are ready for preschool. But even then, your degree's out of date and you need to take more classes or lose out on jobs to new grads.

You can say, "She had to change her plans because the older kid turned out disabled," but c'mon. Someone who thinks any mother who doesn't grind her own baby food is some kind of borderline child abuser, and won't even trust an outsider to clean up after the kids, was NEVER going to put the kids in daycare or preschool. Heck, she's probably planning on homeschooling the kids when they turn 5. How could she trust the teacher to dote on them the way she does?

Well... give her the benefit of the doubt... the condom totally coulda broke the first time, and when the kid turned out to be autistic, she figured, "Fuck, if I'm gonna need to raise one kid I might as well pop out another one..."

kids. She appears to have gone to graduate school on a whim, without considering what to do with the degree, then decided to have kids on a whim, without considering the effort it involves, and now that she has kids, has an idealized and unrealistic view of how to raise them.

the "not understanding how a mother can cut corners" comment says it all about her.

KA

Ah, I found the Bitch Brigade.

Carry on, ladies. I hope you feel better about yourselves after having stomped on a woman suffering from a serious mental illness.

Kick any puppies today?

Drown any kittens?

I think the woman probably has flustered mother syndrome.

You know...Those women who actually enjoy acting like they have 10 million tasks to complete, no time for a shower, cooking dinner while balancing a baby on one hip, talking on the phone, paying her bills, and mopping the floor all at the same time. All because she has 2 kids? Not 5, or 4, or even 3. 2 kids.

She loves it. It gets her mega attention.

By the way...Making your own baby food doesn't take that long, and cloth diapers are actually worse for a baby in terms of skin breakdown. But whatever.

Krystyna,

I feel no better or worse for having spoken my mind. This woman's troubles started long before PPD was on the table, and if this particular self-manufactured, self-focused crisis wasn't getting her down, another one would. I've known people like this all my life. PPD may be adding to her troubles, but it's not the root cause of them.

I was feeling like the most inconsiderate person ever . . . until I found this thread! ;)

After reading her letter my first thought is "what a drama queen". Then I jump onto the Fray and everyone is soooo sympathetic and caring.

Really, she probably is dealing with slight depression from having to subject herself to staying home. But I think that most of the drama and chaos is by her own overachieving desires.

My thought on how that happened is that their autistic son was born and the decision was made that he needed someone home with him. So even though she got her masters she was chosen because her career wasn't established.

So she figures that she needs to channel this feeling of "settling" into being the BESTEST momma ever! Because if she can't be a high ranking, intelligent, contributing member of society she is going to WOW those who are, by showing that she can do it all and do it better than they could if they stayed home. (Disclaimer: this is my take on her mindset)

What really bothered me is that I understood from her letter that she is stressed and overwhelmed but the end part where she talks about going away but it would kill her to do so, really struck me as an overdramatic "Poor me, you need to see how bad I think it is".

The fact that the husband is so understanding and suggesting solutions that she systematically turns down, makes me think that her mindset is not as bad as some of those here are making it out to be. She is choosing to take only three showers a week to puree foods when there are some very high quality alternatives out there. But I think she sees that as taking the easy route when she is already "just watching the kids".

ladykrystyna:

Ah, I found the Bitch Brigade.

Carry on, ladies. I hope you feel better about yourselves after having stomped on a woman suffering from a serious mental illness.

Kick any puppies today?

Drown any kittens?

You are soooo quick to diagnose her with a mental illness. Sounds to me her feelings are very typical of a stay at home mom with two kids.

Danam,

I'm surprised at you.

Yes, the stress may be of her own making. But if she were your close friend would you have the same attitude. How would you feel if you discovered she killed herself or her children or both?

And, no, that's not "hysterics".

Have either of you actually suffered from depression of any kind? I have. It is a desperate situation regardless of how you got there. I had PPD both times I had my children. Luckily the second time I knew better and got my anti-depressants right away and it wasn't as bad as the first time when my skin crawled every time I held my daughter. Nice feeling, right? Ever have that feeling?

My other bout of depression was partially self-made I suppose, but I appreciated the compassion I got and the help I got to overcome it, rather than the attitude of "Get over it, it's you're own damn fault anyway."

Yes, she's a SAHM, but to say that those women don't actually get depression and their just whining, is just wrong. Yeah, not all of them. But many do.

The compassionate thing to do is to offer help, to encourage them to get professional help, whether it be pills or therapy or both.

Not to berate them and blame them.

I'm just saying "Where's the compassion?" No, it's snickering and being judgmental.

Women really are their own worst enemy. We're mean and hard on ourselves and we're just as mean and hard on other women.

I'm so ashamed of myself . . . :(

No really, I have nothing else to go off of than the letter. And her letter rubbed me the wrong way. I'm pulling a Messy and crying bullshit. Either she wrote the letter for kicks, is overexagerating to get pity (because the people around her know the truth - that she does it to herself - and they won't give her pity) or she really is certifiable enough to go to Prudie when she knows that she needs real help.

She has helpful SANE people trying to help her at home and she writes to Prudie? I mean snarky mostly unrelated movie references are what I'm looking for when I am so stressed that I want to leave my family.

I know that some of the Fraysters are trying to help on the outside chance that it's real and she really has no clue that she's cookoo and needs professional help. Because that's all that's really been said and that's all that an (completely) outside party can say.

I'm not buying it and that's why I feel okay with my decision to bash. I'm truly sorry that my ranting offended you personally Lady Krystyna.

Danam, I am surprised by your response. Not offended, darling. No, not offended. :) I don't offend that easily.

Danam, if I remember correctly, you have a son that is special needs, right? I don't remember if you ever said that you were a SAHM or worked.

I remember you saying that your son was quite a handful. The fact that you haven't become depressed, even mildly, is a testament to your strong character which you obtained I suppose, by the luck of the draw and genetics or maybe because you taught yourself or someone else did.

As I said, some people naturally cope well in stressful situations. Many others need to be taught and some are harder to teach than others. I was always high strung. Not on the high high end, but nonethless, as my good friend once told me "You are not a relaxed person. Your husband is not a relaxed person. So what makes you think your children are going to be relaxed."

I remember all the rational advice I got when I had trouble with my older daughter feeding as an infant and then napping. I remember, in retrospect, how troubled I really was because it was all rational and would have all worked if I did it. But I was anxious, paranoid and depressed. Nothing rational meant anything to me.

Sure, in most everyday situations I can handle myself. I don't cry at the drop of a hat if my boss criticizes me or anything.

But when your hormones do a flip flop AND you're already prone to be OCD or Type A or high strung or whatever, this EXACERBATES the problem.

To someone who is rational, what I would say, or what this LW says, does sound overexaggerated and irrational and ridiculous. But it's not in her head (nor was it in mine).

That's why it's a MENTAL ILLNESS. Your brain is not working correctly and it needs to get corrected, either with medication or therapy or both.

The fact that you can't understand it should make you feel lucky that you've never been there. I have and I have sympathy for her.

So while I'll agree that she may already be a martyr kind of person, OCD, Type A whatever, that's not the point of the letter. The point is she's gotten herself in a serious situation that could lead to her harming herself or her children or both.

I remember wanting to run away. It was such a strong feeling. I was working at the time, and this was my last bout of depression (2005-2006). One day, I left work during my lunch hour, got in the car and drove. And drove. And cried. A lot. It was very hard for me to turn around and go back.

And, oh boy, did I want to drink myself into a stupor. The only thing that stopped me was because my parents were around helping me with my kids. If I didn't have them there and I was alone with just the kids, I probably would have. And mind you, there is no alcoholism in my family and I've never been an alcoholic.

It's all part of the DESPAIR you feel when you are depressed.

That is where I'm coming from.

If the LW had not written those things and just wrote about how perfect she wanted everything to be and nobody understands how I want it to be perfect, yada, blah, etc., then yeah, I would call her a perfectionist bitch and to get over herself.

But she didn't just say that. She expressed other things that showed, even to one psychologist who posted somewhere on one of the threads, she had a serious mental health problem and needs help.

That's all my point is.

Granted, I almost never sympathize with the LWs. I see plenty of people who do over what is, IMHO, the dumbest things, like the 20 year old that felt jealous of kids that didn't live in the state anymore because they were made from his mother's eggs. Kids he had only seen a handful of times and he offered no evidence that his mother ever treated them as other than "family friends".

Now, that's ridiculous!

This is not. This is a woman who needs help.

Cheers.

can be solved by a maid. I think she has what Satre might call an "existential crisis" or what Robert Johnson might call the "walking blues." It's really the modern condition of something's wrong but you just don't know what to call it. I guess sometimes they medicate for it nowadays. There's therapy too.

She could start by getting out of the house more.

My son is not special needs, a handful, but aren't they all? I have two very headstrong children (and I have NO IDEA where they get that from ;) ) I have never been a SAHM but I have been a single mother for my son's first five years.

I've had my crazy down moments during my full time college/work/single mom phase. It particularly freaked me out when I would imagine my car crashing or going over a bridge whenever I was driving home from college. My mind would just wander and I could just picture the scene in my head over and over.

I am one of the lucky ones that I just made a conscious change to my expectations of myself and lowered my stress that way. I don't for one moment think that I was in the same category of PPD or severe depression but I knew something was wrong and asked those around me for help coping.

When your skin crawled when holding your daughter you knew something wasn't right and went to your mother for advice and then your doctor. That's what real people do in that situation. Not express every one of the major symptoms in a letter to a hack "advice" columnist.

See she doesn't even have to ask for help to those around her, they already trying to help her but she's denying it. Why? Maybe because she's making it a bigger deal than it really is for the Prudie pity factor.

I don't deny that depression is a real situation that needs more than my method for coping but I'm not buying HER story. No, actually I'm just not buying the last part of her letter "leave it to someone who can do better" which is the part that everyone latched onto and said that she is ready to drown her kids.

I wholeheartedly believe that she is overwhelmed and needs time away to destress but do I believe her wanting to leave it all is anything more than for dramas sake? Hell no. I think that she needs to go see a doctor, get some meds and be realistic about what she is expected (by herself also) to do. Do I think that she is in suicidal/homicidal mode? HELL NO.

if she is not totally and completely involved in every aspect of her childrens care and rearing, they just might turn out to be drug adicts, or worse, normal.

KA

my feeling, she was a wack job long before the kids showed up.