Learning to be a mother

I don't really know if any woman is born a natural mother, maybe there are those ladies out there that it just comes naturally too, that's what they always wanted, to be is a mom. All I can say it hasn't for me.

I am still learning to be a mother and a lot of the time I really suck at it.

I see a shrink if you didn't know, I have a a few (a lot) of issues and I see a psychiatrist and take meds and the whole lot, I am the poster child for mental illness. Yesterday I went to him for my usual catch up and meds adjustment and he asked why am I still so lost when I am so confident in so many areas, what holds me back from being the full me, what causes so much anxiety.

I said, I am not a good mother.

I think about it continuously, it consumes my mind, my thoughts and it causes extreme anxiety until I feel ill to my stomach.

I know where my faults lay, I am not very affectionate or compassionate, I am impatient and easily tempered and can often be irritable. I lack energy and struggle with fatigue so I lack the care to continually give Aiden the attention he craves.

To add to matters, Aiden at the moment is very attached and doesn't want to do anything alone, he won't even sleep in his own bed anymore. I have tried building structure and routine and then I threw it out the window because it was just to hard to continually fight him on it, if he wants to eat bovril toast in front of the tv for supper, so be it.

But it eats me up inside that I am getting it wrong, that I snap to quickly, I discipline to harshly, that I don't do enough with him, that I don't make proper suppers and eat around the dinner table. Everything I didn't want to be or all the things I wanted to raise my child having I seem to do the opposite.

My doctor said that because I can even admit that, I am there by a good mother, I told him I pay him to say things like that and he threw back actually you  pay me to be honest. Which he is.

He has given me tips for dealing with Aiden and what a kid his age needs and how to deal with his current co-dependancy and told me learning to be a mother is a constant thing and will never really end but when I watch other moms they seem to have gotten it right, right from the start.