help/advice needed

[sosurreal09]

sooo where to start? i feel like i have a million issues right now.
btw i am still nursing DD (just for info if there is herbal/med advice)

also do not have health insurance and am very low income but apparently too rich for help with health insurance...

first and foremost EVERY month one week before and the one week during AF i am a monster. absolute monster i fly off the handle, i get morbidly depressed to the point i can barely function, im a complete b*tch period. its 2 weeks a month we are talking here and is is way more than pms. i hate the way i act and feel i feel like im going to explode all day long. its ruining my life...
idk what the heck to do about it. hormonal birth control makes me worse, im like that all month...
i tried zoloft...helped with anger but made me more depressed overall and i started compulsively shopping like crazy.

i get stressed...really incredibly stressed over everything. it consumes me.

i get mad really downright angry to the point i *feel* i will become violent but hold it back b/c i was abused as a child and do not want that in my house. i *have* hit DH a few times in our 8 yr relationship and never in front of my DD (1 y/o)...im ashamed of this and disgusted with myself

i feel guilty. im not perfect or even close to it. i try to be a good mom and do whats best yet i do plop the baby in front of the tv at least once a day...and i sometimes feed her stuff i said i never would. then i feel horrible for doing it and beat myself up about it.
my house is a disaster. i used to have an impeccably clean home. now its a constant mess which makes me so much more depressed, angry, and stressed.

i despise my "new" body... have lost 75 lbs but still am way out of shape and my stomach is gross.

i always feel like im just going to fall apart idk what to do about anything anymore. i used to be so strong...i have always pushed my way through the pain and now its a losing battle, i want help. i started getting help and then my insurance got canceled. now im screwed, as always. every time i try to pick up the pieces something always seems to stand in my way. im so sick of it...i feel so hopeless for the first time in my life, and trust me you would think i would have given up a long time ago. im 23 and have been r@ped twice...witnessed my mother commit suicide and she died in my arms, dad abandoned me, was in foster care, on my own at 17, was homeless, was an addict...i been through alot. now my life is SOOOOOOO much better but i feel so depressed. idk why i feel like this, idk why im doing this to myself, to my family. i have no determination anymore.
my daughter IS my greatest blessing and i really do thank God for her every single day. DH is the love of my life. so what is my problem? why do i feel so badly when things are finally in a good place for me? i need help

[RiverTam]

Baby steps. You need to start taking a look at baby steps to make your life and your family's life better. Just a little bit of improvement on a day-to-day basis is going to make a difference. Eventually, it might add up to a lot of difference.

1. Free counseling. You need to look around for what free counseling resources there are in your community. In my community, we have several universities that offer free or low cost counseling in their graduate student clinics. We also have community groups that offer support groups for survivors of violence. We also have a clinic that offers free psychologist level counseling for survivors of violence. That's you. Start looking around.

2. Anger/depression management. Daily hard exercise will help take the edge off of this. You need to start running or some other hard cardio to get the edge off. If the only way to do that is to run when the kids are asleep, you should run at 5:00 am or 11 pm, while your husband watches the kids. If you can't currently run, google "Couch to 5k" and start. You should be working up to 30-60 minutes of hard cardio a day. It will help with your body issues, too. You'll lose some fat and put on some muscle, and you'll feel more in control of your body.

3. (I) was an addict Because you were an addict, you can find some support in AA or NA. It's free. It's the best free help you're going to get. There's a lot of meetings around of varying qualities, but if you look, you can find a good one. You need to find one that feels like home to you and that has people who have their sh** together. They can give you advice on how to get your sh** together.

I spent a lot of time in AA, and it really taught me a lot about managing my other mental health problems. (I've had depression and I'm a physical abuse survivor, rape survivor, and a child sexual abuse survivor, and I have an addicted mother.)

Quitting was easy. Learning to live was hard.

The book "Zen of Recovery" has a lot of good help for practicing the 12 steps in a way that will help with some of the anger issues you are dealing with.

You might want to take a look at the literature for Women in Sobriety. It may be more on target for a lot of the issues that you're dealing with. If you have a WFS group, you might want to try getting support there.

4. i feel guilty. im not perfect or even close to it. i try to be a good mom and do whats best yet i do plop the baby in front of the tv at least once a day...and i sometimes feed her stuff i said i never would. then i feel horrible for doing it and beat myself up about it.
my house is a disaster. i used to have an impeccably clean home. now its a constant mess which makes me so much more depressed, angry, and stressed.

There's no such thing as a perfect mother. You don't need to be perfect. You just need to be good enough.

Good luck.

[sosurreal09]

TY for the help and finally a response from someone lol i was beggining to think i was hopeless MDC couldnt even give me any tips

[RiverTam]

Nah. You're not hopeless. Not even close.

You might want to ask all this again on "Personal Growth." It gets more traffic.

You'll need a thick skin, though. It can be a little pointy over there.

[Wilbur]

I would look into nutritional deficiencies/food reactions, especially if you were an addict, and then had babies... that can lead up to a net nutrient loss that will cause such issues as extreme PMS, rage, inability to handle stress (taxed adrenals, low omega 3s or certain amino acids...) That's not to say that the first response about free counselling resources isn't also relevant. But there is probably a biochemical cause of these problems resulting from lack of (or inabsorbtion of) certain nutrients. It might take some detective work to figure out (and it's possible even if your diet is already good), but I can say from experience that once you figure it out, it's like night and day.
One book that has a lot of information about this is "The Mood Cure", I don't remember the name of the author. You could probably get it on interlibrary loan from your library... it's really, really worth reading.
Hang in there- remember to breathe!

[Naturopath Mom]

You sound completely overwhelmed! Reading all of your post was hard to see all that you are going through

Some good advice already. I work with low-income families and I know there are many others that do. Ask people if they do a sliding scale. There are a lot of natural therapies that work really well, you might want to check out Cherry Plum flower essence, to help deal with parts of you feeling out of control. There is also Impatiens flower essence for impatience and reacting too quickly. Holly flower essence is for anger. These are just a few I thought might help you off the bat, maybe even Rescue Remedy in very bad times.

Other herbs would be valerian, passionflower, scullcap, kava kava. I don't think just supplements and diet changes will stop these drastic behaviors, or atleast anytime in the very near future (but I could be wrong!!). I would do flower essences immediately to get a handle on things, then go from there.

check out www.flowersociety.org for some more info