Becoming a parent multiplied my anxiety by 100000

[Before I explain, I'd like to say both of my kids are incredibly happy and healthy. For all I'm going through, it doesn't get shown to them during the hours they are awake. I'm fighting a silent, internal battle.]

BASICALLY, I recently realized something about myself that I never pieced together. And that's the REAL HONEST reason why I became a foster parent and then an adoptive mom. I've been lying to myself.

At first, I just wanted to be a mom so badly. I love children and I'm SO good at caring for them, nurturing them and teaching them. I was a full-time nanny throughout college and have been a teacher for 8 years, foster parent for 5, adoptive parent for 3. But I'd be lying if I became a mom the way I did ONLY because I enjoy children.

The truth is that I hate myself so much that I can't bring myself to have a biological baby. I don't want to burden another living person with my DNA. I'm terrified I will create a person who thinks and feels like I do. And it's complete torture to be stuck with my brain. I feel like I am worthless and so instead of recklessly playing genetic russian roulette, I found a lot of comfort helping kids in need who were already born. I love my sons intensely, and I also find great comfort knowing that they don't have my DNA. I can NURTURE them to the best of my ability, for that I am responsible.... but the nature part, the mental illness in my family tree, won't be given to them from me.

This is where my anxiety steps in. I am utterly wrecked every single day over the tiniest parenting decisions I have to make. I spiral and worry about everything that I do or don't do. It could be as small as not preparing a vegetable with dinner (mom shame is an intense feeling) to honestly looking in the mirror and asking myself if I deserve to be their mother. I am a single, 30 year old white women to 2 African American males. Many people in society believe I cannot give my boys what they need. That opinion destroys me. I've read books, I've attended classes, I've asked the community and listened to understand. I'm trying to do what I'm supposed to for my boys. I'm trying to be the most educated that I can be given that I am not black, I am white. It is my TOP priority to learn and listen and understand as best as possible for my sons. If I am ever wrong, if I ever make a mistake, and someone teaches me the right way to do it, I ALWAYS change humbly. I'm talking about direct things like skin care and hair care and advocating in the school system and public safety and representation. I'm trying so hard to be a mom my kids deserve. But my anxiety is an evil voice. It treats me so badly and it assures me I am not good enough. That I am failing. And that my boys are not by boys by society's standard. I always feel like a failture, I always feel embarrassed, anxious and scared. I'm also female. So in addition, many people believe and have told me, that I cannot raise boys into men. I try to find many ways to place male role models in their lives. But i cannot go out and BUY a husband. I am doing what I can within my means. I'm reading and learning and trying to compsenate.

What I have here is an incredibly emotional and sensitive situation that is compounded by a complex, intellectual and anxious brain that NEVER SHUTS UP. My anxiety is fueling the fire that is my self-hate and self-doubt. If I could manage my anxiety better, maybe I could find ways to fix my insecurities and make parenting decisions with grief.

I'm at the point where I will do anything to have silence from my racing thoughts, so that I can just enjoy my children. They are so happy, so healthy, so funny, so joyful and so smart. But they will grow older and wiser and they will figure me out.... that I'm not superman, just a flawed person with a sick brain.

I need the help now while they are so young. Any parents out there (single or not) who's anxiety is SO intense because they became parents? I can pinpoint the start of my anxiety to the day my medically-needy infant came home from the NICU. He's 2 now and besides severe asthma, he's perfectly and wonderfully healthy. But I'm still forever changed to my core from the fear and adrenaline I lived on. I didn't sleep for 6 months so I could watch his oxygen tubes at night. Let alone, there was a court process I was involved in to complete his adoption. That is incredibly emotional and while it is happy, it is still a wound and trauma anytime an adoption separates a birth family.

I can't tell ya how troubled my guilt is. I beat myself up and I am my worst enemy. I am also an empath who takes on the pain of the whole world. And I do not want my sons to learn to think the way I do. My goal in life is to raise them into HEALTHIER and HAPPIER people than me.

Parents out there: you are amazing and you're doing a great job. I hope in this very complicated explaination it was clear how much I love my children and love being a mother. My issues are my brain and my anxiety, not them. They are miracles!!

xoxo Troubled single mom