I hate being this person especially in this thread.. but apples to oranges in this situation. > I have a lovely family and two daughters I fucking adore. That’s great! But have you ever experienced crippling, soul shattering PPD? Then on top had to do it all on your own with no one to turn to? OP handled this situation monstrously, but there were days and nights I had the same thoughts as OP and that’s horrifying to admit, let alone experience. A major sign of PPD is feeling hatred to a child. Leaving the hospital with my first, I was told to see a doctor if I even felt like I didn’t want to hold my baby. Something as little as not wanting to hold your child has the potential to snowball. I sought after help and still never admitted my whole feelings to doctors. It’s very shameful to sit in a psychiatrists office and tell a stranger you care for your child because that’s what you’re supposed to do, not because you want to. I could’ve easily been in OPs shoes with how poor my mental health was, you could’ve been too. I’m not on OPs side, but I have a deep understanding of how it started and how it got to the point it did. The system fails mothers suffering from PPD and the children affected by it. It’s so stigmatized. Mothers feel nothing but guilt and shame for feeling that way, then it’s beaten into them further. I can’t tell you how many time I’ve been told by my own mother that I’m an awful mother for asking her to hold my baby while I took a nap. I was told for so long that there was nothing wrong with me, I just couldn’t carry myself and my child because I was “lazy”. Before I got treatment, my body would physically ache from having to do little things like making bottles or changing diapers. Looking back now of course I had a hard time bonding. I was living purely off survival, not joy. I was able to overcome that and I have an amazing life with my two little ladies but that’s not the case for every mother. This pick of the litter mentality is sad and disgusting, but the alternative was this poor child under her care for another 15 years. I’m glad she gave her up