u/happylildaisy

My sister and I are both no contact with our mom. I’ve been no contact for about 4 years, however she’s only been no contact since October. Our mom keeps leaving random shit on my sister’s lawn. There’s a bunch of other context and over 30 years of abuse that lead to this point. My sister has two small kids, and at this point just wants to be left alone. She tried to have a restraining order served and the problem is, our mom just moved recently so we don’t have her current address. My sister has her license plate, but it’s been 10 days and they haven’t been able to find her to serve her.
She doesn’t have a job, we don’t really have other family members that we want to contact to try to get it from her, I live out of state so there’s only so much I can do to help. I’ve tried google searches etc, a lot of sites have incredibly outdated information, or require payment.
Is there anything we can do to find her new address so she can be served?

Hello everyone! I wanted to see if anyone else has suggestions on how to make day to day easier with postpartum depression, but I have a wild ride of circumstances that make it harder. It’s going to be a long one, so thank you in advance to whoever takes the time to read through it all. It’s also kind of nice to vent it all, so it’s a bit lengthy just based off that.

I already suffered with depression and anxiety (ADHD, CPTSD & BPD to be totally honest lmao I’m just full of acronyms) and I am medicated for those things. I am a stay at home mom, but my Velcro baby barely tolerates phone calls nonetheless a therapy session. I was regularly seeing a therapist before becoming pregnant, and we kind of tapered out when I was in a good place. She said she’s always going to be there if I want to start sessions again, but my partner got a promotion where his hours are genuinely unpredictable, a lot relies on him, and he typically has to be ready at the drop of a dime to go in to fix problems (production supervisor at a small/medium food production business, plus the production manager just quit and the plant manager has been out on bereavement) so it’d be hard to set regular scheduled therapy appointments.

We don’t particularly have a “village”. My partner’s family is supportive of course, but his mom lives an hour away and works overnights so it’s hard to coordinate with her. He has other aunts and uncles, but he was never toooo too close with them. We have a few friends, my only two friends in the state however were a couple that broke up and I’m too anxious to “pick a side” at the moment. Most of my partners friends are busy with their own lives and kids. I also haven’t spent any time with any of them outside of our baby shower. My family lives out of state. I’ve been no contact with my mom for years, low contact with my stepdad, and I’d be so much more in contact with my dad but he had a massive stroke a few years back causing him to be paralyzed on his right side and he can only speak so much. That in itself makes me spiral so often. He would have thrived off being a super present grandpa, but now all he can do is receive pictures of my baby and texts to his iPad - and typically can only respond with emojis. He’s in a nursing home out of state as well. I also don’t have a car currently, my car died and now being a SAHM I have no income to buy a new one. I do have my sister and her family, but she adopted both of her kids, at 2 and at 3. So, she is helpfully and supportive the best she can but it’s hard for her to fully understand.

We currently live in a one bedroom apartment, desperately searching for a house but it’s been so difficult. Our building is a three unit house - a three bedroom that takes up all of the upstairs, our one bedroom is front facing section of the house, and there’s a two bedroom behind us taking up the remaining 2/3 of the first floor. We don’t have much for extra space in our apartment, but we make it work. We don’t have access to the backyard, there’s barely a front yard, and there’s a parking lot for like ~6-8 cars. I wish so badly we could get outside, go for walks, etc. However, we live in not the nicest area. We live across from a bank and a church, so overall I’m not concerned about our specific location but there’s a lot of foot traffic that makes me uneasy. This makes it uncomfortable to play outside or take walks.

And finally like I mentioned, my baby is suuuuuch a Velcro baby. It is healing in some way since my mother was never truly a mother to me (long story short, very much a narcissistic sociopathic person who didn’t want to be a mom in the first place) so giving her the love I was missing is such a beautiful experience. But because of this, I get hooted and hollered at if I don’t pay attention to her for too long, and she is still contact naps for the most part. So, it’s rather difficult to do anything for myself in the day.

I can’t help but feel like I’m failing my baby from being so low and depressed. I’m behind on feeding real foods. I don’t read to her as much as I’d want to. It’s hard to play with her outside of sitting in the playpen with her. I just don’t have the mental energy to do all the things I want to do for her. I want to give her the world, and right now it feels like I’m barely giving her a neighborhood.

My partner always asks how he can help, but I have no idea what to even tell him. I’ve tried some self care stuff, but I haven’t been able to keep up any routines. I’m also the heaviest I’ve ever been, I gained somewhere between 40-60 pounds during the pregnancy and I haven’t been able to work it off for all the same reasons. Overall, I just don’t feel good, inside or out.

All of this to say - what are your postpartum depression remedies? Big or small, I just wanted to inquire about real life experience/ideas. The complications considered, but I’ll take anything at this point. I would also like to say, I’m not trying to be a negative Nancy. I just wanted to express the issues that make it harder to do some of the typical things.

Thank you in advance and thank you again if you read this far!!