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What to do when you feel like giving up? My kids use to keep this thought just that a thought now it's starting to feel like they deserve someone better

You don't give up. Although it may seem like the toughest task in the world at times, you need to keep moving forward, for your children. No one is perfect, but we all desperately try/want to be. This leads to us simply feeling inadequate. This is only a feeling. It is not reality. You are more than enough for your children as long as you truly do your very best for them. Do through each day, one day at a time, and give it your all. Be the best parent you can be. Be the best person you can be. Go to sleep knowing that you gave 100% and if you begin feeling as though your kids, or anyone for that matter, deserve better than you, just remember that you did your best. And anyone who does their very best is more than enough. Keep pushing. You can do this. If you still struggle, it's always a good idea to go to some sort of counseling or therapy.

Why are you feeling like this, DEBBIEA? Care to take advantage of your total anonymity by going into greater background and detail?

Listen, since you don't look like you intend on replying any time soon, look at the actions (actions can't lie): You've come onto a public forum to tell thousands of total strangers (posters and lurkers) basically how pants you are as a mother and to ask how to AVOID abandoning them. Inadequate aka uncaring, selfish mothers don't do that. Over-conscientious, over-anxious, over-caring ones DO! They're the ones who beat themselves up like you're doing. Plus, just as only the sane dare question their sanity, never the IN-sane, you're questioning your worth as a mother. You're just having a giant wobble under what must be very trying conditions. KNOW that you are. Because - little considered fact - you can become twice as depressed by feeling depressed about being depressed. If, however, you're AWARE that what you're experiencing is just a natural, very laudible in fact, reaction (one that ALL good mothers experience at some point or other in their lives), then that strips it of a considerable amount of weight, enough for you to pull yourself free of it. Kids deserve their MOTHER. There IS no-one better, out of the entire universe; it's impossible by the laws of Nature (save for when she gets switched from their no. 1 survival aid to their no. 1 threat to survival, but even then they just need a wee separation and/or support). So if your stress and misery (and your wanting a Pause button that doesn't exist) is starting to compete with even your motherly instincts to "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" for their sakes until the giant rollercoaster-ride dip you're caught in begins the next inevitable peak (itself likely just as giant), then your brain needs whatever normally self-manufactured chemical it's now short on to be 'put in' from the outside, meaning, you need to get some "good sh*t" from your legal dealer - your GP - just until your brain's own production line regains optimum efficiency and output again. There's no shame in it. You wouldn't feel ashamed if you had to take immunue-boosting drugs, would you. It's no more complicated than that. You have in your head a chemicals factory. One key worker has been on sick-leave for too long, meaning performance and output targets overall are down. You simply need to hire a Temp (in the form of pills, PLUS, IDEALLY, counselling). Berbom. Just FEELS more serious and catastrophic than that. What is it they say? Motherhood, the guilt that keeps on giving. You also need to bear in mind this bona fide analogy: when you're running a long-distance race, the point where you feel most like giving up, through being too knackered and desperate, is the WHAT NOW? The penultimate lap. It gets worse right before it gets better. Just keep swiii-minng, just keep swii-minng.... You could always ask for help from Social Services, either directly or via your GP? Remember, despite the past, repeat, PAST bad press (from bad recruiting of a few bad eggs or untoward over-work), these are the types of vocational people who love to be needed and useful and to make a POSITIVE difference that they can feel proud of. If you approach THEM to ASK for their assistance (a Mother's Helper, for example), you immediately mark yourself out as that good mother as automatically makes them want to bust a gut so that you and your kids can STAY TOGETHER AND FLOURISH. An intelligent human knows to use the tools that their environment provides, especially to which they're naturally entitled. This forum was the first step, contacting your GP is the second (and easiest of the lot). You can't ever give up unless you've tried absolutely *everything*. If you do, you'll find out what REAL guilt feels like. Do your kids and yourself a favour and just pick up that phone.

Don't worry DEBBIEA, Most of the time, whenever all hopes are gone and we feel totally hopeless, some opportunity comes in your hand, which brightens up your life. Hope for the best. Something good is coming for you and your kids soon :)