i don’t even recognize myself anymore and i feel like my whole life is falling apart

title: i don’t even recognize myself anymore and i feel like my whole life is falling apart

i honestly don’t even know where to begin. i think i just need advice from people outside of my own head because i feel like i’m drowning and i don’t recognize who i am anymore.

i’m a mom of two girls with two different dads. my oldest is 9 and my youngest is only a few months old. i had an extremely traumatic pregnancy with my newborn. my water broke very early and i ended up hospitalized for months until delivery. mentally i don’t think i’ve recovered from any of it. i think everyone around me expects me to just move on because the baby is okay, but i genuinely feel like something in me changed after everything that happened.

my oldest daughter has severe dog allergies and asthma. like ambulance level severe. this has become a huge issue in my relationship because my current partner has two french bulldogs and inherited his mom’s home after she passed away. we found out i was pregnant literally days before his mom died. it’s been a very emotional and traumatic year overall.

the issue is we’re trying to figure out how to move forward as a family, but i’m terrified of moving into that home because of my daughter’s allergies. i feel like my partner doesn’t fully understand the severity of what could happen even after seeing her struggle to breathe before. i feel completely stuck because we’re all currently cramped in my studio apartment trying to “figure things out.”

on top of that, the one thing i was always certain about in my life was my job. no matter what happened personally, i always felt secure there. but now even that feels shaky. i work in HR and after maternity leave i’m basically being told i’ll eventually need to return fully in office 5 days a week while trying to manage childcare for a baby, my older daughter’s school struggles, and everything else mentally. i live in miami and make around $53k a year. childcare alone feels impossible.

to make things worse, my oldest daughter may have dyslexia or a learning disability and just got retained in 2nd grade after an entire year of evaluations and meetings with the school. i feel guilty constantly. like i’m failing everyone around me no matter how hard i try.

and honestly? i don’t even know who i am anymore. i used to feel strong and confident and now i feel anxious all the time. i overthink everything. i cry easily. i don’t feel pretty anymore. i don’t feel emotionally safe. i’m scared my relationship will fail too and then i’ll officially be the woman with two kids and two failed relationships trying to survive in a studio apartment.

i know this probably sounds dramatic but i genuinely feel lost. i don’t know what decision is the right one anymore. i don’t know if i should fight harder for my relationship, fight harder at work, move, stay, start over, or what.

has anyone else ever completely lost themselves after becoming a mom and going through multiple traumatic life events back to back? how do you even begin rebuilding yourself when every part of your life feels unstable at the same time?