The day I wrote the previous post, I’d woken up feeling like I was coming down with a virus. I cancelled dates and asked my husband to stay home a little later and help out with the kids before he left for work. I called the sitter. I did everything I’ve learned how to do when the flu is coming on.
Only it turned out not to be the flu. It turned out that my brain had the flu, or my soul, or whatever it is that gets “depressed” during these episodes. As I understood over the course of the morning that I was sick in the head and not the body, I told myself there was only one thing I could do to get through the day:
(Reader, are you sitting down?)
Do only one thing at a time.
“Do one…thing…at a time?” you parents might be asking. “But what about the…and the…?” I know. How can you possibly make the kids lunch while not talking on the phone? How can you get them dressed without also doing a load of laundry? And what about all that time you spend going to the bathroom and eating? There are hundreds of questions from the kids that will have to go unanswered while you’re behind the closed door! And if you don’t read the newspaper over breakfast (while also checking e-mail and ferrying food and drink from kitchen to table and letting the dog in and out 14 times), then whenever will you?
Well, some days are just about survival.
I’ve tried other means of survival during mental crises, usually with a different twist, like: no chores before breakfast. No reading the newspaper or being online while the children are at the table. I thought this one simple rule, doing one thing at a time, would streamline the day.
I recruited Jonah and Audrey to help. I sat them down on the window seat in the dining room and made my intentions very clear.
“I am playing an important game today,” I explained. “Since I’m feeling sick and yucky, I’m going to only do one thing at a time. So if you ask me for something, and I’m doing something else, I’m going to ask you to wait until I’m done.”
“Why?” asked Jonah.
“Because this will keep me relaxed and help me get better sooner. And I probably won’t yell as much.”
They were down with it. Having my “game” as the reason why I didn’t cater to their whims all day was a wonderful thing for my mind to fall back on. Normally, I’d have despaired that my kids would NEVER let me get any peace, and they were spoiled, and in my grandma’s day they’d have already been wacked upside the head with a wooden hairbrush. I reminded myself that, oh right, I was trying something different today. And I reminded the kids that. And they were fine with it.
Doing one thing at a time turned out to be a meditation of sorts. It didn’t nourish me the way sitting meditation does, but it kept me from committing what my teacher calls, “unskillful behavior.” Doing one thing at a time, I was always present and I could always handle what was happening.
The downside was that I stayed up late folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen and writing. I couldn’t bear for those things to go undone. Some things took longer. But I was calm.
Is this kind of behavior really possible in modern life?
What if we tried? How different would our days be?
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Oh, Crap
I am not well. My irritation is pure PMS (thank you , my dear friend Sara, for setting me straight that no, everyone is not purposefully being an asshole just to make my life miserable), but the heaviness gathering in my belly and my great desire to be wrapped in fuzzy blankets at all times is something else.
Feeling like – being – an instrument controlled by nerve receptors and hormone leakings makes me question the point of anything. I feel like nothing more than a highly-refined reptile. I wonder if this descent into the mental life of a snake is partly to blame for all the crying we depressed people do. We're flooded with inexplicable grief, like someone dear to us died. We lost something essential that kept us warm. We lost something that kept us human.
All I can hold onto right now is what the yogis discovered – a system that expands and liberates even the most stubborn, infantile, unworkable minds. They found an opening to the beating heart of the universe. I have to have faith that they were onto something. Otherwise, I should just unhinge my jaw, swallow a whole mouse and then go sit on a warm rock for the rest of my life.
Feeling like – being – an instrument controlled by nerve receptors and hormone leakings makes me question the point of anything. I feel like nothing more than a highly-refined reptile. I wonder if this descent into the mental life of a snake is partly to blame for all the crying we depressed people do. We're flooded with inexplicable grief, like someone dear to us died. We lost something essential that kept us warm. We lost something that kept us human.
All I can hold onto right now is what the yogis discovered – a system that expands and liberates even the most stubborn, infantile, unworkable minds. They found an opening to the beating heart of the universe. I have to have faith that they were onto something. Otherwise, I should just unhinge my jaw, swallow a whole mouse and then go sit on a warm rock for the rest of my life.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Does That Come with Fries for My Kids?
(Disclaimer: this post is about a diet for a healthy brain. I include it only because I know some of you, gentle readers, are burdened with the affliction of depression and anxiety and parenthood, often all at the same time, and so this post just might hold some interest for you. Others of you may find this topic incredibly dull and for that, I apologize and ask you to check back soon.)
In the past, I have waited until reaching crisis points before I'd deal with the signs of depression. Then my treatments involved talk therapy and pharmaceuticals. Now that I have discovered the great joy of living in my body (that pesky thing I never paid much attention to as a younger person), I am going to try a new tactic: treatment of the body to balance the chemicals of the brain.
Yoga has gotten me to this point. To complement it, I’m officially on The Antidepressant Diet, designed by my naturopath, Amy Fasig, ND. The diet-for-mental-health involves a change in my daily garbage-disposal eating habits. As you can probably guess, this means moving away from all the foods and drinks I go toward when I'm down, have PMS, am ovulating, mad at my husband, or ready to murder the children.
Goodbye:
• Sugar
• Caffeine
• Hooch
• Wheat
• Rice
• Excessive dairy
Hello:
• Cod liver oil
• 14 capsules worth of herbal supplements per day
• Leafy greens
• “Ancient grains” such as quinoa, spelt, and amaranth
• Food every three hours, like an infant
• Protein with every meal
• Animal protein at least once a day
I am supposed to increase yoga, walking and meditation. I am supposed to cultivate earth and fire elements. It turns out that, in ayurvedic language, I have a vata imbalance. (Ayurveda is an ancient Indian medical practice.) This means, in not too uncertain terms, that I’m an AIRHEAD. See, I knew that, but it was nice to have it confirmed by a professional.
The animal protein thing will be interesting. I learned to cook at fourteen, when I believed that Meat is Murder and announced to my family that I would no longer be eating any of that chicken-fried steak. The animals had rights, too. Anyway, I had never liked the mouth-feel of animal fat. I had always secretly slipped my bacon into a paper towel in my lap to blot it before eating when I was a kid. (This may sound like the beginnings of an eating disorder, but I don’t have that kind of capacity for self-denial, so I was okay.)
My mom rolled her eyes and told me I’d better learn how to cook, because she didn’t intend to run a short-order café out of her kitchen. So Molly Katzen of the Moosewood cookbooks became my Julia Child. I enjoyed discovering things like pesto and exotic pilafs, and torturing my asshole stepdad by stinking up the house with fried falafel. He, in turn, enjoyed gagging at the sight of my hippie/other culture food and torturing me with Karen Carpenter references at the dinner table. Those were good times.
Anyway, I haven’t been a real vegetarian for years. Chicken was the gateway food back into the life of an omnivore sometime after college, and then when I got pregnant with Jonah I acted on my body’s deep need for swine. I ate salami, bacon, and ham. But the vegetarian cooking background means that I’ve never properly learned to buy or prepare meat. I don’t know a T-bone from a pork butt. And I still can’t stand the taste or smell of beef and lamb. Given my druthers, I’d eat mostly vegetarian food forever. It’s what I am used to.
But I’ve got my eyes on the prize, which is drug-free mental health. So, when my husband brought home some organic, grass-fed beef jerky, I ate a piece. Reader, it was delicious. I’m sorry, but it just tasted good. Apparently I have a taste for cured meats. If I want to get well, I’m going to have to go with that.
The biggest impediments in my quest for balanced blood sugar are my kids. I know there are people who swear they’ve raised their children on seaweed and barley water from day one, and that their six-year-old would rather eat steamed tofu than mac-and-cheese any old time, but I can’t make those claims. My kids enjoy a limited selection of sushi, but they do turn their noses up at a steaming plate of quinoa-and-chard. So what’s a girl to do? It already takes more time in the kitchen to prepare “whole foods” (i.e. things that don’t come in packets). And not only do I refuse to make separate meals for my kids, I don’t want them eating so much of the bread, sugar, dairy and chicken nuggets that have become the staple of the American childhood. Look what it does to me, their mother! And God knows my girl doesn’t need anything that will increase her mood swings. She's only three, but she usually acts like a fifteen-year-old girl on the rag, bless her heart.
So. I will continue to serve the quinoa and the fresh veggies. Sometimes I grate cheese over it for my kids and bribe them with ice cream. It’s a balance, you know. They get a few bites of ancient grains into their system and a shred or two of fresh vegetables, and then they get rewarded with a flood of heart-clogging cream and blood-sugar-spiking "evaporated cane juice." At least they didn’t eat a plate of fish sticks and the ice cream. And maybe they’ll develop new habits? Or just start eating out of fear of starvation?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
What's the Real Altitude?
After giving it a lot of thought - say, about ten years - I finally went to a naturopathic doctor. Enough was enough with the meds, already. I could handle them making me stupid, but I could NOT handle them making me fatter. I've been very patient with this over the last two years, but really, I want to wear my old clothes again.
I sat on a padded Ikea chair in the naturopath's waiting room and tackled her multi-page intake form. What were my bowel movements like? Had I ever been raped? How often did I drink and had I ever been treated for it? All easy to answer. Then came this one:
How would I describe my general emotional state?
Well, I'm here about depression, right? So hadn't I better write some word that describes me at my worst? Like, "spent" or "overwhelmed" or "seething with rage"?
The truth was that another, very different word had immediately sprung to mind. But I didn't trust it. Yet if it wasn't that word, then what word would it be?
"First thought, best thought," says my teacher, Denise. All right , I thought. And I wrote the word "contentment."
Immediately I left my body and viewed this scene from somewhere in the upper corner of the calm, purple, wellness-center-themed room. Ok, I said, let's get this straight. You're a not-actually-fat person seeing a specialist to get off meds for your depression because they make you fat and stupid. Yet you write that your general emotional state is "contentment." Are you really content? Are you really having a problem?
I came back to my body and said to that voice, in the nicest possible way, "Oh, do shut up." Then I finished filling out the forms.
So, contentment. This is a huge milestone. This is a revelation. Nay, a revolution! A revolution has taken place inside my mind! Thank God for all the yoga, the meditation, the loving husband, the children, my good friends, the flowers blooming in my garden, the blue sky, all the suffering that is now GONE!
Or maybe it's just the meds.
I sat on a padded Ikea chair in the naturopath's waiting room and tackled her multi-page intake form. What were my bowel movements like? Had I ever been raped? How often did I drink and had I ever been treated for it? All easy to answer. Then came this one:
How would I describe my general emotional state?
Well, I'm here about depression, right? So hadn't I better write some word that describes me at my worst? Like, "spent" or "overwhelmed" or "seething with rage"?
The truth was that another, very different word had immediately sprung to mind. But I didn't trust it. Yet if it wasn't that word, then what word would it be?
"First thought, best thought," says my teacher, Denise. All right , I thought. And I wrote the word "contentment."
Immediately I left my body and viewed this scene from somewhere in the upper corner of the calm, purple, wellness-center-themed room. Ok, I said, let's get this straight. You're a not-actually-fat person seeing a specialist to get off meds for your depression because they make you fat and stupid. Yet you write that your general emotional state is "contentment." Are you really content? Are you really having a problem?
I came back to my body and said to that voice, in the nicest possible way, "Oh, do shut up." Then I finished filling out the forms.
So, contentment. This is a huge milestone. This is a revelation. Nay, a revolution! A revolution has taken place inside my mind! Thank God for all the yoga, the meditation, the loving husband, the children, my good friends, the flowers blooming in my garden, the blue sky, all the suffering that is now GONE!
Or maybe it's just the meds.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Living on the Right Side of the Brain
This just in: engaging in only left-brain activities inhibits happiness, peacefulness, and well-being.
So concludes Jill Bolte Taylor, MD, a brain researcher at Harvard. And she would know: she had a stroke, lost the use of her left brain, and experienced nirvana. She discovered that when she left behind logic, sense of time, analysis, and story-making, all functions of the left brain, she could contact what she calls "the deep, inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres."
While I stood in my kitchen and read the article about Dr. Taylor, I continually pounded the counter and said, "Yes. Yes. YES." The yogis and the Buddhists have been patiently explaining this for thousands of years! I find it very gratifying to see another soul on this earth giving up exclusive worship of the left brain. To boot, she's a scientist!
Being unable to release the left brain is a problem. In mothers, I see a particular frustration that the list-making, multi-tasking part of our brains (left) can't shut up long enough for us to give our attention to anything else. Like, our own peace of mind, the beauty of our children's souls, or perhaps what's in our partner's underpants.
In addition to having amassed a lifetime of training mostly in the skills of the left brain, on top of really needing those tools to manage family life, the intense feeling of protection and danger that many women feel when we have babies can cause us to plunge into a constant fight-or-flight readiness. So we're secreting all kinds of danger-hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which tax our bodies and literally burn us out. (The authors of Women's Moods, a fantastic book on the subject, call this "brain drain.")
And we wonder why we can't find calm or restoration in our lives.
Before I go further on this tangent, let me bring my thoughts back around to left brain-right brain and Jill Bolte Taylor. For a couple years I've been fixated on the influence hormonal fluctuations have on a mother's mental health. Reading about Dr. Taylor's research lends another facet to my inquiry into this and other subjects, such as the effects of meditation and yoga for moms.
While the right side of the brain is linked with intuition, seeing relationships among various things, and "non rational" thought (i.e., thought not requiring fact or reason), which are typically typed as feminine qualities, I believe that many mothers spend their days smack in the middle of their left brains. Scheduling, talking, planning, and organizing are all left brain functions. For myself, when I spend too much time there and only there, I get overwhelmed and undernourished. I need some relief, some softness, some largeness. This is when my head feels like concrete. My brain needs the other side to fire and liquefy some of that rock.
It's that overwhelming sense of depletion that I experience and observe in other mothers. Now I'm thinking about it in terms of our brain hemispheres.
What is one thing you can do to play on the curvy, holistic, nonverbal side of your brain? What gives you a great sense of relief and openness when you think of it? How would you like to leave your task-master behind for some part of the day?
So concludes Jill Bolte Taylor, MD, a brain researcher at Harvard. And she would know: she had a stroke, lost the use of her left brain, and experienced nirvana. She discovered that when she left behind logic, sense of time, analysis, and story-making, all functions of the left brain, she could contact what she calls "the deep, inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres."
While I stood in my kitchen and read the article about Dr. Taylor, I continually pounded the counter and said, "Yes. Yes. YES." The yogis and the Buddhists have been patiently explaining this for thousands of years! I find it very gratifying to see another soul on this earth giving up exclusive worship of the left brain. To boot, she's a scientist!
Being unable to release the left brain is a problem. In mothers, I see a particular frustration that the list-making, multi-tasking part of our brains (left) can't shut up long enough for us to give our attention to anything else. Like, our own peace of mind, the beauty of our children's souls, or perhaps what's in our partner's underpants.
In addition to having amassed a lifetime of training mostly in the skills of the left brain, on top of really needing those tools to manage family life, the intense feeling of protection and danger that many women feel when we have babies can cause us to plunge into a constant fight-or-flight readiness. So we're secreting all kinds of danger-hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which tax our bodies and literally burn us out. (The authors of Women's Moods, a fantastic book on the subject, call this "brain drain.")
And we wonder why we can't find calm or restoration in our lives.
Before I go further on this tangent, let me bring my thoughts back around to left brain-right brain and Jill Bolte Taylor. For a couple years I've been fixated on the influence hormonal fluctuations have on a mother's mental health. Reading about Dr. Taylor's research lends another facet to my inquiry into this and other subjects, such as the effects of meditation and yoga for moms.
While the right side of the brain is linked with intuition, seeing relationships among various things, and "non rational" thought (i.e., thought not requiring fact or reason), which are typically typed as feminine qualities, I believe that many mothers spend their days smack in the middle of their left brains. Scheduling, talking, planning, and organizing are all left brain functions. For myself, when I spend too much time there and only there, I get overwhelmed and undernourished. I need some relief, some softness, some largeness. This is when my head feels like concrete. My brain needs the other side to fire and liquefy some of that rock.
It's that overwhelming sense of depletion that I experience and observe in other mothers. Now I'm thinking about it in terms of our brain hemispheres.
What is one thing you can do to play on the curvy, holistic, nonverbal side of your brain? What gives you a great sense of relief and openness when you think of it? How would you like to leave your task-master behind for some part of the day?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Does My Mind Look Fat in This?
Today I am aware of my failures as a mother. And a wife. And a friend, a daughter, and a person in general. You could say that I have been meditating upon these failures all day. That's what it is when we focus so completely on one thing; it's a meditation.
So I am meditating in this way as I drive my car when a message that someone told me once runs through my mind. Who was the messenger? The writer Anne Lamott? The Zen monk Thich Nhat Hahn? My mom? Who knows? But it comes, as if by magic. Here it is:
Listen to me.
I want to tell you a secret.
There is nothing wrong with you.
There never was anything wrong with you.
But I looked so fat in all the swimsuits I tried on today. And I should've been at home with my little girl, who needs me so much. Is it worth it for me to leave her with the sitter just so I can burn fossil fuels to drive to a department store and try on synthetic swimsuits that make me look fat?
There is nothing wrong with you.
It's all well and good when I have my clothes on. I can fool everyone, even myself, that I'm not gaining weight, as long as I'm not standing naked in front of a 3-way mirror under flourescent lights. When am I going to get myself in order?
There is nothing wrong with you.
Let's just say for a moment that I'm not fat. Then why am I having all these deflating thoughts? Is this depression talking? Are my hormones fluctuating again? Is my mind stuck, for no reason at all, on the negative self-talk radio station Anne Lamott so accurately calls KFKD?
Let's say it is. I decide to let my brain go on with its prattle, minus my attention. I pop in a meditation CD. I am driving across the floating bridge. I am turning my attention to the sound of Thich Nhat Hahn's voice.
"Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out." BONNNG goes the bell.
There never was anything wrong with you.
This is so much more pleasant. I am enjoying the feel of my breath between sounds of the bell. I am feeling a nice warm feeling spread through my body.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with me.
So I am meditating in this way as I drive my car when a message that someone told me once runs through my mind. Who was the messenger? The writer Anne Lamott? The Zen monk Thich Nhat Hahn? My mom? Who knows? But it comes, as if by magic. Here it is:
Listen to me.
I want to tell you a secret.
There is nothing wrong with you.
There never was anything wrong with you.
But I looked so fat in all the swimsuits I tried on today. And I should've been at home with my little girl, who needs me so much. Is it worth it for me to leave her with the sitter just so I can burn fossil fuels to drive to a department store and try on synthetic swimsuits that make me look fat?
There is nothing wrong with you.
It's all well and good when I have my clothes on. I can fool everyone, even myself, that I'm not gaining weight, as long as I'm not standing naked in front of a 3-way mirror under flourescent lights. When am I going to get myself in order?
There is nothing wrong with you.
Let's just say for a moment that I'm not fat. Then why am I having all these deflating thoughts? Is this depression talking? Are my hormones fluctuating again? Is my mind stuck, for no reason at all, on the negative self-talk radio station Anne Lamott so accurately calls KFKD?
Let's say it is. I decide to let my brain go on with its prattle, minus my attention. I pop in a meditation CD. I am driving across the floating bridge. I am turning my attention to the sound of Thich Nhat Hahn's voice.
"Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out." BONNNG goes the bell.
There never was anything wrong with you.
This is so much more pleasant. I am enjoying the feel of my breath between sounds of the bell. I am feeling a nice warm feeling spread through my body.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with me.
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Path of the Warrior, Part II
Allow me to introduce you to this section of the blog. It could have many titles, none of which really get to the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is that I'm not depressed anymore, not identifying myself as a depressed person, no longer researching meds and motherhood, no longer wondering how in the bloody hell to get through a day with my children. (Ok, I still wonder that, but at least now I have some tools that I even remember to use.)
But, like every one of us, I am still on my path. I find I've moved down the path a ways, out of depression and into something else. So far, the something else seems to be silence, rest, and observation. It's no wonder I've been craving a few days in the woods alone, to move into a bigger silence, so that I can listen more attentively.
Listening is what I do in yoga practice. And when I listen, new thoughts come to mind. Here is where I want to explore this experience, and the experience of belonging to a yoga community, and of following the yoga teacher path.
Of course, this is all from my perspective, which includes the stewardship of two small children and the specter of depression always hovering around.
I will do my best to write about these matters in a way that doesn't make you want to stick your finger down your throat.
But, like every one of us, I am still on my path. I find I've moved down the path a ways, out of depression and into something else. So far, the something else seems to be silence, rest, and observation. It's no wonder I've been craving a few days in the woods alone, to move into a bigger silence, so that I can listen more attentively.
Listening is what I do in yoga practice. And when I listen, new thoughts come to mind. Here is where I want to explore this experience, and the experience of belonging to a yoga community, and of following the yoga teacher path.
Of course, this is all from my perspective, which includes the stewardship of two small children and the specter of depression always hovering around.
I will do my best to write about these matters in a way that doesn't make you want to stick your finger down your throat.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Lost in Transition
I'll be honest with you all. I've been trying hard to write something. I wrote a funny and offensive piece about practicing Kegels with two girlfriends in a crowded bar. Then I wrote something sincere about the way we think other people see us. I may still publish them, if I can find a point to them besides an effort to display my cleverness and sincerity.
But I found during my last breakdown that the best way back to a clear mind is to call bullshit on the bullshit.
Here's the straight shit:
1. All I can think about is the stuff that I hate, the people I hate, the life I hate.
2. I haven't showered in three days.
3. I look like a haggard single mom on food stamps (bless their hearts).
4. I feel like a haggard single mom on food stamps.
5. I drink too much.
6. General restlessness threatens to swallow my soul.
Not to put too fine a point on it.
My shrink asked me if this happens every spring. I looked up last year's journal. Here's what I found:
Things I am tired of [March 18, 2006]:
*Writing bullshit that never sees the light of day
*Melancholia
*Demanding children
*Never eating an entire meal in one sitting
*Being tired
*Being confused
*Being worn out
*Disliking myself
*Being sick
*Myself; I am desperately tired of myself and all my repetitious thoughts. I’ve thought about offing myself or becoming an alcoholic out of sheer boredom.
*Being required to care
*Being mad at my mother
*Despairing about my father
*Feeling empty, alone, and broken
*Laundry
*Dishes
*Clothing
*Makeup
*Grooming
*Entertaining children
Thereafter, things got much, much better. But now:
Things I am really tired of and/or scare the crap out of me [March 18, 2007]:
*Hanging out at the Science Center with kids and other tired, unwashed, rumpled, bored parents who also don't want to be there
*Answering to a child's comment or question every ten to 30 seconds
*Watching myself age rapidly
*Never sitting down for more than one minute at a time during a meal
*Never reading a book for more than ten minutes at a time
*Being interrupted constantly, no matter what I'm doing, be it reading, writing, sleeping, eating, taking a shower, going to the bathroom
So it's the usual stuff, more or less. Apparently motherhood, like depression, cannot be cured, only managed. How I've managed over the past year is I dropped a lot of useless ideas about parenting and hired a lot more childcare. What's not listed in the second excerpt is my prevailing sense of unease and boredom and loneliness. It would be there, but I got interrupted to make someone a sandwich.
(A new twist on the "things I hate" list is my terror of aging and old people. To wit: I went to a dance performance last week and was disturbed by the sea of white and grey heads all around me. All these soft-bellied old people clutching their tickets, fretting over finding the right seats, looking irritated beyond comprehension when someone needed to get past them after they'd sat down. During the performance, in the middle of one particularly quiet, erotic solo, a baldy near me turned around to hiss at the fellow behind him to stop kicking his chair. "Eh?" the fellow said. "I said, would you please stop kicking my chair!" The entire audience, probably even the dancer, heard this. Lord, smite me with a bolt of lightning if my life ever comes to this! I thought.)
So, I arrive again at the manic-depressive state of melancholia and restlessness. I shall endeavor to enjoy my mercurial mood, or at the very least, learn to ride it. Sit in the nice little yoga space I've made for myself downstairs, close my eyes, and do nothing about it. To do nothing about it is to triumph. To see this period as a shift and a transition rather than a crisis requiring divorce or grad school or some other thing that will make the feeling go away, that's the real practice. I'm lost in this mish mash. There's no other way for me to be right now.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Path of the Medicated Warrior
I waited exactly 14 days. Then, on Friday, I gobbled a 40 milligram dose of citalopram.
I realized that while it was a worthy goal not to say "fuck," or "fucking" around the children anymore, the fact that I was increasingly compelled to do so reminded me for the millionth time that depression is not a matter of self-control.
I spoke to Dr. Clark on the phone.
"How are you doing on this dosage?" she asked.
"Crying all the time, lots of outbursts, feeling like I want to rip off my own skin," I said.
"Mm-hm," she said. "Any thoughts of suicide?"
Only once, while rocking back and forth on the floor at my friend's house, with my forehead pressed to my knees, but it was nothing. "No," I said.
She prescribed Wellbutrin in addition to my regular dose of Celexa. How this is supposed to help with what the medical professionals call "sexual side-effects" is unclear to me. I think it's unclear to the medical professionals, too. But whatever. I'm game.
Maybe if I was single and 23 the decision between being semi-orgasmic or crazy wouldn't be quite the no-brainer it is now. It's fine to be nightmare in your 20's. Some fellas even dig it. But now when I go off the rails it truly dampens my husband's spirit. And damn, I've got kids to raise now. I've got important shit to do, too, like enjoy vacations in Mexico and do half-moon pose without a block and post pictures on MySpace. (Not to mention teach pregnant ladies how to relax when they feel like cows, and contribute to the good of humanity, and basically be a bright star whenever possible.) I don't have the space to wander in those woods anymore. I'm intimately familiar with them, and they never lead anywhere.
I'm back on the path of wellness.
I realized that while it was a worthy goal not to say "fuck," or "fucking" around the children anymore, the fact that I was increasingly compelled to do so reminded me for the millionth time that depression is not a matter of self-control.
I spoke to Dr. Clark on the phone.
"How are you doing on this dosage?" she asked.
"Crying all the time, lots of outbursts, feeling like I want to rip off my own skin," I said.
"Mm-hm," she said. "Any thoughts of suicide?"
Only once, while rocking back and forth on the floor at my friend's house, with my forehead pressed to my knees, but it was nothing. "No," I said.
She prescribed Wellbutrin in addition to my regular dose of Celexa. How this is supposed to help with what the medical professionals call "sexual side-effects" is unclear to me. I think it's unclear to the medical professionals, too. But whatever. I'm game.
Maybe if I was single and 23 the decision between being semi-orgasmic or crazy wouldn't be quite the no-brainer it is now. It's fine to be nightmare in your 20's. Some fellas even dig it. But now when I go off the rails it truly dampens my husband's spirit. And damn, I've got kids to raise now. I've got important shit to do, too, like enjoy vacations in Mexico and do half-moon pose without a block and post pictures on MySpace. (Not to mention teach pregnant ladies how to relax when they feel like cows, and contribute to the good of humanity, and basically be a bright star whenever possible.) I don't have the space to wander in those woods anymore. I'm intimately familiar with them, and they never lead anywhere.
I'm back on the path of wellness.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Day 11
This, my friends, is what I've been doing a lot of lately. It's quiet, it's meditative, and it burns off my abundant aggression. I can go from utter self-loathing and fury to an open heart and humility. In one hour. Even if I don't stay in that state of grace for very long, my soul gets a taste of what this feels like. And so does my brain.
I want my brain to be ingrained with this state, the memory of it to be permanently scarred into the tissue. I need something to remember, to go back to. I reach points where it seems the only logical thing to do is run away from home or become a tremendous alcoholic. That's when it's time to go back to the mat.
My teacher said once, a long time ago, that no matter what confined state you're in, mental, emotional or physical, do what you can to sense one sliver of ease, one iota of space to move into. Feel for the merest opening. Then move into it. Then see if you can sense a little more space, a little more ease. Relax into that. And on and on.
This is what I do in my yoga practice, especially when my brain is roiling about. I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't have my practice to come back to, to pour my zappy, disjointed, animal energy into. I can depend on my practice to deliver me, for a few minutes on the very worst day at least, from blind wildness.
At 20 mg. of citalopram, life is more vivid. I can cry again. I feel low moods and irritation more acutely. I can't really say if pleasure is more pleasurable, or if highs feel higher now. The circumstances of my life over the past couple of weeks have been such that I haven't had the chance to feel those things. But I'm crossing my fingers.
(And my knees, ankles, wrists and elbows.)
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Day Six on Reduced Meds
I'm all fire and love for humanity in the morning. By late afternoon, I want to tear off my own skin.
The experts agree one should give the brain two weeks to adjust to any changes in these kinds of medications. So I must wait before drawing any conclusions. And then, if I'm still a loon, I should get rolfed or acupunctured or massaged on a regular basis. I'll do anything.
I guess if the rolfing and Chinese medicine don't help, I'll have to experiment with some drug cocktails. Hate to think I' might have to be on this stuff forever.
The very worst thing about not being emotionally stable is how I relate to my kids. I truly lose interest in them. That causes them to run at me full-force with body slams and frog leaps, and otherwise make sure my attention is on them. They sense when I am slipping away from them. Their desperation sends me further underground.
Maybe I'm just not the maternal type.
The experts agree one should give the brain two weeks to adjust to any changes in these kinds of medications. So I must wait before drawing any conclusions. And then, if I'm still a loon, I should get rolfed or acupunctured or massaged on a regular basis. I'll do anything.
I guess if the rolfing and Chinese medicine don't help, I'll have to experiment with some drug cocktails. Hate to think I' might have to be on this stuff forever.
The very worst thing about not being emotionally stable is how I relate to my kids. I truly lose interest in them. That causes them to run at me full-force with body slams and frog leaps, and otherwise make sure my attention is on them. They sense when I am slipping away from them. Their desperation sends me further underground.
Maybe I'm just not the maternal type.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Day One of Reduced Meds
This morning I shook five pills out of a bottle onto my black granite kitchen counter top and proceeded to slice each one in half with a table knife.
"I'm tired of being stupid," I explained to Matt. I covered the knife and pill with a hand to prevent post-chop scatter. Chop. 40 mgs became 20. I sprinkled the tiny half pills into the compartments of my weekly pill dispenser. I have to use this thing that is usually reserved for people with dementia because the pills make me stupid.
Well, to be fair to the drugs, "stupid" is probably an exaggeration. Forgetful is more like it, and flaky, and, oh yeah, unable to achieve certain states that one expects to enjoy with one's partner. One can only put up with these things for so long.
My doctor gave me the okay to taper down. 20 mgs for 2 weeks, maybe a month, then down to 10. Then see how I'm doing. Presumably, if I find myself screaming at the children or hiding in the guest room to sob, I'll be upping the dose. But I am willing to experiment now. I want all of my faculties again.
It's possible that I have worn new paths in my brain deep enough that my thoughts follow the new patterns by habit. The last time I went off meds, I did just fine for five years.
It could happen again.
"I'm tired of being stupid," I explained to Matt. I covered the knife and pill with a hand to prevent post-chop scatter. Chop. 40 mgs became 20. I sprinkled the tiny half pills into the compartments of my weekly pill dispenser. I have to use this thing that is usually reserved for people with dementia because the pills make me stupid.
Well, to be fair to the drugs, "stupid" is probably an exaggeration. Forgetful is more like it, and flaky, and, oh yeah, unable to achieve certain states that one expects to enjoy with one's partner. One can only put up with these things for so long.
My doctor gave me the okay to taper down. 20 mgs for 2 weeks, maybe a month, then down to 10. Then see how I'm doing. Presumably, if I find myself screaming at the children or hiding in the guest room to sob, I'll be upping the dose. But I am willing to experiment now. I want all of my faculties again.
It's possible that I have worn new paths in my brain deep enough that my thoughts follow the new patterns by habit. The last time I went off meds, I did just fine for five years.
It could happen again.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
So you think you're doing better?
I am doing better. I am doing so much better that I am actually considering a professional commitment. In light of this consideration, I went to a prenatal yoga class with my friend Robin the other night to observe and pick the teacher's brain. When she started correcting my postures, I had an interesting new experience.
I say "interesting" because that is the nonjudgmental word I use to remark on a sudden emotional jumps in yoga practice. Such as, "Hmm, it's interesting that my teacher is asking us to stay in chatturanga for this long. It's interesting that I just thought of my teacher as a bitch." That kind of thing. It helps me not get mad at myself for having a response, so I can just have the response and then move on with my life. It also helps me not grasp at positive feelings, like, "I feel so strong and awesome right now! There are rays shooting out of my body! I can conquer the world!" So that has to fall under the category of "interesting," too. Whatever it is, it is temporary and I don't have to do anything about it.
Anyway, so I'm in this class with a bunch pregnant ladies. I'm there to observe them and the teacher. I'm doing a totally half-assed yoga practice while craning my neck to watch all the mamas do their pigeon-prep poses or what have you. And, to be honest, I am feeling arrogant. I mean, come on, with all the training I've been doing, this has got to be a piece of cake, right?
"Susie, is it?" says the teacher, coming across the wood floor toward me. I am on my mat with my shoulders and feet on the floor in bridge pose. She kneels down to grasp my ankles. "Move your feet more parallel and a little farther away from your hips," she says, manually placing my body into the correct position. I allow this, while thinking, "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my real teacher!" I lift my hips higher. I squeeze my butt really hard, which you just aren't supposed to do, to get my hips up really high, to prove that I know what I am doing. Then I feel icky. I think, wow, she must think I'm a total nimrod and probably shouldn't be a prenatal yoga instructor after all. Why do I think I could be a teacher? I'm not really that good…
Etcetera, etcetera.
I haven't worried much about how "good" I am for a very long time. I started yoga with the knowledge that I was uncoordinated and hopelessly high strung, and never thought too much about getting "good." And my big life practice over the past year has been to let go of measuring myself against other people at all. (A lifelong practice, but you have to start somewhere.)
Now that I'm in the process of becoming a teacher, of putting myself in a position to be judged, serious doubts are coming up. Do I really want to have to judge myself? Isn't this process against the whole reason why I practice yoga?
Maybe. I guess I will find out. In the meantime, what if I could really encourage an open heart toward myself? My practice is, if nothing else, totally sincere, and I do believe I've had incredible training from my beloved teacher. Can I remember that I want to teach yoga to pregnant ladies for the same reason I lead new parent support groups? That it's not about being an expert, but being a good shepherd and a supportive presence? Can I continue to retrain my brain this way, and really cultivate fearlessness?
Hell, maybe if I can learn that a little more, I can go off drugs. Wouldn't life really be an adventure then?
I say "interesting" because that is the nonjudgmental word I use to remark on a sudden emotional jumps in yoga practice. Such as, "Hmm, it's interesting that my teacher is asking us to stay in chatturanga for this long. It's interesting that I just thought of my teacher as a bitch." That kind of thing. It helps me not get mad at myself for having a response, so I can just have the response and then move on with my life. It also helps me not grasp at positive feelings, like, "I feel so strong and awesome right now! There are rays shooting out of my body! I can conquer the world!" So that has to fall under the category of "interesting," too. Whatever it is, it is temporary and I don't have to do anything about it.
Anyway, so I'm in this class with a bunch pregnant ladies. I'm there to observe them and the teacher. I'm doing a totally half-assed yoga practice while craning my neck to watch all the mamas do their pigeon-prep poses or what have you. And, to be honest, I am feeling arrogant. I mean, come on, with all the training I've been doing, this has got to be a piece of cake, right?
"Susie, is it?" says the teacher, coming across the wood floor toward me. I am on my mat with my shoulders and feet on the floor in bridge pose. She kneels down to grasp my ankles. "Move your feet more parallel and a little farther away from your hips," she says, manually placing my body into the correct position. I allow this, while thinking, "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my real teacher!" I lift my hips higher. I squeeze my butt really hard, which you just aren't supposed to do, to get my hips up really high, to prove that I know what I am doing. Then I feel icky. I think, wow, she must think I'm a total nimrod and probably shouldn't be a prenatal yoga instructor after all. Why do I think I could be a teacher? I'm not really that good…
Etcetera, etcetera.
I haven't worried much about how "good" I am for a very long time. I started yoga with the knowledge that I was uncoordinated and hopelessly high strung, and never thought too much about getting "good." And my big life practice over the past year has been to let go of measuring myself against other people at all. (A lifelong practice, but you have to start somewhere.)
Now that I'm in the process of becoming a teacher, of putting myself in a position to be judged, serious doubts are coming up. Do I really want to have to judge myself? Isn't this process against the whole reason why I practice yoga?
Maybe. I guess I will find out. In the meantime, what if I could really encourage an open heart toward myself? My practice is, if nothing else, totally sincere, and I do believe I've had incredible training from my beloved teacher. Can I remember that I want to teach yoga to pregnant ladies for the same reason I lead new parent support groups? That it's not about being an expert, but being a good shepherd and a supportive presence? Can I continue to retrain my brain this way, and really cultivate fearlessness?
Hell, maybe if I can learn that a little more, I can go off drugs. Wouldn't life really be an adventure then?
Sunday, December 17, 2006
The Rules
This morning I asked Matt for an immediate half hour of time off to write. I had just finished my breakfast. He was just starting his. Audrey bounced around demanding bits of his smoked salmon and bagel, simultaneously elbowing her brother in the ribs as she muscled her way in between dining chairs to be closer to Daddy's food. I regretted sticking Matt with both kids before he'd finished his coffee. But I do not want today to be like yesterday. I must approach today with whatever dregs of desire for holistic family wellness I can scrape together. So here I am.
I am trying some of the tricks I've learned over the past year and forgotten the less I "needed" them. As I lay in bed this morning trying to ignore Audrey climbing all over me, I made a small intention to get out of bed without complaining. To make the dear child her bowl of Organic Toasted Oats with tolerance if not blissful maternal love. And then see what happened.
I placed a warm sweater over her thin shoulders and offered socks. She shook her head. Together, we descended the stairs. I looked around. I saw at least five things to put away, throw away, organize, rearrange. Remembering a rule I made for myself a year ago, No chores before coffee, I made a conscious decision to walk past the wadded tissue paper, empty cardboard boxes, and pine needles on the floor. Audrey toddled right up to the Christmas tree and swiftly beheaded a toy soldier. Then she began her usual demanding-customer routine: "I want cereal. I want some milk. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, I want my vitamin. I want some breakfast." Now, when I'm grumpy, I ignore her for awhile while making my coffee, then snap at her because her begging has reached a fever pitch, then dutifully serve her the motherfucking whatever she wants while complaining about the lousy tips around here. But let's start today differently.
I kept my voice low. I responded to my little urchin calmly, looking at her in the eyes. (Make eye contact is another of my almost-forgotten rules for sanity.) I set her up with food immediately in order to distract her from vandalizing the Christmas tree. She was occupied. I was relaxed.
I scanned the front page of the newspaper. This is against one of my rules, Ignore the news until lunchtime, but I did it anyway because Western Washington is in a state of crisis and I wanted to know the latest news. (Seven dead, 50 hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning, homes split in half by fallen trees.) And then I just needed to write for awhile.
Ask for what you need.
Can I make a better day today? Can I enjoy the children today? Can I let them off the hook as well as myself?
Can I give my husband three uninterrupted hours in front of the Patriots game?
Well, one thing at a time.
I am trying some of the tricks I've learned over the past year and forgotten the less I "needed" them. As I lay in bed this morning trying to ignore Audrey climbing all over me, I made a small intention to get out of bed without complaining. To make the dear child her bowl of Organic Toasted Oats with tolerance if not blissful maternal love. And then see what happened.
I placed a warm sweater over her thin shoulders and offered socks. She shook her head. Together, we descended the stairs. I looked around. I saw at least five things to put away, throw away, organize, rearrange. Remembering a rule I made for myself a year ago, No chores before coffee, I made a conscious decision to walk past the wadded tissue paper, empty cardboard boxes, and pine needles on the floor. Audrey toddled right up to the Christmas tree and swiftly beheaded a toy soldier. Then she began her usual demanding-customer routine: "I want cereal. I want some milk. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, I want my vitamin. I want some breakfast." Now, when I'm grumpy, I ignore her for awhile while making my coffee, then snap at her because her begging has reached a fever pitch, then dutifully serve her the motherfucking whatever she wants while complaining about the lousy tips around here. But let's start today differently.
I kept my voice low. I responded to my little urchin calmly, looking at her in the eyes. (Make eye contact is another of my almost-forgotten rules for sanity.) I set her up with food immediately in order to distract her from vandalizing the Christmas tree. She was occupied. I was relaxed.
I scanned the front page of the newspaper. This is against one of my rules, Ignore the news until lunchtime, but I did it anyway because Western Washington is in a state of crisis and I wanted to know the latest news. (Seven dead, 50 hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning, homes split in half by fallen trees.) And then I just needed to write for awhile.
Ask for what you need.
Can I make a better day today? Can I enjoy the children today? Can I let them off the hook as well as myself?
Can I give my husband three uninterrupted hours in front of the Patriots game?
Well, one thing at a time.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Goin' on a Bear Hunt
Goin' on a bear hunt (clap, clap, clap, clap)
I'm not afraid (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Comin' to a wheat field (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Can't go around it (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Gotta go through it (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Swish swish swish swish swish swish
Having reached the other side of the River Styx, at least for now, it is easy to say that what one goes through as a new mother is temporary but unavoidable. I knew this in the thick of things, too - but I railed against the unfairness of it. There was simply no way around the mental instability, broken sleep, physical exhaustion, and emotional desert of caring for two tiny children. It made me weak and classically female in a way I couldn't accept. I wanted to blame someone for what was causing me to suffer. Capitalism! The Patriarchy! My mother! There had to be a way out. But it was - and is - just what it is. Motherhood. On the side of Life, I can say this without bitterness. On the side of Death, I said it with a wail: "My children are killing me!"
One way to not let my children kill me was to pursue life outside the family. This required some sacrifice from them (if spending time away from their screaming, withdrawn mother was really a sacrifice). One evening a week, I led a suport group for new parents. Now, before you laugh at this image of the blind leading the the blind, consider this: the helping professions are lousy with depressives and addicts. Everyone knows the joke that not a few crazy people train as psychotherapists, recovered cokeheads become addiction counselors, and the ranks of teachers are packed with the suffering and the wounded. I fit right in. Being fresh off the battlefield, I wanted these sleep-deprived, paralyzed-by-worry parents to know that I understood them. That they were not alone. That somehow I could help them avoid the crazy-making mental ruts I had gotten into as a new parent.
They seemd to resent my presumption. I had forgotten that new parents tend to think their experience is unique. I had forgotten the grand fantasies they/we have that we will triumph where others have failed. That with our education, coolness, professional life, insight, whatever, we will Do This Right. And I had forgotten that I didn't get out of my rut because someone gave me the right advice.
I noticed, after a few more meetings, that when I released my agenda, shut up, and allowed them to share their failings and misgivings with each other (hesitantly, at first: no one wants to be outed as a substandard parent), they softened and began to lean on one another. I saw that emotional quagmire is part of many parents' experience, and there just ain't no way around it. Squish squish squish squish.
Now I'm leading a second group. These mothers are showing me the same thing: Okay, no one is ever going to solve this basic problem of the impossibility of being a mother. Not the right book, not the right exercise regimen, not even the most stellar partner. So how are we going to have reasonable lives? One of the moms said, "You have to do what makes you least crazy." How did she get so smart so fast?
Last night, my friend Vicki, who has a 4-year-old and a newborn, listened to me yak about my latest career idea, and then sighed. "I look forward to being in that position again to even think about those things," she said. I was blown away by her wisdom and the gentleness with which she treated herself in that comment. I didn't have that kind of intelligence or peace when I was still nursing my second child. I was angry as hell and constantly battering myself for not having a job (even though I didn't really want one).
"There's time in the universe for everything I want to do," she continued, sipping a nonalcoholic, lactose-free beverage in the bar at Atlas Foods. "If I can't do something now, I just put it back out there and have faith that I'll come back to it."
Amen, Sister.
But I'll have a champagne cocktail with that thought.
I'm not afraid (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Comin' to a wheat field (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Can't go around it (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Gotta go through it (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Swish swish swish swish swish swish
Having reached the other side of the River Styx, at least for now, it is easy to say that what one goes through as a new mother is temporary but unavoidable. I knew this in the thick of things, too - but I railed against the unfairness of it. There was simply no way around the mental instability, broken sleep, physical exhaustion, and emotional desert of caring for two tiny children. It made me weak and classically female in a way I couldn't accept. I wanted to blame someone for what was causing me to suffer. Capitalism! The Patriarchy! My mother! There had to be a way out. But it was - and is - just what it is. Motherhood. On the side of Life, I can say this without bitterness. On the side of Death, I said it with a wail: "My children are killing me!"
One way to not let my children kill me was to pursue life outside the family. This required some sacrifice from them (if spending time away from their screaming, withdrawn mother was really a sacrifice). One evening a week, I led a suport group for new parents. Now, before you laugh at this image of the blind leading the the blind, consider this: the helping professions are lousy with depressives and addicts. Everyone knows the joke that not a few crazy people train as psychotherapists, recovered cokeheads become addiction counselors, and the ranks of teachers are packed with the suffering and the wounded. I fit right in. Being fresh off the battlefield, I wanted these sleep-deprived, paralyzed-by-worry parents to know that I understood them. That they were not alone. That somehow I could help them avoid the crazy-making mental ruts I had gotten into as a new parent.
They seemd to resent my presumption. I had forgotten that new parents tend to think their experience is unique. I had forgotten the grand fantasies they/we have that we will triumph where others have failed. That with our education, coolness, professional life, insight, whatever, we will Do This Right. And I had forgotten that I didn't get out of my rut because someone gave me the right advice.
I noticed, after a few more meetings, that when I released my agenda, shut up, and allowed them to share their failings and misgivings with each other (hesitantly, at first: no one wants to be outed as a substandard parent), they softened and began to lean on one another. I saw that emotional quagmire is part of many parents' experience, and there just ain't no way around it. Squish squish squish squish.
Now I'm leading a second group. These mothers are showing me the same thing: Okay, no one is ever going to solve this basic problem of the impossibility of being a mother. Not the right book, not the right exercise regimen, not even the most stellar partner. So how are we going to have reasonable lives? One of the moms said, "You have to do what makes you least crazy." How did she get so smart so fast?
Last night, my friend Vicki, who has a 4-year-old and a newborn, listened to me yak about my latest career idea, and then sighed. "I look forward to being in that position again to even think about those things," she said. I was blown away by her wisdom and the gentleness with which she treated herself in that comment. I didn't have that kind of intelligence or peace when I was still nursing my second child. I was angry as hell and constantly battering myself for not having a job (even though I didn't really want one).
"There's time in the universe for everything I want to do," she continued, sipping a nonalcoholic, lactose-free beverage in the bar at Atlas Foods. "If I can't do something now, I just put it back out there and have faith that I'll come back to it."
Amen, Sister.
But I'll have a champagne cocktail with that thought.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Signs of Life
We just spent a week in Boston with my in-laws and I didn't have to take even one Xanax. I believe this is a sign of spiritual and cerebral health.
Other signs of health:
Other signs of health:
- There is a reasonable amount of frozen food piled in the freezer drawer. When I have to rearrange the boxes of frozen waffles, Trader Joe's tamales and assorted Processed Organic Crap every time I open the freezer, just so I can shut it again, all is not well in the village. Likewise when the refrigerator shelves boast nothing but a few whithered carrots and a jar of mayonnaise. If there is no frozen food and the fridge is stuffed with fresh produce and meats, I'm either exceedingly energetic or about to go mad.
- The ratio of time I spend on housewifery and on-the-clock mothering is equal to or less than the time I spend writing, doing yoga, or dancing around the attic with Harvey Danger on my iPod.
- The strength and fortitude to "waste" baby sitter time on the above.
- When my feisty 2-year-old starts torturing her big brother, I knock her down with tickles and start a rolicking game of chase with them both throughout the house. This happens far less often than I'd like to say. But it replaces the depressed behaviors, such as yelling and hiding in the bathroom.
Last night we got home in the middle of the night after ten hours of travel and a drive from Sea-Tac in freezing rain. Matt and I put the children to bed directly, then scarfed frozen junk food (Amy's Quiche Florentine) while standing at the kitchen island. We continued our snippy argument over who was more of a jerk in the airport.
"You know," he said, "sometimes when you get tired, you act like you're about 12 years old."
I laughed.
Health.
Friday, May 05, 2006
The Crack Up
It was 5 o'clock. I was alone with the kids. The recipe required a stick of butter.
Baby A, 15 months, was building up to a tantrum. As I tread the floorboards back and forth from sink to fridge to prep island, she followed at heel, whining for me, wrapping her chubby starfish hands around my calves. The dog paced in circles around the island, a slinky black figure, nosing the floor for drops.
The recipe required a stick of butter. I untangled the baby from my legs to step over her and reach the refrigerator. There stood my preschooler, Mister J.
"I want a cup of water with some ice in it," he said.
I stepped back over the baby. Opened a low cupboard. The baby shrieked, humped over to the cupboard door, and slammed it on my arm. There will be no open cupboards tonight! She continued to complain about the open cupboard as I retrieved a plastic cup. I stepped over her again to the fridge.
"Excuse me," I said to J. He ignored me and continued to stand in front of the refrigerator. Baby A's behavior had him transfixed. He stared at her with his soft brown gaze as she reapplied herself to my legs. "If you want the ice, you have to let me open the door."
He didn't move, but allowed himself to be herded aside as I opened the freezer, grabbed a handful of ice, and chucked it in the plastic cup. I peeled the baby off me.
"Here, now go sit at the table," I said, and stomped back to the recipe.
The recipe required a stick of butter. I turned back to the fridge. I opened the fridge. I got purchase on the butter.
"Momomomomomomommakeherstopshe'stryingtotakemyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!" screeched Mister J. I looked down to find A smacking her brother's arm and grasping for his plastic cup. I put the butter down. I knelt and held A's smacking hands. "No hitting," I admonished. "J, go sit at the table where she can't get your cup."
"But I want to stand here."
Then A signed for milk. The dog, seeing that no food was actually being prepared, had retreated to her empty food bowl in the corner of the kitchen and was now whining and prancing in place. I got the milk. I fed the dog. I unwrapped the wax paper from the butter, halfway. Miss A grasped my leg again. I put the butter down. I gave her a pot and a wooden spoon. I opened the cupboard for a bowl to melt the butter in. SLAM it went on my arm again. I removed A's hands from the cupboard door. I snaked a bowl out. I finished unwrapping the butter. I dumped it into the bowl. I tried to open the microwave, which is under the counter. SLAM it went on my arm again. And there were fresh howls from the baby, as if she were protesting my opening the microwave when I knew how much it bothered her. Before I could set the cook time on the microwave, I had to attend to the problem of her howling. I sat on the floor and held her. But now Mister J was crying, too.
"Tell her to stop crying," he cried. "It hurts my ears!"
It hurt my ears, too. But the recipe required a stick of butter. And now the dog wanted out for a pee.
Not soon after, I morphed into one of those moms you see being trashed on Oprah because someone filmed her spanking the daylights out of her child in a Kmart parking lot. Luckily, I was in the walled kingdom of my house. It was winter. I am fairly certain no one heard the vulgarities that flew from my lips, the blunt four-letter words beiginning with F, the references to sons of female dogs, etc.
I didn't stop for two weeks.
Baby A, 15 months, was building up to a tantrum. As I tread the floorboards back and forth from sink to fridge to prep island, she followed at heel, whining for me, wrapping her chubby starfish hands around my calves. The dog paced in circles around the island, a slinky black figure, nosing the floor for drops.
The recipe required a stick of butter. I untangled the baby from my legs to step over her and reach the refrigerator. There stood my preschooler, Mister J.
"I want a cup of water with some ice in it," he said.
I stepped back over the baby. Opened a low cupboard. The baby shrieked, humped over to the cupboard door, and slammed it on my arm. There will be no open cupboards tonight! She continued to complain about the open cupboard as I retrieved a plastic cup. I stepped over her again to the fridge.
"Excuse me," I said to J. He ignored me and continued to stand in front of the refrigerator. Baby A's behavior had him transfixed. He stared at her with his soft brown gaze as she reapplied herself to my legs. "If you want the ice, you have to let me open the door."
He didn't move, but allowed himself to be herded aside as I opened the freezer, grabbed a handful of ice, and chucked it in the plastic cup. I peeled the baby off me.
"Here, now go sit at the table," I said, and stomped back to the recipe.
The recipe required a stick of butter. I turned back to the fridge. I opened the fridge. I got purchase on the butter.
"Momomomomomomommakeherstopshe'stryingtotakemyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!" screeched Mister J. I looked down to find A smacking her brother's arm and grasping for his plastic cup. I put the butter down. I knelt and held A's smacking hands. "No hitting," I admonished. "J, go sit at the table where she can't get your cup."
"But I want to stand here."
Then A signed for milk. The dog, seeing that no food was actually being prepared, had retreated to her empty food bowl in the corner of the kitchen and was now whining and prancing in place. I got the milk. I fed the dog. I unwrapped the wax paper from the butter, halfway. Miss A grasped my leg again. I put the butter down. I gave her a pot and a wooden spoon. I opened the cupboard for a bowl to melt the butter in. SLAM it went on my arm again. I removed A's hands from the cupboard door. I snaked a bowl out. I finished unwrapping the butter. I dumped it into the bowl. I tried to open the microwave, which is under the counter. SLAM it went on my arm again. And there were fresh howls from the baby, as if she were protesting my opening the microwave when I knew how much it bothered her. Before I could set the cook time on the microwave, I had to attend to the problem of her howling. I sat on the floor and held her. But now Mister J was crying, too.
"Tell her to stop crying," he cried. "It hurts my ears!"
It hurt my ears, too. But the recipe required a stick of butter. And now the dog wanted out for a pee.
Not soon after, I morphed into one of those moms you see being trashed on Oprah because someone filmed her spanking the daylights out of her child in a Kmart parking lot. Luckily, I was in the walled kingdom of my house. It was winter. I am fairly certain no one heard the vulgarities that flew from my lips, the blunt four-letter words beiginning with F, the references to sons of female dogs, etc.
I didn't stop for two weeks.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Intro
My understanding is primitive, I'll admit. But I love this idea of being a spiritual warrior. The image sustains me. We all have our burdens; mine are depression and motherhood. So I try to cultivate the Warrior to find heart, compassion, gratitude.
And you know, the path is dotted with Legos, preschool snacks, pink liquid amoxicillin for little ear infections. Sleeplessness. Plus the odd Major Depressive Episode that renders me dysfunctional and spiritually flat as a pancake.
To save my life, I have meditation, yoga, and the salmon-colored pills I down after breakfast. I am as ambivalent about those pills as I am about being the mother of two kids under four. But here we are.
I share my recent post-crack-up story, as it is still unfolding, because I know there are many more women out there like me. We know a lot about depression these days, especially PPD, but what about CMID (chronic motherhood-induced depression)? (I made this term up; you won't find it in the DSM-IV.) To me it feels like I must be a warrior just to make it out of bed, and so much more so to care for my children, and even more to care for myself. Beyond that, spiritual health can seem as far away as my old dress size. I want to hear more stories from the trenches.
And my story, well, it's my story. It's important that I tell the truth here. So, as they say in 12 step programs, take what you like and leave the rest.
And you know, the path is dotted with Legos, preschool snacks, pink liquid amoxicillin for little ear infections. Sleeplessness. Plus the odd Major Depressive Episode that renders me dysfunctional and spiritually flat as a pancake.
To save my life, I have meditation, yoga, and the salmon-colored pills I down after breakfast. I am as ambivalent about those pills as I am about being the mother of two kids under four. But here we are.
I share my recent post-crack-up story, as it is still unfolding, because I know there are many more women out there like me. We know a lot about depression these days, especially PPD, but what about CMID (chronic motherhood-induced depression)? (I made this term up; you won't find it in the DSM-IV.) To me it feels like I must be a warrior just to make it out of bed, and so much more so to care for my children, and even more to care for myself. Beyond that, spiritual health can seem as far away as my old dress size. I want to hear more stories from the trenches.
And my story, well, it's my story. It's important that I tell the truth here. So, as they say in 12 step programs, take what you like and leave the rest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
