Category Archives: anxiety

anxiety, motherhood, parenting, Recovery

Escape Artist

It being close to St. Patrick’s Day, I’m going to invoke Murphy’s Law: all that will go wrong, shall – especially if you speak to the opposite.

Just last week, I was telling my father that I always thought Angela, two and a half, would behave just as Julia, now four, did when she was that age. And how, surprisingly enough, she wasn’t. That what I thought was ‘terrible two’ behavior was in fact, Julia’s unique disposition.

Julia was by no means a terrible toddler. The second born, she was accustomed to following her big sister around (see previous post on how I dragged her to the library as an infant). Going places and doing things made her more gregarious and more kinesthetic. Plus, she needed an easy-going nature in order to survive toys being perpetually shoved in her face or being startled out of a sound sleep without posttraumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, easy-going was also her attitude towards rules and directions.

Crossing the street a danger? Nah. I can run at full-tilt with my eyes closed. Wait for Mommy? Nah. The world is a safe place. Stay dressed in the outerwear Mom turned herself inside out to get me into? Optional. I’ll just run fast enough to stay warm.

Julia entered this phase of independence and autonomy just as I entered an unexpected phase of disability. In the latter days and weeks of my pregnancy and during labor, I suffered what is medically referred to as pubic symphysis diastasis. In laymen’s (or women’s) terms, it hurt like hell. The muscles in my pelvis had stretched just enough that I could not sit up in bed or get out of it without excruciating pain. I had to sidestep the stairs one at a time. I had to bend to the floor to slide my pant legs up.

While my pain and limited mobility were very real, to everyone else I was a young woman shuffling like some sort of invalid with no reason at all. I imagined them thinking, “What, does she think she’s the first woman to have ever given birth? Women in some parts of the world go back to working the fields the very same day!” In fact, many of the nurses in the hospital thought this birth was my first when they saw me lolling about the room – until they heard my diagnosis.

Unfortunately, pubic symphysis diastasis is not something that rolls off the tongue, nor something you want to share with the ladies at preschool pick-up; a fact which made one pick-up in particularly very interesting. Bella, the preschooler at the time, was due to return from a field trip. The time stretched and stretched as myself and two other mothers with small children waited, the little ones growing more and more antsy. They edged closer and closer to the corner of the building, then toward the rusted metal bike rack that looked infinitely interesting amidst the sea of concrete, then into the wide open expanse of the school yard on the far side of the building. One of the other mothers engaged her son in a game of tag designed to lure Julia back towards us, he being more compliant than my child. She played along for a few minutes, then made a break for freedom, shooting across the play yard toward the driveway and street beyond. My heart leapt to my throat as I weighed my options. Yell to her? Abandon her baby sister by the door and chase after her? My hesitation gave her a healthy head start, after which I shuffled like a decrepit zombie across the pavement, waiting to watch in slow motion as she was squished like a bug by a passing car. Luckily, the other mothers, despite no prior knowledge of my condition, took pity on me and ran to her aid. We only knew each other in the hellos and goodbyes of the previous weeks, but they rallied to the universal crisis call of motherhood and helped me. Thank God.

We returned to the door to resume our wait, me clutching Julia fiercely and muttering something about, “Wonder what my physical therapist would say about that?” to somehow excuse my absolute ineptitude at chasing after my daughter. Angela lay sleeping in her infant carrier right where I had left her, totally oblivious to the melee.

So, perhaps you’ll understand my concern when another year of preschool drop-offs and pick-ups – this time Julia’s – rolled around. I think I was the one with posttraumatic stress. I dreaded that Angela, now that magic number, would put me through the same paces Julia had. As the year progressed, I started to think that it was still Julia who was the difficult one; the one who channeled Goldilocks when it was time to choose shoes; the one who ripped out her perfectly parted ponytails mere seconds before it was time to go; the one who refused to even step out the door. Angela seemed easy in comparison.

Enter Murphy’s Law. Mere days after my proclamation to my father, Miss Angela entered the dreaded phase. Pulling into the driveway and springing the kids so they could run about in the yard while I unloaded, Angela disappeared. Julia hadn’t left the grass of the front yard, but Angela had wandered off somewhere. I finally found her standing in my neighbor’s backyard, grinning. A few days later in said neighbor’s backyard, while her sisters played with the girls, Angela moved out to their driveway to take their tricycle for a spin. I watched her over the gate. When I turned to say something to my neighbor and then back, she was gone. I heard Julia calling for me, and found her chasing her sister and the trike down the street. And just this morning, as I trucked groceries from the trunk to the kitchen, Angela followed along – until I stopped to yell at a squirrel to stop digging up my fledgling garden. At the end of my tirade, I sensed her absence and hurried to the front yard – to find her strolling down the street, hands in pockets. I called to her as I approached, at which she laughed and broke into a run. I’m still out of shape, but at least this time, I was able to catch my escapee.

So, lessons learned. Never let your kids get a running start – regardless of your level of disability. Never peg one child as the challenging one – another one will step up to prove you wrong. Never accept any platitude about parenting – circumstances will change the very next day.

Standard
anxiety, Literacy, motherhood, parenting

Story Time

It’s a good thing I believe in the power of reading – because if I didn’t, there’s no way I’d take my kids to the library.  Time after time, it proves to be a taxing experience – one I’m not sure is balanced by the benefits of the books we obtain.

The kids, however, love it.  So much, in fact, that they burst through the doors like an invading army, one running this way, one the other.  Unfortunately, the front doors deposit us right into the “quiet” section of the library.  While I try to corral them towards the book drop, they dodge and weave, this last time with Julia lighting upon the stack of rolling bins “just like the ones at the grocery store, Mama” to tote books around in – even though I can’t get her to carry our tote bag.

After numerous shushes on the way to the reserves where Mommy’s book is waiting, it’s time to commandeer the children’s section.  They rush to the stairs with renewed vigor, Angela’s voice reverberating through all the levels as we ascend.

They do comment on a few books on display en route to the play area, Julia picking one on various modes of transportation throughout the ages.  Story time must have just ended because there are many little people and their parents hovering about.  Julia and Angela dive into the crowd, playing with the puppet theatre and puzzles; making friends more easily than I.  Julia sits on a low-slung kid couch near another mother and starts a conversation with the Tyrannosaurus she’s operating.  Angela giggles at the parrot another mother has squawking.  I smile and mill about.  These two must already know each other because a few minutes later, I can’t help but overhear one relay the story of her husband’s possible adultery to other.  One father with a preschooler and an infant looks up in surprise when he sees his baby smiling through a gap in a bookshelf, playing peek-a-boo with me – maybe he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself either.  A grandmother plops in a chair after depositing her toddler into the play area, looking worn out.  I want to tell her I feel her pain.

Today, as with nearly every visit here, I’m having flashbacks to when Julia was an infant.  So exhausted as a new mother, yet determined to keep my active two and a half year-old busy, I would strap Julia to the front of me and take Bella to story-time.  I think I was trying a passive-aggressive attempt at keeping some semblance of pre-baby # 2.  I figured if I couldn’t sleep when she slept and lie around all day in my pajamas, I may as well be out and about to distract myself from my misery.  I’m still not sure which was worse: a mom who could hustle around two of them, her harried mania bubbling just below the surface, or a mom drooling in delirium with a stir-crazy kid.  I was so desperate to latch on to something, I rushed the kids to story time without realizing there is an etiquette to such events.  I was lucky enough to attend the first meeting of a new session, at which there would be arts and crafts and for which advanced registration was required.  The most dour-looking librarian of the staff came over to me with her clipboard, pointing to my daughter, and asked, “And who might this be?”  After introductions, she said, “Ok, I’ll add her to the list for next time as she’s not signed up.”  I stammered some statement/question about pre-registration and she assured me it was fine; she had extra materials for the craft.  She had moved on to the next child, who was on her list, before I could thank her.  We went home with our contraband craft and never returned.

I guess I’m not much of a joiner.  One of the things I love about reading is getting lost in one’s own little world, a world that changes from chapter to chapter, book to book.  The solitary, quiet joy of it.  Although, I do love sharing and discussing the juicy details of a book I’ve just finished with someone else.  It has to be someone I know will enjoy it equally though.  Someone who loves a good story for the pure, unadulterated joy of it; the thrill of figuring out a mystery; the ache of a loss as if it were your own.  Not someone who will rebuff me because I wasn’t playing by a set of rules I didn’t even know existed.

I still take my kids to the library.  Though I’d much rather get my books and run, I let them say hello to the fish in the aquarium; put together puzzles that are missing a few pieces; pluck books from the shelf not by their merit, but because they’re at eye-level.  I let them scan the books at the self-check station even though their squeals as they push each other off the stool they’re sharing make me cringe – never mind the other patrons.  I take them to the library because they need to create their own experiences in the world of reading.  I can’t force them to operate under a set of rules made by someone else; they need to be afforded the same opportunities as those kids whose names are on the list.

Plus, it always makes for a really good story.

Standard
anxiety, Living, motherhood, parenting

Same $*@#, Different Day

There are times when I wake up in the morning and don’t know what day it is.  It takes my mind a minute to focus and remember.  I can blame a lot of this on lack of sleep.  My body feeling like its packed inside a bag of cotton balls, it’s no wonder my head is foggy.  But I think most of it has to do with the repetitive nature of my days.

Don’t get me wrong – I love routines.  I actually get a bit batty without them.  Anxious people like me do not like the unexpected (except surprise gifts on Mother’s Day – much to my husband’s chagrin).  I’m much better at fitting everything in if I have a set list of objectives and time frames within which to do them.

I’m thinking you can wear routines out though.  Without variety, you ain’t got no spice, right?  And life right now is looking pretty bland.  It’s the first week off winter vacation.  The weather’s cold, actually wet and snowy for once this year, the kids (and I) struggling to get back into the groove of wake-ups, waffle-making, lunch-packing, teeth-brushing, coat-wrestling, out-the-door running.

This morning, Thursday, I woke up saying, Thank God I don’t have to go anywhere besides drop-off and pick-up.  Four days into the week, I’m already so beat-down, I could barely crawl into my sweats.

I suppose I could approach this the way Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day, righting all the wrongs the second, third, fourth time around.  I could go to bed earlier tonight so I wake up somewhat refreshed.  I could make Bella’s lunch after dinner so I don’t have to scramble in the morning.  I could plan something new and different for tomorrow to break the monotony.  But in real life, unlike the movies, we don’t always get the moral of the story.

Sometimes we get so worn down in our ruts that we can’t see up over the rim.  And we wake up in the morning to the same day, essentially, because we’re dealing with the same shit.

But I’m thinking maybe this is nature’s way of getting us to embrace change.  We get so sick of ourselves and the monotony that we’re thrown off the track and forced to forge a new one.

It’s times like this that I find the pages in my cookbooks that aren’t yet dog-eared.  I purge all that clothing I’ve been meaning to give to good will.  I seek out friends that I’ve been meaning to make plans with.  I try some long-forgotten yoga pose.  I stretch muscles I’d forgotten I had.

All of life is cyclical.  Like the tides and the lunar cycle, today and its attendant shit are bound to come around again.  But in between, there will be moments of shock and awe and the sublime.  I’ll just have to remember not to get caught out too far when the tide comes back in.

So I’m sure I’ll find something exciting to get me through this low point.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and remember what day it is.  Until then, you’ll have to excuse me, I have another load of laundry to do.

Standard
anxiety, motherhood, postpartum depression

The Next Step

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  – Lao Tzu

My first step was recognition.  Recognizing the fact that something was not right.  Then stepping through the door of my therapist, nearly two years ago to the day.  Accepting the fact that I suffered from postpartum depression.  Asking for help to make things right.

And with her help, I did begin to make things right.  I began to relish those Tuesday evenings when I would give Angela her nighttime feeding and hand her off to Daddy, kiss the other two on top of their heads, and head out the door.  In the waiting room, sometimes I’d get fifteen minutes to myself to collect my thoughts, jot down ideas in the notebook I’d all but deserted in the bottom of my bag, or – gasp – read a mindless magazine.  She even joked with me once about how early I’d arrived: “Need some quiet time?”  I told my mom that it was nice to just have someone to listen.  “How sad is it that I have to pay someone to do that?” I quipped.

But my mother completely understood.  I’d put her in the selfsame shoes thirty years earlier.  A mother, a woman, most times comes last on her list of obligations.  Doing laundry, changing diapers, wiping noses, reading stories, making lunches, making love – there is no time to even think about what would please you, let alone do it.  So an hour of sitting still and talking someone’s ear off about my problems – that was well worth the $35 co-pay.

And unlike other pursuits outside the home, say ladies’ night or a yoga class, there was no guilt attached to this.  I was not choosing time away from my children.  I had to do this or I would go out of my head.  I needed healing and she was my practitioner.  So for someone who was already feeling like a bad mother, this was the perfect escape.

In fact, I even called my car the escape vehicle.  When I had an appointment, I got to drive my sedan, not the RV-like vehicle that fit all the kids.  The car I used to commute in to work each day.  The first new car I ever owned.  The car that, when it sat idle in the driveway, represented all about my old way of life that was dead.

Then the most miraculous thing happened.  As I became a less stressed woman, I became a better mother.  And as I began to achieve some sort of equilibrium, I actually began to think about what would make me happy.  Let me rephrase that.  I began to formulate ways to make me happy.  Because as a depressed person, all I thought about was why I wasn’t happy.  Why was this happening to me?

I do not believe God is vengeful.  Or spiteful.  So even though I was by no means a saint, I figured there was no way He would wish something like postpartum on me.  And so I searched for a ray of light in the darkness.  I had a recurring thought.  There had to be some way to help other women realize that the horrible, terrible feelings of worthlessness that come with postpartum are not theirs to bear alone.

That thought led into a brainstorm that still has me swirling.  Its development has led to a change in course for my career, even my life’s calling.  And right alongside it has developed a better and stronger me.  Through it all, my therapist has been right beside me.

So on a January night not unlike the first that I walked through her door, I was heading to my therapist’s office.  And not unlike that first night, I was nervous.  In fact, I almost dreaded going.  Because, not unlike other things she’d waited patiently for me to figure out, I suspected this might be my last visit.  On some level, I’d known on my most recent visit that I was becoming strong enough to continue on my own, but like any human who is her own worst enemy, I ignored the niggling sensation of knowing and scheduled my next appointment.  In the back of my head, I heard my friend say that she’d stopped going to see her therapist regularly when they’d run out of things to talk about.  Not yet, I thought.

At the appointment, I updated her on all the items ticked off my to-do list and how I planned to accomplish the others.  I shared successes; the resolution of sticky situations I’d been dealing with.  As the clock wore down on our hour, it sounded very much like a debrief.  An after-report.  The niggling knowledge bubbled just below the surface.

“What do you want to do?” she asked at the end of the session.

I knew what she meant.  “I don’t think I need to schedule,” I said hesitantly.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed.  “But that doesn’t mean you can’t call whenever you need to come in.”

I knew she meant this, too.  But I couldn’t help feeling a little like the kid whose Dad says he’ll hang onto the bike seat, but lets go as soon as the pedals start spinning down the street for the first time without training wheels.

She was not deserting me.  She was giving me a more literal translation of Lao Tzu’s quote, “The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.”

She helped me find my feet again, but now it’s time I stood on my own.

Standard
anxiety, motherhood, postpartum depression

My Cart Runneth Over

One needs only go to the grocery store on any given day to see a range of behaviors and experiences in the mothering world – and many mothers I can only imagine are struggling or have known the struggle at some point in their lives.

I saw a young mother in the checkout line.

“Madeline, I told you repeatedly to stay by me.  Stand over here,” she said to her toddler, while she adjusted her infant’s car seat carrier on the carriage.  I caught her eye and smiled.  She just looked, in the midst of her exasperation.

An older woman, in her late sixties, early seventies stopped to comment on my baby’s smile.  Then she saw her older sister playing peek-a-boo behind her.

“Oh, how happy we all are,” she said.

Then she leaned in to tell me conspiratorially that that’s what she used to call “happy asses”.  I said I’d take that any day.  She asked how close in age they were: 1, 3, and 5 at the time.  She said she had seven by the time one was eight.  I tried not to show too much shock, but I’m sure the look on my face said something like ‘Holy Moses’.

“’Been there, done that,’ as they say, right?”

I thought, for sure, this woman knows the frustration and struggle I’m going through.  For sure, she’s wiped her brow on more than one occasion when she realized again that it was behind her.

Then she continued, “Goes by fast.”

I was surprised at the poignancy and nostalgia in her voice.  My reaction was one of disbelief or horror when she said how quickly she’d had her kids and how many.  And here she was seeming like she missed it.

“Perspective is everything” is also something they say.  To this woman, well past the chaos and tumult of life with young children so close in age, she can remember fondly the closeness, the value of being needed, the grimy little hands to hold and sticky cheeks to kiss.  Smack dab in the middle of it, I had a totally different perspective.  I wondered how I would make it through each day.  The end never was in sight.  I felt like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up to the top each day, only to start at the bottom again the next.

But, for whatever reason on this particular day, I was fine.  The grocery gods had shined on me and I made it through the store with nary an episode.  In fact, I tried to be the mentoring mother, looking at Madeline’s mother trying to make her feel better, give her a sense that this too shall pass.  She was too overwhelmed to see it, maybe wondering why I was looking at her, or worried about the judgment that strangers like me would pass on a mother who couldn’t control her children in the store – which I wasn’t doing at all, but had wondered countless times myself when I knew I had crossed the threshold of manageability.

And then when I got home, I crossed that threshold again.  I had a near nervous breakdown when the kids nagged, nagged, nagged for a snack as I tried to put away the groceries.  Here I was, thinking I’d accomplished something, ascended some plateau of sanity, normalcy, competency.  And just like that, I was plunged back into the chaos.  Just like that, I snapped.  The proverbial straw was yet again some insignificant stressor that shouldn’t have been that stressing at all.

It was then that I realized that postpartum depression is not something to “get over”.  Motherhood is a constant struggle.  The beauty is balanced by moments of biting your lip so hard it nearly bleeds.  Or like today when the words flew out before I could “zip the lips” as I tell my oldest.  “Been there, done that,” doesn’t make you an expert.  You cannot surmount the odds one day and never be at the foot of the mountain again.  You can be that low minutes after dizzying heights.

In reality, it does go by fast, as the elderly woman in the grocery store said.  This too shall pass, as I signaled via my smile to the young mother.  One moment at a time, surmounting each struggle as it comes.  And one day I’ll be shopping without the kids in tow, notice how serenely yet surreally quiet it is, and I’m sure I’ll be chatting up some one year-old.  Until then, I hope I can continue to fill my shopping cart with blessings and have the mindfulness to see the wealth and not the cost.

Standard
anxiety, medication, motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression

Happy Pills

Is it bad that I cannot get through a day in my life without drugs?  I’m not talking about some narcotic to give me a buzz or knock me through a loop.  I’m talking about a low dose of what my husband refers to as my ‘happy pills’.

Ironically, I was the girl who, even in high school, had to request liquid antibiotics from her doctor because she couldn’t swallow pills.  I suffered through terrible sinus pressure and congestion because I didn’t want to take decongestants.  Severe morning sickness during my first pregnancy only added insult to injury as I gagged on humungous prenatal vitamins.  And deciding on natural childbirth was all the easier for me as it precluded a giant needle being stabbed in my back for the epidural.  I often joked with my parents that they never had to worry about me being a drug addict because I couldn’t swallow pills and hated needles.

But all this made my decision to start antidepressants during a bout with postpartum depression after the birth of my third child all the more difficult.  I was the woman who rarely took ibuprofen for a headache.  Now I was going to take a daily medication altering my hormonal chemistry?

Really, though, the issue was much more about control than anything else.  I’d had a hard time coming to terms with my diagnosis, thinking that I was a bad mother because I couldn’t handle caring for my three children.  And now the fact that I couldn’t hack it with therapy and lifestyle changes was an even more resounding affirmation of my failure to control things – that I was a failure.

Then a few months of feeling like I’d been dragged through mud and up again changed my mind.  I wasn’t able to do it on my own, but I wanted to change.  I wanted to stop feeling subterranean.  I wanted to rejoin the land of the living.  And enjoy the lives of my children.

However, I did always look to the weaning of my one-year old as the end date of my medicinal therapy.  I figured my hormone levels would regulate themselves and things would go back to ‘normal’.  Nearly three months after that, I was nearing the end of my last refill and decided I wouldn’t request another.  Actually, the procrastinator in me decided since I hadn’t reordered in time.  I lasted a week.  In that one week, which happened to coincide with the week of Christmas and all its resulting chaos, I relived all the instances that had put me on the medication in the first place.  Afterwards, I told my therapist that one week reaffirmed my decision and that I never wanted to be there again.

Fast-forward a year.  Again, my ninety-day supply of meds was dwindling; again, with no refill.  I think my stubborn will to conquer this on my own was still lurking inside somewhere because I watched the pills disappear one by one, the rattle against the side of the bottle getting softer and softer, and yet, doing nothing to secure another script.

“I should be over this by now,” I thought.  “Surely I can handle life as it is without a pill.”

As sick as I’d grown of remembering to pop a pill each night and worrying if I’d taken it too long after supper so that it’d rip my stomach apart, I took the last pill with a gulp of regret.  Would I be able to do this on my own?

The answer came just days later.  Acutely aware of the placebo effect, I wondered how much of it was my own imagining, but I felt myself getting tenser by the day.  I found myself jumping on my kids for the smallest infraction.  I heard my voice taking on the tone of the beast I’d been in the beginning.  I saw my oldest start to tune out my overreactions like I’d seen my former students do when I’d lost it and all they heard was noise, not warnings.

And the crying.

If I can call it that.  The sudden, overwhelming urge to cry.  Usually when things were too much to handle: a particularly hectic pick-up at school, all three of them fighting and hurting each other.  But also at unexpected times: discussing home-heating options with my husband, reading a particularly poignant editorial in the newspaper.  That last one gave me pause, as it reminded me of the tears that sprang up after watching a Haagen-Dazs commercial during one of my pregnancies.  And though the idea of being pregnant again scared me enough to make me wonder for a second, I knew it was just my emotional response to things getting to be too much.

My husband wondered if I just had a good cry, let it all out, would I be able to then feel better and move on?  But the tears wouldn’t exactly come.  Just the feeling of despair and my face squinched in anguish, but no tears.  It’s not like I was holding it in; it was just a pervading feeling lurking below the surface all the time.

Just like the feeling that I had each night as I wallowed on the couch.  I was so exhausted I needed to go to sleep, yet couldn’t get myself up and into my pajamas.

But through it all, I knew God was watching out for me and I knew He had a sense of humor amidst the direst circumstances.

Nearly a week after I’d taken my last pill and wondered daily if I’d made the right decision, I took my two youngest into the basement with me.  With one New Years’ resolution being to finally complete a play area downstairs for the kids, I set about cleaning while they played nearby.  They played well and stayed right by me until I ran upstairs for something.  They followed, but didn’t return downstairs when I did.  I noted this and made a mental note to check on them as soon as I finished the task at hand.  Then I worked a few more minutes, and a few more, a few more – until I realized I’d taken far too long to finish and leave them alone at some unknown activity.  I returned to the main floor and they were nowhere to be found.  I continued on upstairs and heard muted voices behind the closed bedroom door.  Julia, my four year-old, was seated at her play table, about to open multiple cans of Play-doh, but yet to do any damage.  Angela, the two year-old, however, was seated on the counter above the built-in drawers – and above the mounds of toys and books and other things she’d flung onto the floor.  Before I finished my tirade, I noticed a slimy blob on the floor, and then another.  My hand slid across the seat of the hand-painted rocking chair as I leaned on it to get a closer look at the floor.  Angela had uncapped two of her oldest sister’s lip balms and squeezed the sticky substance onto the floors and furniture rather than her mouth.

Part of me raged and another part of me, much less adamant than the first, knew that this was my fault.  While it was easier to finish cleaning downstairs without them, it wasn’t smart to leave the two of them unattended with modeling clay and make-up.  I really was lucky they had only made a mess and not hurt themselves.

I cleaned a little and then stomped downstairs, figuring it was better to do that than remain and scream bloody-murder (see previous paragraphs).  And that’s when I realized God’s impeccable timing and sense of humor.  While all I could see was a supreme annoyance, something my kids did that was about to send me over the edge, it was, in fact, a very teachable moment.  The answer to my quandaries was right in front of me.  Was it better to rain down holy hell on my kids for doing something well within the realm of acceptable for an unsupervised two and four year-old or to take a pill that helps me keep things in perspective?  When relating the story later that day, I joked that God was telling me I’d better take the pills so I wouldn’t kill my kids.

It took me two more days before I called my doctor to request the refill.  Old, stubborn habits die hard, I guess.  I still feel a little weak for not being able to live life as I now know it without one of my happy pills, but life as I know it is not changing anytime soon.  And my attitude certainly does need to change if I’m going to be happy and be the best mother I can.

Standard
anxiety, motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression

Chopping Potatoes

One evening when my third daughter was about four months old, I was in the midst of supper preparations – in the midst of many things, actually.  My two older daughters intermittently terrorizing each other and whining for snacks; the baby fully into the witching hour and all that entailed; my husband walking through the door, home from work and hungry.  All this swirled around me whilst I tried to chop very dense potatoes with a very sharp knife and not cut my fingers off or lose my mind.

And that’s when a very troubling thought came to mind.

“If I just chopped my finger, I’d have to go to the emergency room – and I could leave all this behind.”

At the time, I had already started counseling for post-partum depression.  When I mentioned it to my therapist, she nodded.

“Fight or flight,” she said.  “You were feeling overwhelmed, threatened, and your body’s response was to run.”

That I could understand.  My friend, when I had told her, I think, was afraid I was going to attempt suicide or hurt myself in some other way.  But I’d never harm myself, I argued, or the kids.  I’d heard the freakishly tragic stories of mothers driving their children and themselves into a lake; that thought had never crossed my mind.

But running away?  Sometimes I wished that was a possibility.

In my mind, one scene kept playing over and over on a mental movie screen.  The scene in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when Ashley Judd’s character drives for hours and lands in a seaside motel and sleeps for innumerable days.  When she finally wakes up, she calls the front desk to ask what day it is.  I knew I’d never act on it, but that became my fantasy.

My midwife asked me, “Do you ever think of running away?”

“Yeah, but I’d come back.  Maybe after a day or so.”

I was in over my head enough to feel this way, but my fingers had a firm enough grip on the edge that I knew it would be crazy to act on it.

It was a strange time in my life.  Like the patient who realizes she has Alzheimer’s but can’t do anything to stop it, I was fully aware of the difference of the irrational thoughts and feelings, but experienced them anyway.  I had a clarity of vision throughout, but could do nothing to stop my reaction to the tenor of my life at the time.

And neither could I do anything to change the tenor of my life.  Life was chaos.  There was no way around it.  I was a stay-at-home mom with an infant who was exclusively breastfeeding and therefore still on no set schedule.  My two year-old was willfully learning her way in the world and quite often bucking any system I tried to set up.  My four year-old had just started preschool, which didn’t mean one less kid at home; it meant dressing up three to hoof them all to school to drop her off, then pick her up two hours and forty-five minutes later.  Then a three-ring circus until I was drooling and twitching by the time my husband arrived home, which was right around the time I was chopping potatoes.

Chopping potatoes has become my metaphor for everything that’s hard about being a mother: the tedium that drives us insane, the seemingly simple that becomes infinitely difficult, trying to focus amidst endless distraction.  And how things get considerably more dicey when one’s wielding a knife.

Even now, nearly two years later, I still have an almost visceral reaction to chopping potatoes, but more often than not, I can counter it with my own version of Dana Carvey’s Saturday Night Live skit.  I may not be “chopping broccoli,” but I’ve found that laughter goes a long way in lowering stress levels.  And that’s really all we can do.  Keep the stress levels manageable enough that we don’t end up in a motel miles from home with no idea what day it is.  Or in the emergency room instead of sitting at the dinner table with our family enjoying a well-rounded meal.

Because chopping potatoes sucks, but enjoying the fruits of our labor doesn’t.

Standard