Rest in peace, Michael. You are so, so loved.
Thank you, friends, for all your kind words of support.
Sliding Towards Happy
March 8, 2012 by ·
I suppose it’s natural that after selling one’s house and quitting one’s job and moving to another city away from one’s parents (one’s main source of support) that one would eventually come to a point where things feel somewhat less than hunky dory.
Or that’s my experience, anyway.
A few weeks ago a good friend asked how the transition was going and whether it had been at all hard. “Not at all,” I told him. “I don’t feel like I’ve even looked back.”
I’m one of those people who likes change. I love new places and new things and anything that gets me away from the stagnant ordinary. I get bored way too easily.
I’m also one of those people who doesn’t like to lose what’s overly familiar and who ticks along best with a routine.
These two ways of being are not mutually exclusive. They’re also not the perfect recipe for existential equilibrium.
Throw in stubborn and a dose of high standards and I’m pretty much screwed.
Things were going really well and I hadn’t at all questioned our decision to do this. However…I mentioned that I lowered my anti-depressant dose about three weeks ago. I did that for all sorts of reasons, and in large part because I don’t want to be dependent on this medication anymore. But I am.
I blame the ramping-up period of getting on to this medication for my breakdown earlier this year. Turns out coming off is no picnic either.
I knew within a week or so that coming off wasn’t a good idea. But once you’re in the crap, you kind of don’t want to lose the withdrawal days you’ve already invested, you know? So I kept going with the lower dose, praying that it would even out and I’d find myself again.
I didn’t.
I’m now at the end of week two of being sick with this horrible cold that’s going around. I missed a bunch of work last week and found myself very glad for the excuse of illness that allowed me to stay in bed a bit more than usual. Wanting to stay in bed is never a good sign for me. But it’s one that’s so easy to ignore. What is not easy to ignore, however, is having a record-breaking fight with your husband. In a restaurant. In front of your son.
Oy.
For a minute it felt like we were right back to the horrible state we were in a couple of years ago, except this time we were in it after having made a major decision that left us in a totally new world. Totally stuck, in other words.
It was awful. This past weekend was awful.
But my husband, bless him, was able to ask me if having lowered my medication dose was perhaps not such a good idea, and I was able to rail and say No, it’s not and but I don’t want to be on it and I’m scared.
And then I upped the dose again.
It has been immediately, noticeably better. Which, frankly, pisses me off. I will resent this medication for the rest of my life, whether I ever come off it or not. (I know, not a constructive way to feel, but there you go.)
But I suppose better is good and good is better than wanting to run away into the mountains and hope nobody notices you’re gone.
So that’s where things stand. The whole lot of suck from earlier this week is gone—or temporarily beaten back, anyway—and I feel like I can cope again. And maybe when I get over being sick I’ll be able to look a little farther afield and find my happy again.
Rainy Days and Mondays
March 4, 2012 by ·
Well not so much rain as snow, or that’s what in the forecast anyway. Quite a lot of it apparently. We’ll see if that actually comes to pass. Given the weirdly mild winter we’ve had I don’t know whether to expect it or not.
We’ve certainly got our share of Mondays though. Things around here are full of a whole lot of suck right now, so all I ask is this:
Please stand by. I’ll be back.
Credit: Stuck in Customs on Flickr
Remedial Mom 101
June 25, 2011 by ·
When Connor was born I, like every other new mom, did Mom 101 – figuring out all the newborn stuff that no one can really teach you. You just have to do it and learn as you go.
When postpartum depression struck I had some sick days and missed some classes. The ones where you learn how to deal with the difficult stuff. I didn’t master diversions, deep breathing, taking time for yourself or how to play with your child and actually be engaged in it. Since I’m feeling a little better I’m doing Remedial Mom 101 and taking those classes now.
I’m doing pretty well. In fact, I’m top of my class (of one).
After almost two months of complete and utter misery I finally, in the last few weeks, feel like I know what being a mom is supposed to feel like.
My gold stars in the hard courses are racking up as I manage to cope with stuff that’s normally a huge trigger for me. Case in point: yesterday I planned activities for us while my husband was at a meeting. We’d visit the nature sanctuary followed by the library, then make a stop on the way home for groceries.
It didn’t go well.
He fell and skinned his knee right as we entered the path towards the lake, and it was apparently just the wrong thing for a kid who, for some reason, was tired and not coping very well. He put on a sad face and wanted to be carried, then turned on the toddler-terror button and ran stomping down a bridge covered in dragonflies as I was trying to take a picture.
Then he peed himself.
That doesn’t happen often – ever, really (knock wood) – but we just dealt with it. After getting clean clothes from the car I told him we were going to head to the library. Apparently this was the worst suggestion ever.
The kid who had just said he wanted to go to the library had decided he needed to go back down the trail. Except he’d peed in his boots, and we had no other shoes. So off we went – I stopped at home to get him some shoes and he cried about the unacceptable change in plans.
When we got to the library, he was fine. At first anyway. We chose some books to check out. And then he had a meltdown. In a quiet library. Over something that I don’t really understand. But I got an A+ for diversions by getting him to help me use the self-checkout, though our success was temporary. The meltdown continued when I tried to ask the librarian a question and it ended up in one of those situations where I was carrying a bag, a stack of books and a 40 pound toddler out the door as fast as I could.
And then – oh yes, I did it – I braved the grocery store. I knew he was tired. But we needed something for lunch and, frankly, I didn’t want to have to go out again.
It was mostly okay, if you discount the constant whining as we went through the store. His attempt at throwing a carton of blueberries was prevented by my lightning-fast reflexes and I managed to sigh instead of wanting to smack something.
Good thing our list was small.
We checked out, I got him in the car and, boom, he was asleep.
I knew it. Had called it. Had texted my husband: “This is going to be a nap day.” I got home and handed him off. It had been a rough morning but I considered it a success.
That doesn’t mean I’ve graduated – it’s still early in the semester – but this is a huge sign that I’m feeling better.
I never had to take remedial anything, but this is one class I’m not ashamed of taking and am determined to pass. I think a SuperMom t-shirt is in my future.
Code: Meltdown
June 23, 2011 by ·
We’re good at meltdowns in this house. I can pull off a spectacular one, though have had less need lately. Connor, on the other hand, has an ongoing, intrinsic need to completely lose his cool on a fairly regular basis.
This is normal for toddlers, I know. Occasionally – very occasionally – I find it funny. This is huge progress, mind you, because I used to absolutely lose it when he lost it, and that was all kinds of not pretty. One of the reasons I know I’m getting better at tolerating his meltdowns is that I’ve developed my own little rating system. The Code: Meltdown System has three levels.
The characteristics of a Code One Meltdown include:
- Dropping to the floor in a puddle because he didn’t get what he wanted (see also: Things the Books Don’t Tell You, item #2).
- Refusing to brush his teeth.
- Flopping around on his bed like a chubby, soft little fish in cute jammies because he doesn’t want to go to sleep. Usually accompanied by on-and-off tears and the wail of “I don’t want to go to sleep!” which means he’s tired.
- Throwing something, but gently because he doesn’t really want to invoke the Wrath of Mama.
- A brief bout of tears that subside when the appropriate response is given to the arms-raised, sad-face “up” gesture.
With a Code Two Meltdown you get:
- Ongoing tears that don’t respond to normal efforts to provide comfort and a resounding “NO!” to anything offered as a possible diversion.
- Any of the following: running away, pushing, hitting, biting, smearing toothpaste on the sink/counter/mother, throwing things with aim and intention, hiding with face buried in couch cushions, adopting rag doll pose, or mimicking octopus limbs while dressing is being attempted.
- One of the following outbursts, always included for the purposes of attention seeking or release of frustrated energy: loud banging, a trademarked “RAWR” (that I really must get on camera one day because it’s a perfect combination of dinosaur/pissed off toddler), or, more recently, a scrunched-up, spitting sort of face that I don’t understand but certainly don’t appreciate.
The Code Three Meltdown is where things get really interesting:
- Screaming. My god, this kid can scream.
- Did I mention screaming?
- Very physical responses – usually aimed at parental head and face regions – designed to provoke a specific response.
- Throwing himself on the floor and writhing around in a way that makes it almost impossible to pick him up (but not quite, ha ha).
- More screaming, which, as the defining characteristic of the Code Three Meltdown, tends to go on for quite some time.
As I’ve previously admitted, he gets a lot of this from me, so I get it (though it’s also – hopefully? – because the toddler switch has been flicked to “ON”).
This system is more observation than criticism, and besides, when tolerating a meltdown, analyzing the level and assigning a code to it gives me something to do other than stabbing myself in the eardrums so I don’t have to listen to it. That’s good parenting, right?
This previously published photo is an example of a Code One Meltdown (liked his outfit, didn't want his picture taken). Funnily enough, I don't have a photo of a Code Three. Must get on that.
