Mental health holiday suckage

As I've mentioned on this blog, I wasn't diagnosed with a mood disorder until age 30, but I struggled with my mental health from age 10. 

I was always wound tight and now recognize that I had rituals that I did to ease my anxiety (although at the time I thought those were just "weird things" I did). I remember having depressive episodes and thinking about dying starting in middle school. I never seriously thought about committing suicide, but I definitely thought about death a lot. (And still do.)

Unless you've gone through a full-blown breakdown/episode, I don't think you can wrap your head around just how little control you have over your thoughts when things are bad. I have thought about this a lot with the recent suicide of Stephen tWitch Boss who, like so many people, was able to cover and pretend. But why is anyone shocked that a 10 second dance clip, or even a series of them, didn't sum up the entirety of a person's existence? 

When I reflect on the worst parts of my breakdown, I remember the brain fuzz, as if a cloud of static looped around my head and kept things clouded. I knew I was there somewhere inside my brain, but I was lost behind muck. I could not laugh or grin or find anything funny. Communication was hard. My ability to reason was skewed. My brain was sick. 

That was at my worst...but I had been "holding it together" and probably passing for ok for weeks and months before that. I don't know what flipped the switch from this to "unable to function," but it switched and it took me a couple years to get better. 

I cannot imagine all the synapse misfiring that was going on inside the crenelated corners of my brain at that time. Were the brain cells dying or just languishing from depleted chemicals (or maybe too many chemicals)? It is impossible for me to forget just how bad I felt. It was worse and longer-lasting than any physical illness I've experienced thus far. 

Ever since I went through therapy and got on medication, I have made it a point to be open about my mental health issues, even with students. Or maybe, especially with students. We all believe we run the ship, so it is especially devastating to find that you're not the captain or the first mate or even a swab. When experiencing a breakdown/episode, it feels pretty clear that you're maybe a rat somewhere down in the hold. It is a loss of empowerment that is unlike a kidney infection or the development of plantar fasciitis. To lose control of your brain is to lose control of your sense of self and your worth. That was devastating when I had three decades of life behind me and was in a relatively stable phase of life. 

This time of year is especially hard for a lot of people, including me. I absolutely, positively abhor the Christmas holiday season. I hold it together, but I'm cranky and moody and lacking energy. If you could look into my brain, you would see a brown cloud of unease there, similar to what follows Pigpen from the Peanuts gang, except it isn't dirt and dust. It is a sad, hollow mood that permeates everything. 

Why would I feel sad, some might ask. I have a family and my health and a home and a job and so much. I recognize this and am thankful. It isn't ungratefulness that makes the feeling. In some ways, it is that I put myself in the shoes of the people who don't have, who are without, this time of year. The story of Christmas in the manger even makes me terribly sad. That sounds absurd, I know. But this time of year simply makes me sad. Everything feels heavy. 

I guess I write this as a reminder to myself that feeling how I feel is ok. As much as I'd like to "think myself to a better mood," it ain't happening. I go through this every year (although I did have several years of reprieve when the kids were little). Having gone through this, I know it will end; the circle will turn, and I will feel not so glum, not so bleak. 

Until then, I muddle through, like so many people do at this time of year, knowing full well I'm not alone but feeling like the tide of good cheer and festivity is rolling over me and everyone else who can't muster themselves into good tidings. 

Death by a thousand cuts

Yesterday at the high school, they did a suicide prevention seminar. Students had to complete a sheet of paper in which they marked whether they felt suicidal and felt the need for help, either today or immediately.

I was helping to collect these sheets and sort through them so that students could be seen by counselors.

It made me think about my own suicidal thoughts. 

I am not actively suicidal (by which I mean making plans), but suicidal thoughts are what I would consider "normal for me."

I am, at this moment, and since this afternoon, having suicidal thoughts.
This is normal, even though it is not "normal."

What is not normal, for me, is when people say they don't understand suicidal thoughts or have never had them.
I do not understand how this is even possible.
How strange to live a Pollyanna life.
My go-to when I feel overwhelmed is to think about death, about not being alive.
I don't intend to think about death or want to think about death, but that is where my head goes.

What brought on these thoughts is that G is being put on a new medication, but this is for ADHD and will be in addition to his OCD medication.

On the one hand, this came completely out of the blue.
His doctor said she had noticed symptoms last time but wasn't sure.
However, she felt like it was very obvious and concerning this time during this visit, and she wants to get ahead of it instead of letting it go and worsen.

And yet, this is not out of the blue because when G was 6, and he went through a complete evaluation, I was told he had symptoms that seemed ADHD, but weren't strong or clear. I was told to not be surprised if he was diagnosed with ADHD in the years to come.

Well....color me surprised.
And obviously forgetful.

So this was the cut #1001
that follows the cut Wednesday, finding out that I have to have a crown replaced but my insurance won't pay for it because the craptastic dentist I had before didn't do it right two years ago (and they only pay for a new crown every 5 years).
that follows the cut from needing to pay the 2K tuition for this grad class.
that follows the cut of M needing another ear surgery in November.
that follows the cut of taking the grad class and all the extra stress it involves.
that follows the cut of Dad having a leaky heart valve and maybe needing surgery to repair?
that follows all the other daily little stressful cuts.

I felt weepy and all out of sorts (which I still sorta feel)
so I went up to G and asked him for a hug.
I told him I felt sad and asked what he was watching.
And this is what he was watching in his room.

The kid I worry about all the damn time watches inspirational videos of kids with all sorts of issues that feel far heavier and worrisome than OCD or ADHD.
Kids who have brain surgeries and can't communicate at all verbally and have super short life expectancies.

It got my head screwed on a little straighter than it was.
It reminded me that mental health is unseen but still a huge struggle that is different from physical disabilities but a struggle nonetheless.
It reminded me that he (and I) have value even in the midst of our issues.

You cannot rationalize suicide

Ever since my own mental health breakdown of 2004, I have been an advocate for discussing and treating anxiety, depression, OCD, and whatever other mental health issues people have.

The recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain have social media blowing up with commentary like this:
How could this happen?
I don't understand!
Call a suicide prevention line!

My gut reaction to these is: "PLEASE, JUST STOP!"
That feels harsh, but I cannot understand people trying to rationally understand suicide and the depths of despair that make people contemplate it or do it.
There is nothing rational about it, so trying to understand it from a rational framework is pointless.
Suicide goes against every fiber of genetic imperative to survive, survive, survive.

When my cousin committed suicide, I overheard numerous conversations whereby family and friends were questioning "why."

Thank your lucky stars if you don't understand why.

Even posting the suicide hotline number omits the truth, which I know personally: You can call a suicide hotline number, and maybe it will provide some relief. But feeling so despairing that you call a hotline puts you in touch with people who are rational and who may or may not understand from personal experience the despair of mental health issues. If you are so despairing that you call the hotline, it may not do any good.

When I called a suicide hotline, I spoke to someone completely rational. She made complete rational sense.
And she may as well have been talking to a mountainous wall of impenetrable iron because it didn't matter what she said.
I only knew and believed what I felt and what my own brain was telling me.
Which was completely irrational.

I did not attempt suicide, but I was feeling desperate.
I reached out to a suicide hotline because I didn't know where else to turn, and it was anonymous.
Eventually what did work was telling my husband that if he didn't take me to the doctor that day, I was going to end up in the hospital.
That doctor visit began a long, slow process to mental health "remission."

I am not cured, nor will I ever be.
I now have a child with mental health issues, which sometimes worsens my own mental health issues.

Depression and anxiety and OCD and other mental health disorders are isolating, and those in the public eye may be worse off than the rest of us because they are isolated already as a result of their celebrity.

When you forget you have a mental health issue.....and then you remember

This week has felt hard.

Normal monthly hormones combined with a sick child combined with two housebound boys who are not sick and could REALLY use a day at the pool to wear themselves out.

But then add in interviewing three women about their depression for an article I'm writing.

Toss in the uncertainty of heading out for vacation really soon and wondering expecting the boys and D and myself to get sick all during the trip and making it the world's worst vacation ever.  Plus, giving whatever crud N has to my parents and my MIL and my brother's family since they'll be with us.

My motivation has been zero, and I am normally a pretty motivated person.

I have gotten to a point where I often forget I have a mood disorder, and that is a very good thing.

As good as that is, it can feel devastating when circumstances make me remember.  When there is a perfect storm of life that makes me feel emotionally unstable.

At these times, it feels like I'm weak.....because I suspect that these "minor" issues wouldn't suck the floor out from under other people.

As someone I interviewed said, "Having depression just makes you feel more........."

And that is the perfect explanation of many mood disorders, including anxiety.

The events/situations that wouldn't phase someone without a mood disorder knock someone with a mood disorder under the waves.  They are left to flail in the waters and try to restore their feet underneath them, while also dealing with the panic and the worry of, "Oh my god, I think I'm drowning!"

I've seen this video, and it is a funny (and true) way to explain mood disorders.

The only thing I'd change is that a person with a mood disorder doesn't snap back into normalcy quickly.  A person with a mood disorder is on a gurney, exhausted for days by the fear and despair and panic and the overwhelming emotional exhaust, as well as the embarrassment of allowing 12 inches of water to throw them into the emotional abyss.

A different kind of falling apart

William Butler Yeats' poem, The Second Coming, must really resonate with me because I started thinking about it and writing about it on this blog, and it seemed like deja vu.  It is.  From here.

But now I'm writing about a different kind of falling apart.  Not marriage, but my teeth.

This morning I had my first root canal.  The center is not holding.

I apparently had a weird reaction to the numbing agent, which I've never had for a regular filling.  My vision became blurry, my hands began to shake, and I had a weird out-of-body type experience.  It was troubling and oddly fascinating at the same time.  I could hear the music in the room, but my brain felt like it was asleep, so I was both aware and out-of-it simultaneously.

Nitrous oxide to the rescue.

My dentist said a whole bunch of gunk came out of my tooth, so I am hoping the infection is gone and if there is anything left of it, the antibiotic will knock the rest of it out.  The procedure began at 8:30; it is now 1:30, and I still don't have full feeling in my mouth.  She really had to load me up.  She anticipates I will feel much better, even with post-treatment soreness, because my mouth was throbbing so much prior to it.

In five years' time, I've gone from someone who didn't mind dental appointments to someone who loathes them.  Mere anarchy has been loosed upon my mouth.

I jest, of course.....a little bit.  Certainly a poem about war and civilization's destruction can't be related to my incisors.  But maybe it can to what seems to happen to me every fall, a cyclical motion of sadness that comes, a time of fretting that repeats itself.

It has happened every year at this time since 2004.  It almost feels like PTSD, but without nightmares or panic attacks.  It is a low-grade sadness that pervades me.  I am good at hiding it most of the time, except when my head has been messed with from numbing agents.

I can even enjoy this balmy, blue sky day because I feel desert birds circling.  

Terminal depression

There are a many things I hope my kids never get, like Ebola or your run-of-the-mill STD.
But the two things I really, really, REALLY hope they never get are childhood cancer and terminal depression.
Those two diseases are life-threatening, not always easily treatable, and likely to manifest themselves over and over during the course of a child's life.

There is a pretty good chance my kids will never get cancer (at least as children).
Or Ebola.
Or an STD.
But their chances of getting depression are pretty high, especially since their mother has a diagnosed mental health condition, and there have been other episodes of depression (or depressive tendencies) among family members.

I've never been clinically diagnosed with depression, although I suffered from it during my days of untreated anxiety.  Comorbidity is not uncommon when it comes to lots of diseases, including mental illness.  

It is not pleasant to remember those dark days, but I can't help but remember when I went to breakfast with friends when I was being treated, but the medication hadn't reached its full effectiveness yet.  I was more or less non-responsive.  Nothing was funny or enjoyable.  My usual jovial, chatty self wasn't there.  I felt like a shell of a person.

And unlike Robin Williams, I was not a good enough actor to convince people otherwise. 

A parent's worst nightmare

I couldn't watch the video.  I started to, but I just couldn't listen to the girl.  I couldn't bear to hear her say, "depression and anxiety are just fancy words for selfish."  I didn't want to witness where she was going since I had already read the news reports about where it ended.

I can't read the commentaries from the masses on twitter, even those that wish to be thoughtful and supportive and kind.

There is much I want to say, so I will just lay it out in all its unprettiness.



Dear Girl who Committed Suicide,

I wish you hadn't done it; I really, really wish you hadn't done it.

But I understand why you did.  I hope in the beyond, wherever you stand, hopefully with peace draped around you like warm flannel, you understand why you did.  I hope you can see that what you were feeling was terribly real and painful and biting, but what you were thinking and saying was completely off the mark.  Depression and anxiety were not your fault.  As much as suicide seemed a way for you to take control over the sadness and pain, you never had control over it at all.  The sickness of your mind killed you.

I hope death has blessed you with the ability to see with a wisdom that life would have made you wait 20 or more years to hold tenderly in your arms.  I don't think there is regret in the beyond, only a full and complete understanding.  I hope that you see now that things probably would have improved.  I know that when one's brain is sick, as sick as mine has been and as sick as yours was, you don't see everything as clearly as things actually are.

But perhaps if you had not killed yourself now, you wouldn't have made it 20 years.  Perhaps your sickness may have made the exact same choice for you five years from now....or ten years.  Waiting would have given you a little more time....to make sure that things wouldn't maybe, possibly, potentially, turn around.  Hope is hard....no, impossible, to find when your brain is sick.
I hope light surrounds you now.  I hope you can shine some of that light on your family.

In the fullness of the hereafter, I know you understand the crippling pain that has been left by your decision.  As a mom, my worst nightmare is that any of my children would commit suicide.  A terminal physical illness, an accidental drug overdose, a flipped car after speeding...all of these things would cause me terrible grief, but for my child to lose all hope and abandon the gift of life is simply unbearable.  I don't say this to be cruel because infinite wisdom is yours now.  You understand without guilt and fear and pain.

There will be much chatter about your suicide.  There will be much talk of "getting people the help they need" and "looking for signs" and "find someone to talk to," and all those other things people say when they can't wrap their heads around something.

I'm sorry your pain was so great.
I'm sorry the things that have worked for others, to help them regain some ability to control their minds, hadn't worked for you.
I'm sorry it takes going through the awfulness of mental illness to know just how deep in the sludge you were stuck.
I'm sorry a lifeline didn't come through.

Godspeed.

Crying "uncle"

Today I made the call.
In January, I'm going to have G evaluated for sensory processing disorder.

I kept thinking, "He doesn't do this at school.  He can hold it together."  He got all Os (outstandings) the first two grading periods.  I had contacted the school district in May about his sensory issues and my concern that they would impact his time in kindergarten, but I now know that they won't even look at him.  Why would they?  His grades are terrific, and his teachers adore him.

The problem is at home.  Maybe he is working so hard to keep his stuff together at school that he can't do it at home, where he knows we will always love him.  Maybe I'm the problem.....his tantrums that are excessive and come from out of nowhere set me on edge.  Though I try to remain calm, maybe he is picking up on my sensitivity to his sensitivity and that is making it worse.  If he is a "spirited" child, I think it is safe to assume it was me from whence this came.

It has come to the point where I simply can't handle it anymore so I'm doing the only thing I know how to do, and that is seek help.  Find someone who knows more than me, who can look objectively at G's personality and behavior, at my reactions to his personality and behavior.

I know my limitations and weaknesses.  I've done the work on myself....I know what sets me off, and I've learned to handle that.  With my medication and the tools I learned in CBT, it is still all I can do most days to handle my own stuff, to live within my own head comfortably.

When I have an out-of-control 6-year-old screaming about his back itching or whatever "thing" of the moment sets him off, I move into "fight or flight" mode.  I want to run or I want to hit him, and neither of those are good options.

He's got classic sensitivity issues----tags in clothes, seams in socks, must have shoes tightened to the point of bondage, food texture issues, loud noises, dark spaces.  But he's also emotionally intense and terrifically persistent.

I've read books, but I honestly feel like I need to carry books around with me to refer to them every time G slips into one of his fits.  As much as I hate it, I know I need support from someone who can either tell me G is fine, and I'm the problem, or G has problems, and I'm just making them worse.

It always feels like failure to know you can't do it on your own, but I have to remind myself over and over that asking for help is strength.  

Support for other mood-disordered mamas

Because I'm still dealing with fallout from my postpartum period, I'm going to participate in Postpartum Progress' Climb Out of the Darkness event.  Click here for more information. 

We're all capable of the unthinkable

In 2004, when my brain decided to start acting out on its own without consulting me, I was gripped by fear.  I had been under the false belief that I control myself, but there is nothing like having a nervous breakdown to show a person what's really real.  I could no longer control the thoughts that ran through my mind, and within short order I couldn't control many of my body's physical components---tears, sleep, the ability to eat.

When I would see a plastic bag and envision N with it around her neck suffocating, I thought it meant I wanted this to happen to her.  When I held a knife to cut an apple and envisioned stabbing N with it, fear paralyzed me.  I knew without a doubt I was going crazy.  I had other even more unsavory visions that I do not discuss publicly because they are so upsetting (for anyone who thinks I truly do express every single thought I ever have, I do have some restraint).

The adage is somewhat true that if you think you're crazy, you probably aren't.  These horrible visions were my worst possible fears running amuck within my mind, and I wasn't able to shut them down.  I wasn't able to recognize them as worst fears and realize that a thought is just a thought, however horrible and disgusting.  I can have whatever awful terrible thoughts I want (or my brain wants), but acting on them is the problem.

The ultimate effect of all this, which was terrible as I was going through it, was a profound sense of freedom and compassion.  It was freeing to know that my mind can sorta do what it wants, regardless of what I think it should do.  I also developed a greater sense of compassion for people who are mentally ill, whether they are fortunate enough to recognize their mental illness and seek treatment or whether they do not even realize the full extent of their illness and disability.

People do the unthinkable, like the Boston bombing suspect or women who kill their babies or  men who sexually abuse children.  We fear for our safety or the safety of our families, but we also fear for ourselves because we are all capable of such acts.  We defend ourselves against the unthinkable by believing if people are neighborly or live in certain neighborhoods or look a certain way or whatever they are not the kind of people who could do such things.  But they are, and we are.

All of us likely fall somewhere on the DSM, but as my therapist told me, "A disorder isn't a disorder until it disorders your life."  Or in many cases until it disorders someone else's life when a person acts on a thought or belief that to them seems normal but to others is "sick."

As a mother, I have many fears for my children but perhaps the two worst are that 1.) they will take their own lives and 2.) that they will have take the lives of others.  I look at my G, who is very much like me in terms of personality (obsessive and highly sensitive) and I worry that he will end up like me, only worse; that he will have a mental disorder that cannot be easily managed with some antidepressants and therapy.  But the truth is that any of my kids could go off the deep end. My husband could.  I could.

I do not believe that people who go off the deep end do not give warning signs.  I think people around them either don't recognize the signs or cannot believe that their loved one is capable of the unthinkable.  When I was diagnosed with OCD and GAD, it made so many feelings and behaviors from my childhood clear to me.  I don't know if my mother ever had the thought that something was "mentally wrong" with her daughter, but I do know she chalked it up to "that's just Carrie" and thought it was odd or excessive or not the norm.  Had I done something unthinkable, I don't think my mother, in her heart, could have ignored all the signs that something was amiss, even if she wouldn't ever publicly admit it.

Love is blinding.  Love makes us want to see the beauty and purity in our loved ones.  And maybe there is simply something wrong (or more wrong) with me because I seem to have a knack for seeing the unpleasant and wondering where it might go off-the-chain wrong.  Or maybe I just dislike hiding behind pleasantries.  I think it is important to talk about the things that others find taboo or unpleasant or embarrassing.  Maybe we could understand more if we were more willing to speak the truth than to hide behind "I don't understand how or why it happened?"  We think that if we saw it coming, if we saw signs, we could have stopped it, and I just don't know if that is really possible.  But our fear of seeming culpable makes us gloss things over.

There is danger in knowing everyone is capable of the unthinkable.  Capable does not mean everyone will act on that capability.  I remember one student I had my first year of teaching who was, without a doubt, royally messed up.  He was, in my mind, a walking time bomb, and he scared me.  My relief was palpable when he was sent to a different school.  As far as I know, this kid has never done anything that made the papers.  He wasn't the former student of mine who killed himself in a local McDonald's after threatening his girlfriend with the gun he then used on himself.  He was disturbed, but not disturbed enough?

As sad as I feel for the people who are killed by unthinkable acts and their families, I can't help but feel a sense of compassion for those who commit the acts and their families who try desperately to make sense of it all.  The innocent are mourned and glorified, even though in life they were as imperfect as the rest of us.  The guilty are condemned and demonized, even though in life they were probably less horrible than their horrible actions would suggest.

There is no peace and tranquility regardless of which side of the unthinkable you are.

Having a bad "mood" day and mothering

For a long stretch of time, I sorta forgot I had a mood disorder.

This aging business, though, is having its way with me.  I suspect wonky progesterone levels are affecting my moods more often than in the past.  I'm having breakthrough anxiety a bit, such as this morning when I was folding sheets. Prior to Lexapro, if I was folding sheets and they touched the floor I had to wash them again to remove the germs.  (Ain't OCD grand?)  This morning, the sheets touched the floor, and while I didn't wash them and was able to talk myself down, I felt a visceral pulse of anxiety.

Being around the boys when I'm having a low spell is truly a challenge for me.  I'm sure people think I just bitch about motherhood because it is funny or like it's just "my schtick," but unless you live with a mood disorder on a daily basis, you don't understand how frustrating it is to already be moody inside your head and then to have crazy up-and-down moods thrown at you all day long.  I've mentioned before that I catch other people's bad moods like hookers catch the clap.  A funny way to say it, maybe, but very, very true.

Three-year-olds are bloody nightmares for a moody momma.  In the car the other day, one instant M was screaming and crying because of something G did, and twenty seconds later he was laughing at something else that G did.  G is remarkably better than he was when he was three years old, but he is still a pretty moody kid.  Kids, by their nature, cannot control their emotions very well or at all.

It is especially problematic when one's 3-year-old has a tantrum in the middle of the night (like last night).  A chronically sleep-deprived momma woken in the wee hours to deal with a screeching 3-year-old who wants to get up for the day hours and hours before the day actually begins is simply unable to deal.

In addition to the moodiness, I've also got an overabundance of guilt and still fight the "shoulds and shouldn'ts" on an all-too-frequent basis.  If I'm having a challenging day (or minute or hour), I think to myself that I "should" treasure this time with my children because parents with terminally ill children would be thrilled to have healthy children who yell and are boisterous and moody to an aggravating degree.

I get very frustrated with this line of unreasonable thinking on my part.  Raising children is amazing and also the most difficult, tiring thing I've ever done in my life.  I am allowed to feel what I feel---good or bad, and I shouldn't berate myself for experiencing the same feelings that every parent throughout time has felt.

But I do, which only makes a bad mood worse.  

Struggling

A friend of mine said that it seems like it's not the BIG ordeals in life that depress a person but the small, every day minor things that pile up and become overwhelming.

Such is my life right now.

Life has been a series of infections/minor illnesses that, alone, would be no big deal, but they have come at me in rapid succession.  The painful cuticle infection in Oct/Nov, the armpit MRSA abscess in Dec, strep throat at the start of Jan, an upper respiratory virus now.

The continuous interrupted sleep by the boys, primarily G, has almost worn me to a nub. I've now decided to utilize his obsession with Disney Universe on the Xbox to try to get him to not wake me constantly.  Even if that works for him and he cuts back his night-time mommy need, I still have M who wakes me occasionally.  Whenever I complain about the past 5 years of crappy sleep, N will remind me that I got to sleep when D and I went away in November for our anniversary, as if 2 nights will make up for the past 1,825 nights.

Illness and lack of decent sleep, coupled with my burnout with stay-at-home motherhood for these 9 years and the general chaos that is being with G and M, is making my antidepressant feel less than effective.  My mood most mornings is terrible until around 8:30-9:00 when D and N are out of the house and the boys settle down or when G has been dropped off at preschool and I only have 1 other person besides me to wrangle/manage/talk to.

And then there was Gonzo's death last week which dealt me a harder blow than what I would have expected.  Finding him dead, wrapping him in blankets and carrying his rigid body to the car, delivering him to the pet crematorium...these thoughts have been in the forefront of my mind upon waking every morning.

The cold, the snow, the gray skies doesn't help.

When I am not feeling sad, I simply feel angry.  Angry at the constant demands on me.  Angry at the lack of acknowledgment for what I do.  Angry at myself for doing too much when often it is my attempt to have something for me (like exercising).

The coupling of sadness and anger is not a good sign.  It reminds me of when I got bad, really bad in 2004.  When I felt overwhelmed and tired, like everything was falling on my shoulders.

And I so don't want to go back there again. 

Oversimplifications

I sent N off to school today without thinking once about the terrible shooting in CT.  It didn't even cross my mind to be scared or anxious.  Today was the best possible day of all days to send a kid to school because everyone was on high-alert.  Police came to N's school to greet the children when they arrived off the buses, an effort in reinforcing to the kids (and perhaps parents) that the kids are safe.  I understand the reasoning, but I have mixed feelings.  It should have been life as normal, in my opinion.

It is impossible to make sense of tragedy like this.  I haven't the foggiest what life is about, its purpose, and I don't pretend to have a clue as to what G*d thinks or feels or controls or doesn't control.  It seems a bit irrational to try to make rational sense of an irrational act.

Of course, people have blamed guns.  And they've blamed the lack of coverage and funding in mental health.  There's been blame thrown at video games and antipsychotic medicines being given to children, as well as the lack of school prayer.

We keep thinking maybe this is the problem, and if we just fix this, then nothing bad will ever happen.  Or if we fix that, we'll have turned it around.  The problem is that we have to fix this, that, the other, that one over there, and a whole slew of them others to make lasting change and avoid similar events happening with such frequency.  If it was an easy fix, or if there is even a fix at all, surely we would have fixed it.

What baffles me are some of the solutions that people come up with...in the heat of the moment when events like this are so new.  Like arming teachers.  What a brilliant piece of shite.  While we're at it, let's brick up all the windows and have armed guards at every doorway.  That is exactly the safe, secure, maximum security prison-like atmosphere I want for my children.

Events like this make me thankful that my "mental health" condition is mild.  Probably most people don't pity the mentally ill person who does the unthinkable, but I do.  It is far easier to damn the Jared Loughners and Adam Lanzas of the world to hell than to see them as tormented or so far beyond the scope of normal that they don't even realize how mentally fucked up they are.  That has to be terrifying, especially for their families who see clearly that, "this person is not right."

I know I am much more understanding since my brain did its own thing despite my best efforts to control my thinking and feeling.  For better or worse, I can empathize a bit with the mentally ill, even the most horrid among us.  

Thankfully, I cannot empathize with the parents whose children were killed.  My sympathies are with them, and I hope they find comfort and peace where they can.  

The final week

Today begins the last week of summer break for N, and I'm feeling a little sad, which shows just how f*cked up my mind is.  How many FB posts have I written about my kids driving me bonkers over the entirely too long expanse of time between early June and mid-August?

Maybe it's the PMS talking, but I feel guilty and just plain down in the dumps.

Guilty about not being a better mom, more kind and loving towards my kids.
Internally weepy because my girl is entering 3rd grade and is half-way through her elementary school experience.
Regretful that this is my last year with G before he starts kindergarten (and because I had G and M so close, I feel like I missed so much of G's toddlerhood).
Troubled that my personality is so....pessimistic (even though it always has been).

Why isn't it enough that I meet their basic physiological needs (laundry and feeding them mostly healthy stuff) and open their minds (reading to them and taking them to the zoo and science center and generally doing what I can to ensure they become decent people when they grow up)?

Why can't I give myself credit for NOT losing it 80% of the time?

My kids love me, in spite of (or maybe because of) the flawed person I am.
It sucks that I can't be as forgiving of my failings. 

Getting older and medication tweaking

Because I'm not in the throes of despair and have come to terms with taking medication, I sometimes forget that I have mood issues.  Eventually, though, I will have a brief relapse that reminds me that I am not cured, only in remission and continual recovery.

I suspect I am starting to experience peri-menopause because my PMS mood symptoms, which have always been unpleasant for me and others, have worsened considerably over the past year.  The frustrations of dealing with young children and their constant badgering day in and day out also contributes to my angry blow-ups.  I have a very, very hard time recovering my tenuous mood stability when every single morning I have G or M (and often both) subject me to an argument or crying fit.  Though I might try mightily to remain calm, the boys' tantrum stamina is too much for me.  By the time lunch rolls around, when they are becoming tired and cranky, I have only just recovered from the morning.

At my last psychiatrist visit, I explained the situation and am now free to take an extra half-dose of my antidepressant during my PMS time.  It helps, but it also brings back a little of that feeling of, "Why can't I deal with this on my own...without meds?"

This PMS/age-related stuff, in addition to bumming my knee a bit during a workout last year and trying unsuccessfully today to fit into my wedding dress (what WAS I thinking attempting that???) has got me really stewing over turning 39 later this summer.  Since I'm not a procrastinator, I like to get my freaking out over turning 40 over and done with the year prior.

When I think of myself now, compared to who I was at 21 or 24, I like myself so much more.  Maybe it is the life experiences...the blessings of time and a small nugget of wisdom I may have picked up along the way.  But I dislike how my body tends to just do what it likes without my input.....my brain, my chemicals, my hormones, my overly-stretched abdominal wall.

Burnout in its various forms

For awhile now I have been suffering from SAH Mommy Burnout.  I keep telling myself that this is normal...that had I been doing anything 24/7 for the past 8 years I would be sick of it.  Other than one 8-hour shopping/lunch spree at some outlet malls with friends when N was about 2 years old, I have not been been even "temporarily childless" for any extended period of time for me to do something fun just for me (not grocery shopping).  D and I have gone out to dinner a handful of times but we haven't gone to a concert or a movie or had a whole night to ourselves that hasn't been interrupted by a child.

Some of this is self-imposed. We haven't taken the time or wanted to spend the money.  And my parents are in their 70s, so I really don't want them keeping the kids overnight.  I mean, I'm 38 and being with them (the kids) wears my ass out.  My MIL is widowed, so I don't really want her dealing with all 3 of mine by herself.  Plus, M is still nursing before bed so that limits me quite a bit.

Lately I have just felt extremely grouchy and too easily set off.  Perhaps I'm having some late 30s hormonal thing going on.  I'm going to bring it up with my psychiatrist when next I see her.

Or perhaps it is that G is still challenging...his usual and something that I hope I will one day just accept.  And now N seems to be going through her own hormonal stuff and is being increasingly difficult with me---wanting my help and not wanting me to help at the same time when it comes to homework and piano practice.

When I have my moments of thinking, "Maybe I should go back to work," I think that I will be spending all day dealing with other people's children. Their attitudes, their tantrums, their unpleasant moods.  So that offers me no solace because I would be strung-out from them and then have to come home to my own children's attitudes, tantrums and unpleasant moods that would likely be even worse because I would have less time to spend with them.  As it is my children, especially G, spend entirely too much of their time vying for my attention.

D is experiencing his own burnout issues that are different from mine.

We are absorbed in our own personal dissatisfactions and also worried about the other's discontent, doubling the ruminating and stewing and general feeling of floundering.  Of muddling through the muck.

This will pass just as mine and D's other funks have passed.
But it makes me think that enjoying the journey of life is overrated.
  

Ass-ish

Blame it on waiting for Aunt Flo.
Blame it on the boredom of checking Facebook only to see endless strings of posts about college basketball which might as well be written in Sumerian as far as I'm concerned.

Mostly it is waiting for Aunt Flo.

Every single solitary March I think to myself, "Gee, Carrie, perhaps you should go live in a commune for people who have no effing interest whatsoever in college basketball."  Because every single solitary year many, many people in my part of the world lose their minds over games in a fit of mass hysteria.

Truly, I don't hate basketball or any sport, per se.  I simply have zero interest.  (I am a freak of nature because I also have zero interest in watching broadcast television either.  I've never watched Grey's Anatomy or Modern Family or Dancing With People Who Used to Be Famous and Now Just Need to Supply Their Coke Habit).

If one or two or all of my children develop an interest in sports I will most certainly also develop an interest in it and knowledge of it.  Because my love for my children is far greater than my lack of interest.  I never thought I would know who Ratchet and Starscream are, but I do and that is fine.

What I do enjoy is poking gentle fun at all the sports talk. All the blood pressure spikes people experience over men in shorts dribbling balls.  I mean, dribbling is simply a funny word.  Any word that also describes what my 4-year-old does when he stands at the commode to pee is funny.

So I guess this is my sorta half-assed apology to friends and acquaintances who adore their college hoops.  Go on about your madness while I write stupid comments that are funny only to me and the 3 or 4 other people in this state who should also live in my commune.

Yep. Still mood-disordered

Yesterday marked 2 days in a row that G didn't nap, which is almost always a bad thing and gets me irritated once he hits his wall of crazy at 4:45 p.m.

But as I was picking up N and driving the kids to the bank at 4:15, I was overcome with absolute rage at mostly G but all the kids.  I was grouching at every single thing they said and did, and I just felt utter hatred towards them.  It dawned on me that I was probably overreacting, that while I might become frustrated or aggravated by them, I usually don't have the violent urge to bitch slap them, to stop the car, jump out and walk away from them, stranded along the side of the road.  

It dawned on me that perhaps I should check my calendar to see what week of the month it is.  Upon returning home I did so.  This foulest of moods had an explanation.

Last night G woke me and continued keeping me up from 4 am until 5:30 or so.  The first time he got up he said he wanted to play with his new toys, and then he had a coughing fit, and then he wanted to eat.  He was up for good at 6:00 a.m.

SO, today hasn't been the greatest day for me mood-wise.  (Plus, I am still battling my own upper respiratory funkiness that keeps me clearing my throat and coughing almost constantly.)

As much as I despise my once-a-month moodiness (which isn't even every month; sometimes the month flies by without so much as a mood blip), it reminds me of a couple things,

It reminds me just how horrible mood disorders are because if you are suffering in the thick of one you completely lose perspective of what is real and what is not.  It's like being stuck in a dream in Inception without the kick that pulls you back to who you really are at the core.

Last night and most of today I felt like I couldn't control the deep anger rattling at my cage, the sense that my life is complete shit.  And I know full well that I am very much contented most of the time.  Feeling like you are "this close" to losing that grip on yourself, on your anger, on your ability to control your feelings and thoughts, is scary, even if like me, it's been 7 years since my breakdown and I am on medication and under the care of a psychiatrist.  Once you've been through it once, I think you never lose the fear that you will some day feel that horrible again.

It reminds me that, in this month of giving thanks, I am so, so, so glad I live in a time of medication and therapy and support groups and open communication about mental illness and mood disorders.  I don't like to think what I would be like, especially when it comes to my children, if I wasn't on medication.  My Lexapro helps me keep the beast of anxiety (and extreme menstrual moodiness) at bay.

It reminds me that I am human, and while I don't like the idea of my kids seeing me at my shittiest, they also need to know that even though I am their momma and they feel the right to demand anything they want of me (as all children do of their parents), there are times when it is in their best interest to not be willfully aggravating.  To just do as I ask.

It reminds me that my moods can be upsetting to the kids since I am usually not a raving harpy, and that I need to explain to them that yes, they might be aggravating me but my hormones and brain issues sometimes make it so I'm not as well equipped to handle the aggravations.

At some point this afternoon, I felt as if a switch had been turned off, and I was somewhat back to normal.  Still grossly sleep-deprived (from last night as well as the years of being the only person to get up with the kids), but not a wild bull, not cringing in rage at every little noise my children made, not thinking that every aspect of my life was horrible.

I hope that is the extent of its course this time around.

My life running across the see-saw

I spend my life running from one end of a see-saw to the other, trying to balance feeling guilty as hell for how I react to my children being children and feeling completely entitled to feel and act however I may feel and act because sometimes my children treat me like shit.

One the one hand this blog has been an arena for me to vent all the miserable things about mothering children.  On the other, it has been my pathetic attempt to beg forgiveness of my children, to explain how challenging a role this "mother" gig is and how I adore them even when I'm at my wit's end and would lambast an adult who did the things to me that they do.  

The hardest part of this see-sawing is when 2 of the kids or, HELL'S BELLS, all of my kids blast me full force with their negative emotions, their tantrums, attitudes, head-banging, throwing toys within a short period of time, like an afternoon.  Like in the window between picking up at car pool line and D coming home at 6:00 when I am also attempting to make a barely edible dinner.  

For the last month or so, I have noticed some big changes in G.  Far fewer tantrums.  Better able to be patient and not lose his marbles over disappointment.  Being around him is pleasurable a lot of the time now, and that has not been a statement I've made about him in a LONG time.  It is so nice to enjoy his company.

Of course, M, who turns 2 on Friday, is a full-blown toddler---banging his head on the floor or wall when he doesn't get exactly what he wants, screaming and crying if things don't go his way.  I REALLY would have preferred a little down time before ramping up to insane little person behavior again.  (Another reason why having children two years apart is perhaps not a good idea.)

And now N seems to be going through her own little emotional upheaval, which really stinks because she has been the normal one for a long time, the one I could count on as being not crazy.  She has been apt to burst into tears without much provocation, and I've heard more attitude than I'd like coming from her lips.  

I am not a sports fan, by any stretch of the imagination, but I often think of this mothering as a soccer game.  Since I can't get out of the game, I have no choice but to continue lunging for the kids' bad moods, smacking them away from the goal, and trying to keep my injuries to a minimum. 

The hounds of hell or "What happens to my mood during PMS"

I started my monthly cycle at age 10.  From what I understand, some girls start their periods and may wait months before another one comes around.  This was never my problem.  From the get-go, I had a period every.single.month.  It took pregnancy and breastfeeding to give me a reprieve.

I think I was a pretty normal child prior to menstruating, but I really believe all the hormone fluctuations are what turned on the anxiety, the OCD, the premenstrual insane moodiness that made my mother hate my guts every third week of the month.

Birth control pill usage in my twenties seemed to level me out.  I still had the anxiety and OCD, but not the raging, the outbursts, the feeling that I simply could not control my emotions.

When I became pregnant with M while on birth control pills, D said he'd never trust them again, and I was all too happy not to be in charge of birth control.  Who needs the expense?  Plus, the pill has the ability to turn my normally pathetic libido into a pathetically nonexistent libido.

Yesterday, though, I experienced the "light switch affect," which is when my mood literally feels like someone hit the switch and I went from feeling relatively normal to feeling like a feral cat with rabies.  Sure, the district calling off school AGAIN didn't help.  Sure, it didn't help that G hadn't napped and was more or less a ramped up version of his normal wild thing.  But it is plum scary when I can almost feel the chemical shift inside my head and the fallout from it.

So I am wondering if perhaps I should consider going on the pill for strictly mental health reasons.  Because I really, really don't want my children to remember me as a raving bitch.  Or I may wait and speak to my psychiatrist about this at my next visit since I've heard that taking a slight increase in one's AD during PMS week can also minimize the wild mood swings.