Sorry, A.A.

Daniel is seen here wearing one of the many, many Winnie-the-Pooh items he’s received in his short life.  The Bear of Very Little Brain and his posse are all over EVERYTHING.  I’m told this is because the Pooh trademark changed hands this year, and whoever has it now owes A.A. Milne a big fat apology.

You can see in this photo that on this particular (very cute) hooded thingie, Winnie-the-Pooh is driving a CAR.  This is an abomination.  There are no CARS in the Hundred Acre Wood.  Also, Winnie’s smile looks one mouse click away from being a Wal-Mart happy face.  Sigh.

I look forward to reading the actual books and watching the animated versions I grew up on, someday.  For now we’ll just keep on wearing the adulterated Pooh-wear and A.A. will keep on turning in his grave.

 

AD report

So I’m, I don’t know, 12 days or something into my antidepressants. The short version is, I love it!  From the first day I felt more energetic.  Sometimes I feel caffeinated, which I like.  Supposedly the caffeinated feeling will smooth out after a while.  Just like what my friends said at the beginning of the Magic Mushroom trip in college where we ended up going to New York on a whim with no money and I cried for a whole day when it was over.  “Just listen to Bob Marley, man, everything… is gonna be all right…”

Whoa.  Where was I.

I was at the smaller dose for the first week and then doubled it starting last Tuesday.  I still had some blue feelings and black moods here and there, but it was the end of my cycle, and it’s not like I’m supposed to turn into Happy Robot Girl anyway.

I feel a lot more like “myself” and I had been forgetting who that was.  I’ve been back to my therapist, i.e., regular non-drug work-out-your-life healthcare provider, not the shrink who just tweaks my meds.  When she first told me I would benefit from the medicine to help me have the strength to work out the next bunch of painful life crap in therapy, I couldn’t see what painful life crap there was to work out.  Now I see it clearly and I went in there with sleeves rolled up.

Looking back, I can see why I didn’t feel like I was depressed.  I’ve actually been leaking like a balloon, slowly, through the infertility years.  Then I was pregnant, and we moved, and so much was different that I didn’t have anything to compare anything to.  Now I’m having little memories.  When I was working out with my trainer, i.e., the only truly challenging workout of my week, I was remembering how it felt when I was really fit and loved the sprint at the end of the run or standing to climb a steep hill on my bike.   I remember being sassy and fun with my friends instead of just wondering if they even like me anymore.  I remember being confident, and not apologetic, and being creative, and brave.  I know I’ve been brave just to slog through some of the stuff I did in the last year, even while I am also one of the luckiest 46-year olds who ever lived.

I’m also kinda angry.  You know that guy in the old movie “Network,” who throws up his window and yells “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” ?  That guy was in his first week of antidepressants.

The particular drug that I am on kicks ass, for me.  I am perky in the daytime but I still sleep at night… in the completely crappy way that I sleep.  I think the shrink was pleased that we could choose from drugs without having to worry about ruining my sleep like some drugs do.  Mine was pre-broken.

About the food thing.  I am feeling a little bit guilty about how much this helps with the food thing.  It could be that without the depression and the shame that I sometimes feel spreading through my body like a dark bloom, maybe I’m just having a Normal Relationship With Food.  Hi, Food.  I’m Normal.  Nice to meet you.  This means that I still ate all the M&Ms out of the Halloween candy… and by the way, I don’t know why they call it “Fun Size.”  It’s no fun opening 200 of those things.

But I didn’t eat all the Snickers, and the Twix, eh.  Come get ‘em, I could care less.

Anyway, normal for me still leaves plenty of room for emotional eating and all that. But I seem to have access to a “pause” button where I can stop and think “well, maybe it’s NOT a good idea to eat all the Snickers while reading a book so that I don’t even remember consuming 1900 calories in 15 minutes, and I’m actually noticing that I’m really full, so maybe I won’t.”  It’s not miraculous, it’s just: possible.

I’m also just not as hungry, and sometimes not hungry at all.  I’ve skipped some dinners. Again, I’m thinking it could be that this is what normal hunger is like when you take away all the Food Craziness, and I’ve had a few times of being really busy and, yes, forgetting to eat.  I’ve always heard that you should eat bigger meals early in the day and around here we sometimes achieve that, and dinner is just an afterthought.  I’m conflicted about this, because when Daniel is older I really hope to have those family dinners that are going to cure everything from bad grades to athlete’s foot and keep the kids off drugs and make us all taller and more beautiful.  If the studies are true.  But if I’m not hungry, I will have to learn to just eat a little bit.  HA HA HA well anything is possible.

The best part of this is that I can glimpse the real prize, which is knowing how to just be.  Not needing to be thinner or more successful to just like and accept myself.  If I can get rid of the dark stain on my soul, that will be what the ADs are really for, and it will be something I’ve never felt before.

 

How bad am I?

I had to take the vacuum to be fixed.  I need the vacuum.  I park right in front of the Sew ‘n’ Vac, which is a tiny place with a tiny parking lot right out front.  I cannot hold the baby and the vacuum.  The only ultrasafe way that I can think of to do this is to take the baby out, put him in the stroller, take the vacuum out of the car, somehow push the crappy yard-sale stroller with one hand without it lurching off to the right (or left), somehow get the door of the Sew ‘n’ Vac open which means put the vacuum down, open the door, get the stroller through, leave the stroller, go back for the vacuum, drag all to the register.

Which is ridiculous.

So.  I parked so close to the front door that I could hardly open my car door, took out the vacuum, locked the car with baby snug in carseat, hurried in with vacuum, (distance from car to cash register: 15 feet) barked my name and phone number at the normally chatty Sew ‘n’ Vac guy, threw the vacuum down and ran back to the car.  Total time away from the car: 39 seconds.

Is that so bad?  Keep in mind that I live in a very small town, half the people here don’t even lock their cars, there are no stores around (the Sew ‘n’ Vac sits alone on a little piece of land near a busy intersection), and I could see my car the entire time I was in the store. And the temperature was about 40.  I feel like a criminal, but people, I need my vacuum.

Am I so bad?  Discuss.

 

Halloween

 

Trunk or Treating Redux

This is a repeat of my trunk or treating rant from last year.

If you aren’t aware, trunk-or-treating is an event, often organized by churches, where adults station themselves next to their cars in a big parking lot, and the kids walk up to your open trunk to say “trick or treat” for their candy.  The kids love it because, as one said in a recent newspaper article, “you can go around a gazillion times and get lots more candy!”  The churches organized it to make Halloween more of a “family event” – it wasn’t, before? – and in some cases, to discourage costumes that were too devil-ish or reflective of other bad influences.  In some cases I have heard of Biblical character costumes being enforced or encouraged.

Sigh.  I’m as saved as any other Christian but come on.  Running around a parking lot in broad daylight, yelling “trick or treat” which doesn’t even make sense anymore, dressed like the Apostle Paul?  What could be more lame?

Aside from suppressing the important creativity and make-believe aspect of Halloween, the saddest things about this, to me, are the other reasons adults cite for the trunk-or-treat trend.  The little dears don’t have to 1) walk as far as they would, going house-to-house; and 2) they don’t have to “go to a stranger’s home.”

Maybe I’ll feel differently when my own perfect, adorable, exquisitely vulnerable child is in this position.  But right now I’m really sad about it.  And kind of annoyed.  First of all, the evangelical churches who love the trunk-or-treating thing are the same churches where you will be urged to spread the gospel, and in order to do so, one must mingle with “the lost.”  We hear encouraging stories about people who organized neighborhood potlucks and soup nights and block parties.  Love your neighbor.  Who is your neighbor (no thanks to Mr. Rogers).  Well, along comes Halloween, perfect opportunity to meet the neighbors, but no.  We must trunk-or-treat instead, and mingle with Our Own Kind.

Second, do the kids really need MORE candy?  Do we really want them to walk a much shorter distance for it?  Or is it more convenient for us, less walking for US.

When I was a kid, our Halloween was an all-day event, loosely organized by our neighborhood grownups, that included a costume parade and prizes in categories like “prettiest” (I never won this one) or “most original” costume (much more my style).  The creativity part was important, long before the candy part kicked in.  But it wasn’t so much about candy, it was about adventure, and it was all about the neighborhood.

I remember trick or treating as a kid, the accompanying parent retreating ever farther into the yard as we got older. We always went after dark, or what was the point?  The really little kids went in the daylight and we pitied them.  I remember the thrill of fear as we approached the doors of our neighbors who we barely knew.  I remember peeking curiously into their houses, smelling their unfamiliar cooking smells, and how fun it was when these stern grownups actually talked to us about how scary we were! how cute we were! and how they couldn’t even tell who we were and maybe we really were two witches and a dog and a robot.

Our parents were on guard.  Someone we knew was given an apple with a razor blade in it, at least that’s what we were told, and our parents had to go through all our candy when the night was over.  As it turns out, documented Halloween poisonings are rare or possibly nonexistent. But we were careful.  We knew full well you didn’t go into anybody’s house, and we had to make sure we could walk in our costumes and see out of our masks.

I know that era is over.  It was half over when I was a kid.  We never “tricked” anybody.  We heard about soaping windows or egging houses but it was always the stuff of legend and we never did it. Ditto bobbing for apples.  I know that we roamed a suburban neighborhood with a freedom that today’s kids rarely have, and that even a sealed bag of M&Ms can be tampered with.  But still, I am sad.  As usual, this reworking of Halloween threatens to get rid of the important stuff – the visiting of neighbors, the important fantasy and creativity elements of dress-up, the flirtation with scariness and fear within safe boundaries – and keeps the least important part: candy.

I’m sure in a few years the practicality of trunk-or-treat will wear down my resistance and I’ll be right there with my own munchkin(s), enjoying the convenience, hobnobbing with all the friends I will have made by then.  But I also hope that evil, dangerous, secular trick-or-treating hangs in there as well.

 

Ahhhh

Obviously I am a drama queen and yet at least some of you love me anyway.

The nurse at my psychiatrist’s office, who is obviously used to dealing with unhinged people, quickly located some of my med* at a Walgreen’s not too far away and I skedaddled up there & got it.

I feel so grownup having both a psychiatrist and a therapist, by the way.  It’s like those people who have not just a hair “stylist” but also a “colorist.”  I personally let one guy do everything that grows from the top of my head, but I guess I’m old school.

So, obviously I am relieved and happy to have the whole psychiatrist-evaluation-prescription waitingwaitingwaiting part of the drama over.  Now I can enter into the “just what is this drug doing to me, anyway” part, and since I was gung ho about taking the medicine –

hm maybe that’s what the waiting was for?

– now I see only good things.  It’s only day 2 and highly unlikely that any of this is real, but I feel like I’m having one of my “good days.”  Good days are when the sun shines, I get enough sleep, I have things to do that I am happy about (like a lunch with a friend), I haven’t overeaten for days and I don’t want to right now, I’m actually interested in doing my workout and working hard, my body doesn’t remind me that we’re carrying many extra pounds, my house is clean, and the Democrats control Congress.

So if this were an organic and naturally occurring “good day” many of those things would need to be true, but only some are.  I have no plans today with friends,  I think it’s going to rain, I have overeaten or eaten things that disgust me the last few days, and the Democrats are probably going to screw things up anyway.  But I feel kind of like I’ve had some new, excellent caffeine, an Acapulco Gold of caffeine that makes me feel peppy and optimistic but won’t give me stomach cramps later.

I hope.

So who knows.  If this is placebo, that rocks too.  I’ll take what I can get.

*The drug is Aplenzin, and what is up with the names of drugs anyway? It is apparently the exact same chemical as Wellb@trin but with a better “delivery system,” i.e., uh, “pill.”

 

Not funny

I waited sixteen days to see the doc.  We had a lovely talk about my problems.  He wasn’t the warm-and-fuzziest but who cares.  He explained the drugs to me

hahahahaha who knows how those things work?  selective uptake blah blah dopamine norephrinone, or is it Nora Ephronone?  Makes you feel like you’re in “When Harry Met Sally?” I’ll have what she’s having.

yeah anyway

We decided on a drug that I’ve never heard of but is apparently the cool younger brother of some other meds that we all know and love.  I drove directly to the pharmacy hoping to pick it up and start ASAP but I have to take it in the morning lest it give me too much energy for sleep.  Energy.  I think I remember what energy feels like.  I went and picked Daniel up from the go-to friend who was kind enough to watch him and went back to the drugstore to pick it up only to find out they have to order the drug and it will come in sometime after 9 am.   Um, thanks for the extra trip people, could you not tell me that upfront?

I’m up at 5:30 with the baby… no I’m actually up at 3:30 with the cat who is meowing loudly.  This is actually a good thing since that is her “I am having diarrhea all over the house” meow and now I know to watch where I step, and find the carpet cleaner.  Ha ha, that’s a joke.  I always know where the carpet cleaner is.   The baby wakes at 5:30 just because.

I wait and wait until after 9.  I feel almost bright and shiny, as if this is the first day of the rest of my life, only to find that the pharmacy can’t get it from their warehouse – not today and maybe not? ever.  But “we’ll call you when it comes in.”  Um, right.  I’m going to sit around for a few weeks waiting for your call before starting my antidepressant?  Are they kidding?  So I tell myself  it’s just Walgreen’s that sucks this much, but no.  My doctor has apparently prescribed something so fabulous that nobody has it.

The irony is that I have samples of this longed-for drug that I now sort of hate.  In my purse.  Three weeks’ worth.  But they are the next level, not the first week low dose I am supposed to start with.  This drug comes in irritating irregular dosage amounts like 172 and 348 and nobody carries the 172.  Or is it 178.   And I can’t just split the pills in half because the delivery of the medicine is crucial and the pill has to break down over time.  Unlike me; I am breaking down all at once.  And there is no fucking around with this medication or I could have a seizure.

Delightful.

I called the psychiatrist’s office and asked his assistant where I am supposed to get this stuff.  She is supposed to call me back and I have no doubt that the pharmacy that has it is on the far side of the moon.  But that’s okay.

Waiting.

 

To do list

1.  Change stinky baby.

2. Realizing that only full immersion will clean the epic poop, place naked semiclean baby on the floor in order to run into the bathroom and start the bathwater which takes 3-5 minutes to get warm.  Pray that baby doesn’t pee.

3.  Make mental note to clean baby pee from carpet.

4.  Bathe stinky baby.  Make a mental note to clean half the bathroom since baby has now discovered splashing.  Try not to re-injure lower back.

5.  Make a mental note to stretch and ice injured back.

6. Dress clean-smelling baby which activity now resembles baby professional wrestling.

7. Locate the new cat barf spots that I heard the cat barfing last night.

8.  Try to sneak the cat’s antidepressant into her food without her knowing.  Try again.

9. Resist temptation to take the cat’s antidepressant myself.

10. Laundry

11. Dishes

12. Celebrate baby’s first ever sleeping past 6 a.m.

Repeat.

 

Mean people suck.

I hurt my back a few weeks ago.  Actually I hurt my back three separate freaking times, all three caused by a certain baby whose name I won’t mention.  Said baby is 1) not getting any lighter and 2) hell-bent on diving off the changing table.  These back injuries are the worst most frustrating kind, because instead of just – ow! my back hurts! – I get nothing, until the next day when doing something innocuous like lifting a spoon from the dishwasher causes my back to go into spasm.  My back is like some nice lady who says “oh, no, I’m okay, I don’t mind” and then stabs me – yes – in the back.  Back!  Get some boundaries!  If I knew in the moment that you were straining, I’d go easier.

Except when the baby suddenly can crawl at the speed of light and is heading for the edge of the bed.

Anyway, I went to the doctor for drugs; I am not a fool.  But I also got a prescription for physical therapy, because I am not going to just put up with this, what with the baby who insists on growing bigger and heavier.  I don’t have a “bad back” – aside from its obvious passive/aggressive issues – I just need to be stronger.  So I went off to physical therapy and was assigned a therapist who has either done time or has a dishonorable discharge hidden away in his un-checked background.  At first I thought he would be great, because a little bit of …stern… is fine with me, and kind of motivating.

But as of yesterday, when I ran out of the physical therapy gym and paced the hall, sobbing, he is not fine with me.  I think he’s kind of a … dick, really.  In my several stints in physical therapy over the years, I have usually worked with shiny young PTs in their twenties who think of me as someone old-ish and fat, and they have treated me with kindness and low expectations.  But this therapist, we’ll call him Gunther, asked me to do the exercises I’ve been doing at home, and then peppered me with comments like “you’re weak in your core” “you should be able to hold that for 20 seconds” “why are you working out with a trainer when you’re weak in your core?  You’re wasting your time.”  Gunther is the kind of guy who makes sure to tell me that he’s been “doing this for 40 years” every time he sees me, and he seems to need me to progress at a certain rate so that he can be sure of himself and his “program.”

Here is where the depression makes everything complicated.  I go to the gym because it’s good for me, and I like it, and blah blah blah.  But I also go because I hate myself.  I could say, well, actually I hate my fat, and that is true, but the sad truth is that I also just hate ME, and I want to fix ME, and there is this obvious body with its flaws and injuries that presents me with plenty of things to fix.  So consequently I am somebody who always goes to the gym and always works really, really hard. I’ve been working out with a trainer since the baby was six weeks old, just to lift weights and do the things I hate to do, and even though I’m depressed and gaining weight every week, I have gotten a lot stronger and fitter.  She nags me to come to the gym and do the exercise things that I hate on the days that I’m not working with her, and I work harder because of her encouragement.

Then I often sit in my car and cry, because it’s so hard and I feel so exhausted and hopeless.  Then I go home and eat.

Sigh.  While Gunther is a dick, he had no idea that all of THAT was brewing when he unleashed his meanness.  And I am confused about how much of what happened – his, uh, motivational style vs. my emotional fragility – was depression-fueled.  I did push back, and told him he was in my face, and that if he overestimated me in the first session that was his problem, not mine.

I just hate not being sure of myself.  I can’t tell if I over-reacted.  I’m sure that he’s inappropriate, but I think bursting into tears – not just tears but the hiccuping deep sobs that you can’t stuff back down – was ? a bit much.  It doesn’t take a genius to note that this PT situation hits many nerves: older male authority figure, fitness / gym setting where I seek my redemption, physical pain, too many freaking MIRRORS do they have to have a MIRROR on every wall?

But, oy.  So much drama.  I feel like I carry around a bucket of deep sorrow and the slightest little jostle from anybody spills it all over the place.  I want to stay home so there isn’t so much spillage and mess, it’s less embarrassing.  But I’m not going to stay home.

And I’m going to stay with Gunther.  I don’t have much choice, he’s the only back / neck guy they have, and I’m a hostage to the daycare at this rehab center.  Besides, being able to hold the single leg bridge for 10 sets is the best way I know of to give Gunther the finger, so that’s what I’m going to do.

 

Sixteen Days

I was excited after I went to the fertility clinic.  A little too excited, actually.  Having another baby seemed like it would be so great!  I was really liking the idea.  It would give me… a reason ?  A purpose?  An excuse?  I don’t know.  I came home from the clinic and was all about the protocol (much easier than my last ones) and the timing (very soon) and my husband put the brakes on, fast.

And I did not like that.

But I knew he was right.  First of all, I am fat, and getting pregnant at this weight, when my joints already hurt and I seem to have a back strain or a swollen knee or some damn thing every week, would be a major strain.  A sick pregnancy, where I don’t gain a lot of weight, would be bad enough.  A normal pregnancy, where I might put on 30 MORE pounds… could be a disaster.

But I was so disappointed, and that was kinda weird.  I started to notice that I need something.  Another baby, a project, something.  It didn’t feel quite right, and I had to keep reminding myself that at the end of that pregnancy there would be another newborn and no sleep and the baby we already have isn’t exactly going anywhere.  THAT’s a project.

But I just kept thinking that I need it.

Not good.  I do need something.  I have been seeing a therapist for several months now.  I have been in therapy on and off for most of my adult life, because that is what it has taken to get me through the many many stages of recovery from childhood sexual abuse.  Since the really crazy ugly part of that recovery is well behind me, I’m always surprised that I’m not done yet.  But, I’m not.

So, yes, I need something.  I have now gained almost 40 pounds since my son was born, and while I’m all about not hating myself, and learning to have peace with food, et cetera, I am still overeating and finding it hard to stop.  I know I’d like to have a job, and I may not find one that fits my mothering schedule for a while.  I’d like to be writing again, and I’m not.  I seem to need to be busy all the time,  to be accomplishing or creating or fixing, to be okay.  But I’m not finding anything to do.  I could use more and better friends, but I seem to suck at picking up the phone.  All I do anymore is tell myself why someone isn’t a good fit for me, or why she doesn’t like me, or our kids aren’t the same age.  Or I just watch 4 “Grey’s Anatomy”s in a row until I’m too tired to remember to get a life.

I went to my therapist on Friday and we again approached the idea that I am okay, no matter what my weight, no matter what my accomplishments or lack thereof, and I again started to sob that I didn’t know how to be okay, and my therapist told me that she thinks I’m depressed.  I may have postpartum depression and I may also, based on my history, have always been depressed. She wants me to go and see a psychiatrist to be evaluated for antidepressants.

At first I thought “no way!” Because in my life I have been depressed, as in face-down, no color in the sky, can’t-hardly-move-my-mouth-to-speak depressed.  That is not how I have been feeling.  But I have cried a lot, I have felt worthless a lot, and lately I’ve been wondering why I am this unhappy person in the middle of my very fortunate circumstances.  It’s easy for me to say that I’m sad because I’m fat.  But, I’m starting to think, maybe I’m fat because I’m sad. Part of me is crying for help, maybe, but the rest of me just wants it to shut up and keep smiling.

It was hard to hear.  I’ve been depressed my whole life?  Oh.  Faaabulous.  Am I a lie?  But… I think she’s right.  I’ve been striving my whole life.  Striving to get through school, to get a decent job, to get a boyfriend (always the boyfriend), to lose weight.  I elevated striving to epic levels.  I wrote and performed and got married and got divorced and started my own business and ran marathons and took a manual labor job and went to graduate school and got married again.  Then of course came the infertility.  I’m now in a very solid wonderful marriage, with an extra cute baby and a good shot at having a second child, in an incredible house in a beautiful little town that I love.  I have every right to coast for the rest of my life, but  the idea of that – that I’m no longer under construction, that this me is “it” – that idea is so scary and empty and depressing that I know I have some serious work to do.

So I walked out of that therapy session with a phone number in my pocket, wearing a diagnosis, a different paradigm, like an unfamiliar haircut.  It seemed weird, and like some kind of cop-out, to just say, okay.  I’m depressed. But then again…life shouldn’t be this hard.  And especially the food thing.  It’s one thing to struggle with food, and all that, and I always have.  But to gain 40 pounds in 6 months?  That is kinda scary, don’t you think?  When I thought of that I started to feel a little bit relieved.  As in, maybe all of this isn’t my fault, or my personality, or my destiny.  Because it has been really crazy hard just to eat healthily and feel like a normal human who has a right to be here.

I’m pretty suggestible, so for a few days I felt around in my psyche to find the sore, depressed parts. Ow!  They’re there.  After a few days, I got right on board with the idea.  Psychiatrist, meds, sure, okay let’s go.  But then there was the getting in touch with the shrink and the words I dread when I call for an appointment: “His next available…” You could be dying and there will be somebody on the end of the phone telling you his “next available” is sometime next YEAR.

His next available is the week after next.  Sixteen days away.  Knowing how long it takes the meds to kick in, the possibility that I might have to try a few before I see any benefit, and how crappy I am realizing I feel… well, grrreat.  So I am trying to implement every old school depression lifter that I know of.  Fish oil.  Exercise.  Singing.  Sunshine (it’s supposed to rain cats and dogs here until SUNDAY, thank you God.  Yes, that was sarcasm; the Lord has heard it from me before).  Friends, support, expressing my feelings.  Salmon, chocolate, bunnies, whatever.  What choice do I have?

Sixteen days.