Before the crack of dawn

I woke up, uncomfortable and thirsty. Bathroom. Kitchen. Bed. Kitchen. Bed.

Three topics swirled, coalescing in the kind of low-level but insistent anxiety that prevents going back to sleep.

1. I agreed to play for a town festival in a month. They want a historical focus, pre-1900. Technically, a lot of what I play is old, but I don’t know (nor do I care) about the history of particular tunes or composers. It might be nice to hear stories from other musicians, but mainly I just play them because I like them. But I need to cough up some tidbits to parrot back about at least some of the tunes. And as I survey my repertoire lists and think, I remember one reason I am not so comfortable on a stage — the kind of stuff I most like to play is at its best for background music, or wedding music, or a CD to study by — as a soloist I just don’t have a lot of high energy keep-em-clapping type stuff, and I am worried that I will have crickets for an audience. Decisions, decisions — and then I need to actually practice the stuff, once I’ve decided on a set list. Fortunately I only have to fill 45 minutes.

2. I am registered to attend the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival in July. I went once before, as a teacher. This time I will just be a student. I am interested mainly in one class. I could just ask her for the handout. I am worried that I will be miserably bored, regretting a colossal waste of time and money, a mood which would be very awkward among a bunch of dulcimer enthusiasts who expect or assume like-minded enthusiasm. I might have fun. Who knows. And I won’t find out without going.

3. Mark’s uncle is moving overseas and, in the process of selling off his stuff, arranged with Mark’s folks for us to get a kitchen table and chairs and Mark’s grandmother’s old hutch. Meanwhile, did we bother to ask the dimensions of this furniture? Or to measure our tiny dining space? Yes, not dining room, but dining space. The extension of a hallway, bordered by open space, one wall, one kitchen entrance, and one sliding glass door. Where exactly is this hutch going to go? It’s awkward to get by our existing table — what if the new one is bigger? Gah.

While I’m at it, what else is on the worry / complaint / discouragement / disappointment list?

The garden beds are not holding their shape all that well. Heavy rains have washed off the top layers, making the walkways nice fine silty mud and the planting beds gravelly. The three pumpkin sprouts are coming up on the side of the bed, almost in the walkway. The one bean sprout I saw seems to have withered away before pulling its leaves out of the ground. There are lots of grassy weeds starting. At least there are also lettuce and spinach sprouts.

The dress I have been knitting for Amy, since, oh, February or so? Out of leftover yarns from two other projects. Finished yesterday, and it’s way too big on top — won’t even stay on. Sized maybe for a five-year-old? Yikes. Meanwhile if I have to wait that long for her to be able to wear it, I’m going to have to rip out the seed-stitch border and knit the skirt a lot longer. Alternatively, I suppose I could rip back even further and just make it a tank top. But then I would still have a bunch of leftover yarn, not enough to do much else with. It is boxed up and in the closet for now. Back to the sweater I’ve been knitting for myself for two years. The one I’m not sure I’m going to like.

Well, that’s enough complaining for one post.

I could do a gratitude list, but I don’t feel like it. However, be assured, there are things I am grateful for, things that please me, and I’m not completely miserable.

One of those days

I’ve been depressed today.

Managed to get hold of Jasenka, someone I know through Culver, and she included me and Amy in her Walmart expedition with her three-year-old, Jelena.

Originally, we planned to shop there and do a few other errands, then eat lunch here. But the expedition was extensive — didn’t get home until 2pm.

There was the razor dilemma. Mark got a free Gilette Fusion in the mail over a year ago, and since he uses an electric I’d decided I would try it, and liked it. The one blade cartridge it came with lasted me all season with no problems, which is very impressive. So I thought I’d get some more cartridges. But they’re more expensive than other razor cartridges, and no other cartridges fit it. So then I have to decide if I will go back to Venus (used to have one and liked it pretty well) or try an electric. My friend uses Epilady; another option to consider. I don’t want to do disposables because of the waste.

What do you ladies use?

Then there was the plant dilemma. Jasenka’s friend’s dad died about a month ago, and she wanted to get a hanging flowering plant. Most were not so healthy-looking, but eventually we found one that she liked that was decent.

There was the card aisle. She needed two cards (a birth and a death). I hate buying cards. Does anyone actually ever find a card that says what they want to say and doesn’t say anything they don’t want to say?

A slew of other things — kitty litter for me, thread for both of us, various food items for her, baking soda for me, back and forth and all around.

By then it was obvious that lunch was not to be; we got fries for Jelena and a pretzel for Amy at the McDonald’s in the store.

Across town for a pizza for her oldest, and for filter cartridges for the kitty’s water dish, and home, where I hastily fed Amy frozen green beans (she likes them frozen), half a banana, and a piece of cheese before putting her to bed.

I planned to make banana muffins — the bananas are just past ripe and not really good for anything else at this point. But I’m not really in the mood — the general depressed day, plus the playgroup garbage, including that I invited folks for tomorrow and have already heard about three people who won’t be there, and am guessing no one else will show either but meanwhile I’ll have to stay home just in case.

Jasenka invited me to hang out with her tomorrow afternoon at her garage sale. I just might. Nice of her. Too bad her family’s going to be in Croatia (their home) for a year.

#93: Gay Nicholson

We saw you during pregnancy, but I most remember and appreciate your availability and support by phone during PPD, and that you visited me the night I was admitted to the psych ward.

Final meeting with psychiatrist

Was yesterday afternoon.

Told her about how I’ve returned to my former self, including the levels / frequencies of irritability, labile emotions, and so on, that seem to have been part of my life from a pretty early age.

She said that sounded like I wanted to start the Zoloft again, but I said no, I wanted to have at least a year to continue practicing my skills, get reacquainted with this self, etc.

Besides, I also remembered that during the buoyancy of pregnancy, and once drug-stabilized during PPD, I may have been less moody, but I was also less creative, less thoughtful, had less meaning in life.

Perhaps Zoloft makes me a more pleasant person to live with.

But is it my duty to do whatever it takes to make life more pleasant? Is pleasant really the highest goal? And what are the limits for “whatever it takes?”

I’m not incapacitated like I was by PPD — I’m just (sometimes) emotional, sensitive, and responsive, including positives and negatives.

Connect

I continue to confront moments of disconnect, dissatisfaction, discontent, which lead to depression and sometimes anger. In these moments I struggle to stay engaged with present reality, to avoid flamboyant symbolic actions that wouldn’t really accomplish anything, to also avoid burying and hiding myself, to avoid anything that would make things worse for me or for the others in my life.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Sometimes it seems there are not many options for viable, effective, appropriate action.

That’s when it gets depressing.

Reminds me of something Pastor Hopper once said —

Anger signals that you’ve got a goal that is being blocked.
Anxiety signals that you feel uncertain about accomplishing a goal.
Depression signals that your goal seems doomed to fail.

Sometimes the situation can be resolved by changing goals. That prospect can be depressing, too.

Over and over, sometimes frequently, sometimes long dormant, this insatiability, this nothing is ever good enough, this emptiness and meaninglessness creeps into my life.

It’s a good reminder that this world and this life are not my true home. That I am a full participant in the Fall and so is everyone else, and even creation groans.

I need to learn — still and ever — how to keep the holy discontent without it ruining my relationships, and how to live freely and graciously and contentedly and joyfully in the good enough.

After drugs

So I am experiencing more moments of depression, anger, and anxiety than in the months when I was on Risperdal and Zoloft.

One of the more annoying tendencies for folks experiencing these feelings, is to go meta with them — in other words, to have feelings about having feelings: to be alarmed by, depressed by, anxious about, angry about, the depression, anger, and anxiety. I especially don’t appreciate this in myself. I.e., I’m depressed; oh no, now I’m anxious because I’m depressed; oh no, being anxious about being depressed makes me mad, etc.

I think one reason why Mark and I are so sensitive about my moods, so reactive to them, is that my horrible PPD experiences are still fresh in our minds, and we are afraid of returning to such dark days.

I plan to print out some diary cards and start tracking my moods again for a while. I also intend to recommit to exercise, socializing, Bible and prayer, exercising the skills I’ve learned in therapy and DBT group, and whatever else I can think of to manage symptoms. I also have Joe’s phone number and am ready to schedule a session with him if I think it would be helpful. And I think I am going to take a break from reading my friends’ blogs, particularly those friends who have suffered much; I guess the lingo is to say that it might be triggering.

I also wish I could identify and resolve all of the things that lead to the depression, anxiety, and anger. I heartily disagree with the behaviorists for saying that the mind and heart, the subconscious, are irrelevant and the only thing that matters is changing behavior. On the other hand, I am aware that sometimes my feelings come first, and then I hunt for reasons. Since the reasons have always existed, they don’t explain why I am feeling X at a particular moment and not at another. So, I am thinking I will try to be open to reflection and analysis when it seems helpful, but to also take a practical approach to “managing symptoms.”

Reasons (just for fun):

• Weather / lack of sunlight
• Diet
• Lack of exercise
• Apparently, lack of drugs; but I’m not going back if I can help it
• Disappointments / unfulfilled desires in several relationships
• Insecurity, loneliness, navigating new social environment
• Frustration at the apparent impossibility of resolving or even talking about certain things with the relevant people
• My own failures and inabilities and negative impacts on others
• Feeling abandoned (by people and by God) to bear all the weight of taking care of myself, without sufficient resources, clarity, wisdom, feedback, etc.
• Current stresses like the cat’s illness and Amy’s rash
• There’s probably more but that’s what comes to mind immediately.

It’s not the PPD, it’s the crying

Amy has been especially cryish lately.

Tooth? Earache? She’s gotten a runny nose…

The psychological stress of not wanting to displease the great gods Mama and Daddy, but having to follow that burning urge to assert herself, too…

And today, a very little morning nap, and no afternoon nap at all. That’s right, she spent an hour in her crib, at first babbling, then crying and yelling — when I went in I found that she had thrown not one but all three of her blankets over the side. Mark changed her and put her back down, but no; so out she came, napless. She actually did okay this evening, but has now been crying in the crib for almost an hour. We’ve gone in once to administer Tylenol and a lullaby, to no avail. If it continues, we’ll go in once more for a short time.

Silence falls… dare I hope?

Anyway, the post title:

I have been free of PPD for several months now, and am coming off the drugs with no apparent issues. (Not that I’m all perky and sunshine all the time, but then again I never have been like that all the time. I think, all things considered, my since-Amy moments of depression, anxiety, anger, and other “negative” emotions have had sufficient grounds that I don’t need to suspect anything neurochemical, and even if there’s a neurochemical element to it, I don’t feel I’m so out of control or miserable that I want to return to the drugs.)

One of the grounds is crying. When Amy gets extra fussy like this, I find it very stressful. I’m a hypersensitive type — make me live with the sound of someone being loudly and frequently miserable, and it’s going to rub off at least a little.

And guess what? Babies cry.

No more babies, please.

Disclaimer: Do not interpret this post as blaming Amy, hating or resenting her, or any such… I recognize her need and right to be miserable sometimes for her own reasons and to say so, and I choose a compassionate and respectful stance towards her (eventually) even when her behavior is escalating my stress level.

Earplugs again

Today I got out my earplugs again.

I didn’t sleep well last night — I was probably up from about 2 to about 5 or 6. Then I had two hours of babysitting, which went well but is still tiring. Amy only slept a half hour for her morning nap.

So when she was still talking, and sometimes crying, perhaps because she’s got this new habit of throwing her beloved blanket out of the crib, I was getting irrationally angry. Part of me said it would be safer not to try to go in and comfort her because I was irritated enough I might yell or be rough. Part of me said it would be good for her to learn that when she throws her blanket out of the crib, it doesn’t come back.

I put in the earplugs so her sounds (both the contented babbling and the crying) wouldn’t aggravate me further.

And I continued working on her one year scrapbook, thinking again about the irony, that it can be fun and pleasant to do something about Amy even while I’m irritated with Amy herself.

She slept about an hour. Not long enough — for her or for me. But we’ll be okay.

Miserable little rash

Poor Amy keeps getting fresh rash. It’s not huge, not scabby or broken or anything, just persistent / recurring. Honestly, if you saw it, you wouldn’t think anything of it.

I did some reading today, and found over and over again that changing frequently and exposure to air are the most helpful things you can do for a diaper rash. We thought we were changing pretty frequently already, but we’re going to keep working at it. And the old comforter is back in place for naked time after diaper changes.

I also found some other ideas that we’re going to try:

• Use a cup of vinegar in the final rinse when washing diapers.
• Change detergents — we buy stuff with no dyes and perfumes, but perhaps the store brand isn’t as good as the brand we tried before.
• Use diaper cream LESS frequently — 2-3x a day rather than with every change — allows skin to breathe.
• Dress baby in a diaper without a cover for more breathability. The Bummis wraps we use are not like the old days’ rubber pants — they are fairly breathable. But a plain diaper is even more breathable. This will require leggings of some sort, though, since the weather’s colder now. I’m working on knitting a pair — this time I found a pattern.

There have been some unhappy incidents lately. Amy has been so miserable, apparently with the rash, that she screams the old bloody murder scream on the changing table, whether you’re touching her or looking at her or not. Twice I’ve yelled back.

I don’t like that I get angry and think things like “It’s JUST a diaper change!” or “There’s nothing wrong!” — feelings are not rational and I shouldn’t require that she provide an acceptable reason for being upset. At the same time, my feelings don’t have to be rational either. I do need to keep working at appropriate expression and safe metabolizing of anger, but it’s okay to be angry. And yes, being screamed at is annoying, no matter what the reason.

Today we are all making progress. There already is a difference in the redness of her rash. And even though she screamed again at one change, I talked us both through it, explaining to her (and reminding myself) that I know she’s not crying to annoy me, but because she’s upset, and that she has a right to her feelings and I choose to have compassion and respect for her, and that I have a right to my feelings when I find her behavior annoying even though it’s not her fault.

Sure, because I’m the anxious type, the thought crossed my mind, what if this means I need the full dose of Risperdal. But no, this is not a four- or five-day pattern of escalation. It’s just some elevated triggers (Amy hasn’t cried like this in months) and elevated response to them, and I’m doing better already.

Emotions are weird

I like being able to have emotions.

But sometimes they’re weird and / or annoying.

Like when you put the baby down for a nap around 3:30 and you still hear occasional talking at 4:45, half an hour before you need to leave to take the baby to meet her daddy for dinner at the dining hall.

It’s not crying. She seems perfectly content to just sit there and talk to herself.

If she doesn’t sleep, she doesn’t sleep. She usually copes pretty well with missed naps. Not great, but not unbearable.

So getting mad about it doesn’t jive with rational mind.

Wise mind patiently sits here and tells me that rational mind may have analyzed things just fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be angry or that it doesn’t make sense over in emotional mind. After all, this non-napping is unexpected and unwanted.

Wise mind also reminds me that it’s possible to feel an emotion and not let it dictate my behavior.

And Amy keeps saying “uh-oh”; I wonder if she’s tossed one of her things out of the crib or something.

I’ve been feeling on edge a bit lately, anyway. We’re still new here, and making friends and otherwise adjusting (and finding a church) takes time and plodding and risks and all that. And yesterday was odd and Mark has to work late again tonight (had a football game last night, too), and I was only able to make one of the doctor appointments I need. (I have two days when Mark has fall break and can be home to take care of Amy. Amy doesn’t know anyone here well enough for me to ask someone else to watch her.)

This morning, though, we had a little outing. I met three other moms at the coffeeshop and we enjoyed hanging out, eating scones, and watching each other’s little ones.

I can’t believe she (apparently) didn’t sleep at all for this hour and a half.

Please let it not be another poopy diaper. So tired of poopy diapers, especially these ones where it’s all slimed and doesn’t shake or scrape off nicely. One or two a day, fine, but not every diaper…

There’s some cries mixed in with the talking, now.

———

Edited to add:

Now it’s 5:12. Three minutes before we have to leave. Guess who is silent, perhaps asleep?

———

Edited to add:

It’s now 8:31.

Indeed, she was asleep when I went to get her, and was not happy about waking up. She’s pretty quick to adjust, though. And it was just a nice wet diaper, not poopy.

Dinner was not great, but we all seemed to mellow out as it went on. It’s hard to strike the right line between complaining and bottling; I suppose I should try to just state what I’m feeling, in an informational way.

When Amy and I got home, I spread out the old comforter and let her play naked. Just as one big rash was finally almost completely faded, another one struck. Humph. I’ve been using my wool soakers, too, for more breathability. She had some frustrations, mostly about me keeping her on the comforter, but mostly played just fine.

And when I sang Old MacDonald, I started to hear “I-O,” maybe even “E-I-O” just after I sang those parts. Throughout the song she was watching intently, and moving her lips, perhaps imitating.

She was not happy about getting a new diaper on, calmed down for her bottle, and was not at all happy about being put to bed, but almost immediately went to sleep.

Ahhhh…