Aaaaaaaaaand appointment scheduled. A few days ago I also encountered a fascinating article and TED Talk about the connection between sleep deprivation and mental illness, which now has me putting in a concerted effort to go to bed a full two and a half hours earlier than has been my normal behavior. So far, I've been obedient to the plan, but it's hard to actually fall asleep that early. I think it might be starting to help, though. I'm going to keep it up and see how that improves.
In addition, I started reading the Book of Mormon out loud to my family each night, mostly at dinner time, when Daniel is already mostly sitting still and has his mouth full. :P I'm not explaining much yet, but I've always wanted to have family scripture study be a thing for us, with varying degrees of success even pre-kids. So this is more about creating that habit and making for future opportunities. And also getting Daniel's ear familiar with the cadences of that sort of language. I'm sure he's not understanding much, but already he occasionally asks for the definition of a word or something, so that's fun. This is all stemming from a big BoM kick I've been on in general lately, due in large part to a fun conversation I had with a friend on facebook. More on that in a minute.
So yeah. Some decent days (Thursday, Friday) and some really bad days (Wednesday, Saturday). Today is a good one so far. (Here I interrupt myself to play with a giggling baby, then spend over an hour trying to encourage him to sleep as he becomes increasingly cranky and erratic. Eventually I give up. At least now Daniel has him happily distracted, playing on couch cushions on the floor.)
Anyway. Trying to pile on as many good things as I can and see what sticks. None of the things I'd been trying previously have worked. If the bad days could just be not so very very very bad, and the good days involve more energy for doing anything, that would be enough. It's funny--Noah is 14 months old, which is exactly the age Daniel was when I first couldn't take it anymore and had to get counseling. I guess this age just really short-circuits my brain. (It's a time of strong opinions and poor communication, to put it lightly.)
IN OTHER NEWS:
I actually did end up doing a lot of writing in February! I made progress on my RPG prep, though not on my webcomic scripts. I wrote that talk I posted. Astonishingly, I actually did write a poem, which I thought was pretty good. I got frustrated by a stupid birthday card I was about to spend and ended up composing the world's most ridiculous short story to try and "fix" it. And I put together a narrative timeline of the Book of Mormon for the aforementioned friend. All three of these things I will probably end up posting here over the next week or so.
Now it's March! I don't know what to do hobby-wise for March. I had a vague idea that it would be fun to try to learn to cook, but that idea isn't holding up well in the face of the face of all this domestic despair. Or maybe it would help? I dunno. I think I don't want the pressure right now. The other big thing I keep wanting to do is work on learning a language--either Esperanto or Spanish. But maybe it would be smarter to devote the whole month to my Fate campaign?
It'll probably be one of those things, anyway.
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Monday, March 3, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Constantly under assault
All of my logic and faith and optimism and coping skills are totally failing this week. I am a terrible person and miserable. It doesn't matter that they do amazing things every day. I don't know what to do with them or myself. I am out of control and scared. I might need counseling again.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Belated, followed by belabored
And then, one day, you get out of the shower and just... are completely fine. All of a sudden.
(I wanted to post this on May 4th, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure it would stick.
(It has. Everything is totally different. I guess I just finally finished processing, or something.)
~
In May I had an awesome week or two of feeling amazing about life, being all like, man, I have no problems! This is crazy! What do other people worry about, anyway? I wonder what my first new problem will be! Then there was a sudden tragic death in my local religious community, and I felt very strange about my idea of what it means to have problems.)
Aaaaaanyway. We potty-trained Daniel in about a week after his third birthday, and that was part of why I felt so amazing. It was like I had finally passed the final rite and become a Real Mom. I did it! Birth, that just kind of happens. Potty-training, though, you could theoretically just not do, if you were a horrible person. But I did it, and Daniel did it, and it was actually really fun, because I spend that week being incredibly involved with him, setting aside all distractions and paying close attention. I loved it. He behaved better for the attention, and I was less frustrated by always trying to do other things. We enjoyed each other.
Sadly, it didn't take me very long to forget that lesson. I'm just now (like, today) coming out of several weeks of being an unexploded bomb of rage and misery and hating-my-life-as-a-mother. Although much of that has come from problems with nursing; I guess I won't go into the gory details, except to mention that the details actually involve gore. x_x And that drove me to wanting more distractions, which led to me ignoring Daniel a lot, which led to him misbehaving. But things to have resolved, or nearly so! Partly from technique-adjustments, and partly because Noah is six months old now (what?!?) and so we've been experimenting with solid food. In doing so I have discovered that he really really likes and wants and is good at eating solid food. Yay!! It helps that he has five teeth already, plus two almost-teeth (see above re: nursing problems). I've been giving him mini-meals the last couple days, and there's been a huge reduction in the whining and crying and a big increase in smiles. I'm hopeful that we can move more rapidly into nursing just once or twice a day than I did with Daniel (who didn't have a single tooth until he was 8 months, and who nursed to sleep, and with whom I also had painful problems around this age).
I also sat down with Heath last night and set a bunch of new, small goals about how I spend my time all day, aiming to maximize my usefulness and happiness and minimize my angst and frustration. I do way better at life when I have goals, even if I don't exactly meet them. Today went really well inside of me, even when it was chaotic and messy and loud and obnoxious outside of me. So that's awesome. (It also helped to be back in my own apartment, my own place that I'm in charge of, after a week with family. My family is awesome and it was so much fun, but being in one's own home is more the kind of awesome I seem to be in need of right this second, sanity-wise. Have I even mentioned that my sister is home from Nicaragua? I like her.)
(I also like: my kids. Noah was so adorable it was insane today--all happy and grinning all over the place with his little teeth, sitting up on his own all fat and cute, bouncing in his doorway bouncer so hard I thought he might land on his fluffy-diapered little butt. And Heath had a break in the middle of the day, so while the two of them took naps, Daniel and I went off by ourselves for a walk around town. This is absolutely my favorite thing to do as a mother, and I don't do it very often anymore. It was so much fun, and so nice. I miss him when we've been clashing. (When we were nursing, we always had to emotionally reconnect no matter what else was going on, and while I know that won't be the case for most of my time as a mom, it's still new to me (we nursed till he was two, still more than half his life) and I'm still learning to cope with the lost resource. I think that's the main reason I haven't made any gestures toward actually weaning Noah, even when I've had every reason to do so. I don't want to miss out on having that foundation with him as he gets older and more independent.)
So there is my boring and self-indulgent update! In other news, I might start a separate SCA blog because, oh yes, I am that big of a nerd. I do think it's more fun to talk about all my stuff in one place, but I also don't want random society people being like, cool post about late medieval Portuguese armory! What else you got here? Nipple problems, eh? Unfortunate, sister.
I also want to write a less rambling entry about how my identity has evolved lately in the face of my constant ambivalence about my ongoing choice to be a full-time caretaker, but I'm not sure it makes any sense. The short version is, I get way happier and more relaxed when I think of homemaking and kid-entertaining as my job. Like the kind you get hired for. Get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work! Don't slack off during your shift! Don't try to do other things and pretend you're not at work! Even if I'm doing it all the time and don't get as many breaks as I might want, if it's just my job, it's not who I am. This is why I used the word "caretaker" there. Being a mother is in fact a big part of who I am now, and I love that fiercely. But that's about my relationships with these two people, not about whether or not they live in my house and need me to make it a certain kind of environment for them. That part, the part I do, is just a job. And therefore I don't have to thrive on it. I can just do my best at it, and enjoy the kids I'm doing it for as much as possible, without having to transform into an archetype of it. I don't have to become it in order to do it, no matter how much of my time it takes. I can love my kids (which comes easily), get the home-making done (which doesn't), and still be me inside throughout the process. It's not like this is some magic formula that will prevent me from ever getting tired or burned-out, but it helps me feel less oppressed by my own perfectionism. I can get up in the morning and say "okay, I guess I better do some motherish stuff" instead of "ugh, I don't feel like a mother-ish person today...again." It's just stuff. And if I save the selfish things I /want/ to do (especially ones that park me at the computer) for when Heath is home or everyone else is asleep, I may not get as much time in on them, but I'm happier because I'm not spending my day getting interrupted. That ratchets up the resentment-points way too fast.
Whoa, I just went back to edit that paragraph and dozed off in my chair.
(I wanted to post this on May 4th, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure it would stick.
(It has. Everything is totally different. I guess I just finally finished processing, or something.)
~
In May I had an awesome week or two of feeling amazing about life, being all like, man, I have no problems! This is crazy! What do other people worry about, anyway? I wonder what my first new problem will be! Then there was a sudden tragic death in my local religious community, and I felt very strange about my idea of what it means to have problems.)
Aaaaaanyway. We potty-trained Daniel in about a week after his third birthday, and that was part of why I felt so amazing. It was like I had finally passed the final rite and become a Real Mom. I did it! Birth, that just kind of happens. Potty-training, though, you could theoretically just not do, if you were a horrible person. But I did it, and Daniel did it, and it was actually really fun, because I spend that week being incredibly involved with him, setting aside all distractions and paying close attention. I loved it. He behaved better for the attention, and I was less frustrated by always trying to do other things. We enjoyed each other.
Sadly, it didn't take me very long to forget that lesson. I'm just now (like, today) coming out of several weeks of being an unexploded bomb of rage and misery and hating-my-life-as-a-mother. Although much of that has come from problems with nursing; I guess I won't go into the gory details, except to mention that the details actually involve gore. x_x And that drove me to wanting more distractions, which led to me ignoring Daniel a lot, which led to him misbehaving. But things to have resolved, or nearly so! Partly from technique-adjustments, and partly because Noah is six months old now (what?!?) and so we've been experimenting with solid food. In doing so I have discovered that he really really likes and wants and is good at eating solid food. Yay!! It helps that he has five teeth already, plus two almost-teeth (see above re: nursing problems). I've been giving him mini-meals the last couple days, and there's been a huge reduction in the whining and crying and a big increase in smiles. I'm hopeful that we can move more rapidly into nursing just once or twice a day than I did with Daniel (who didn't have a single tooth until he was 8 months, and who nursed to sleep, and with whom I also had painful problems around this age).
I also sat down with Heath last night and set a bunch of new, small goals about how I spend my time all day, aiming to maximize my usefulness and happiness and minimize my angst and frustration. I do way better at life when I have goals, even if I don't exactly meet them. Today went really well inside of me, even when it was chaotic and messy and loud and obnoxious outside of me. So that's awesome. (It also helped to be back in my own apartment, my own place that I'm in charge of, after a week with family. My family is awesome and it was so much fun, but being in one's own home is more the kind of awesome I seem to be in need of right this second, sanity-wise. Have I even mentioned that my sister is home from Nicaragua? I like her.)
(I also like: my kids. Noah was so adorable it was insane today--all happy and grinning all over the place with his little teeth, sitting up on his own all fat and cute, bouncing in his doorway bouncer so hard I thought he might land on his fluffy-diapered little butt. And Heath had a break in the middle of the day, so while the two of them took naps, Daniel and I went off by ourselves for a walk around town. This is absolutely my favorite thing to do as a mother, and I don't do it very often anymore. It was so much fun, and so nice. I miss him when we've been clashing. (When we were nursing, we always had to emotionally reconnect no matter what else was going on, and while I know that won't be the case for most of my time as a mom, it's still new to me (we nursed till he was two, still more than half his life) and I'm still learning to cope with the lost resource. I think that's the main reason I haven't made any gestures toward actually weaning Noah, even when I've had every reason to do so. I don't want to miss out on having that foundation with him as he gets older and more independent.)
So there is my boring and self-indulgent update! In other news, I might start a separate SCA blog because, oh yes, I am that big of a nerd. I do think it's more fun to talk about all my stuff in one place, but I also don't want random society people being like, cool post about late medieval Portuguese armory! What else you got here? Nipple problems, eh? Unfortunate, sister.
I also want to write a less rambling entry about how my identity has evolved lately in the face of my constant ambivalence about my ongoing choice to be a full-time caretaker, but I'm not sure it makes any sense. The short version is, I get way happier and more relaxed when I think of homemaking and kid-entertaining as my job. Like the kind you get hired for. Get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work! Don't slack off during your shift! Don't try to do other things and pretend you're not at work! Even if I'm doing it all the time and don't get as many breaks as I might want, if it's just my job, it's not who I am. This is why I used the word "caretaker" there. Being a mother is in fact a big part of who I am now, and I love that fiercely. But that's about my relationships with these two people, not about whether or not they live in my house and need me to make it a certain kind of environment for them. That part, the part I do, is just a job. And therefore I don't have to thrive on it. I can just do my best at it, and enjoy the kids I'm doing it for as much as possible, without having to transform into an archetype of it. I don't have to become it in order to do it, no matter how much of my time it takes. I can love my kids (which comes easily), get the home-making done (which doesn't), and still be me inside throughout the process. It's not like this is some magic formula that will prevent me from ever getting tired or burned-out, but it helps me feel less oppressed by my own perfectionism. I can get up in the morning and say "okay, I guess I better do some motherish stuff" instead of "ugh, I don't feel like a mother-ish person today...again." It's just stuff. And if I save the selfish things I /want/ to do (especially ones that park me at the computer) for when Heath is home or everyone else is asleep, I may not get as much time in on them, but I'm happier because I'm not spending my day getting interrupted. That ratchets up the resentment-points way too fast.
Whoa, I just went back to edit that paragraph and dozed off in my chair.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
On Writing, Returning, Depression, Returning, and Writing
Well, humm.
I want to write a new post! But so much time has gone by. It's always hard to catch up.
Ordinarily, the first thing I do when catching up is apologize for not getting around to writing, but in this case I don't have to do that. The lapse started out unintentional, but turned into a deliberate thing before very long, because I was actively shedding as many of my reasons to feel guilty as I could.
I stopped writing because I was miserable, and I didn't know how to talk about that. That's always been the hardest thing for me when it comes to writing in public--I always feel like the internet has enough people's banal, repetitive angst in it, and that adding to that would just annoy and bore everybody. Or worse, make everyone get super worried and crowd in on me at a moment when I'm feeling easily embarrassed.
Eventually, I figured out that what I was dealing with was untreated postpartum depression. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion, but then I figured out that if you have to keep asking yourself whether or not what you're feeling "counts" as depression or not, the answer is "sure, why not?" as far as pursuing treatment goes. Similarly, if reading the list of symptoms of PPD makes you cry, that should be taken as a sign.
So during the hole in talking about my life, I've been working on trying to fix the hole in enjoying my life. On the advice of my awesome bishop, I've been talking to a counselor. I've been asking people to babysit for me so I can leave the house by myself on occasion. I've been writing privately about my negative feelings. Possibly most importantly, I've been making art of various sorts, which I've discovered is a really big deal for my sanity and self esteem.
Progress is being made, especially as I sort out my thoughts and emotions and my ambivalence about being a mother, which basically comes down to this: Daniel is amazing and beautiful and funny and delightful. But full-time caretaking is not a job I'm naturally inclined to like or find fulfilling. So I've been feeling a lot better just in owning that fact, because everyone likes some things and dislikes others, right? This is just another thing. I'm about 75% of the way to convincing myself that I'm not a bad person just because I don't enjoy, and in fact sometimes resent, my day-to-day activities. The mothers of generations past who did this had a totally different culture and much tighter communities. They would have gone stir crazy all alone in my living room, too.
So the next step is to try to change things somehow. The obvious method, or at least the first thing people say, is "well, start enjoying it, then," but my brainstorms along those lines are still tainted by guilt and fear of judgement. Anyway, how do you just "start enjoying" something? Everyone says "be grateful" and "find joy where you can" and "savor it while it lasts," but nobody says how to do that. So this method: not super effective.
The other obvious approach is lifestyle changes. I'm still thinking about this. Getting some time to myself outside the home has made a really big difference when I've managed it. I've figured out that I really, powerfully, desperately miss being a student, and although we don't have the resources for me to do grad school at the same time as Heath, it's been a useful fact to notice about myself. I've figured out that I love writing, and do it a lot better when I'm not at home. I've figured out that I feel fine about expressing my negative emotions when I can find a pleasing way to phrase them.
It would be cool if I could find a part-time job. Coming home to Daniel after just two hours away lets me start over fresh and be excited to see him, which feels like a much more fitting approach to his awesomeness. And it helps me avoid ever getting to the stage where, after being chased by him all day, I end up literally hiding in the closet because I can't handle playing clown anymore.
Side-note: It turns out I'm very introverted, and Daniel is very extroverted, and most days I'm his only source of socialization for like eight hours in a row. It is not a good fit. Days when there are other people around for him to talk to are 30973657 times better.
But yeah, anyway. Having a job just for fun is so not going to happen in this economy. I'm happy just to go out somewhere and write and breathe fresh air and not have anyone scrabble into my lap whining and crying for a little while. So when this school term starts, I'm asking my mom and my sister to each take one two-hour shift a week as part of the general depression-recovery project, and see how big of a difference it makes in my joie de vivre / ability to function. If it works, I can then deal with the fact that asking for help like that seems really selfish and weird. (But shouldn't it be okay? Communities are important, right? But most other people seem to have more graceful ways of dealing with the exact same problems I have. Or do they??? No, no, Rachel: worry about this later, remember?)
It's all a work in progress. But I'd like to be able to write in this blog, and I don't want to carefully tiptoe around the issue, so let's drag the elephant out of the closet and out into the open: I do not like parenting. I have been capital-d Depressed for most of my time as a mother. But I am going to keep doing it anyway, not because I believe it'll all be worth it in the end, but because I love Heath and I love Daniel and I already love my future kids, and I'm the only one in a position to do this for them.
Knowing it's all worth it in the end is a privilege reserved for people who are not depressed. I'm looking forward to that. Meanwhile, I do have a lot of moments of joy. They don't cancel out the badness, but they inspire me to keep fighting the badness off. Eventually I will find my balance, and I hope that time is soon. Juggling a household is one thing (and I'm prepared and happy to accept that that will always be difficult), but juggling while standing on a ball balanced on a pole just kind of sucks. (The ball, uh... represents my brain. Also, I can't do any of these stunts in real life. Also, I am so blessed and lucky and cared about and such a ridiculous whiner to dare to be depressed when I have as much goodness in my life as I do have. Also, shut up, guilt-lobe. I told you to go take a nap.)
Anyway, hi. I'm back. <3
I want to write a new post! But so much time has gone by. It's always hard to catch up.
Ordinarily, the first thing I do when catching up is apologize for not getting around to writing, but in this case I don't have to do that. The lapse started out unintentional, but turned into a deliberate thing before very long, because I was actively shedding as many of my reasons to feel guilty as I could.
I stopped writing because I was miserable, and I didn't know how to talk about that. That's always been the hardest thing for me when it comes to writing in public--I always feel like the internet has enough people's banal, repetitive angst in it, and that adding to that would just annoy and bore everybody. Or worse, make everyone get super worried and crowd in on me at a moment when I'm feeling easily embarrassed.
Eventually, I figured out that what I was dealing with was untreated postpartum depression. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion, but then I figured out that if you have to keep asking yourself whether or not what you're feeling "counts" as depression or not, the answer is "sure, why not?" as far as pursuing treatment goes. Similarly, if reading the list of symptoms of PPD makes you cry, that should be taken as a sign.
So during the hole in talking about my life, I've been working on trying to fix the hole in enjoying my life. On the advice of my awesome bishop, I've been talking to a counselor. I've been asking people to babysit for me so I can leave the house by myself on occasion. I've been writing privately about my negative feelings. Possibly most importantly, I've been making art of various sorts, which I've discovered is a really big deal for my sanity and self esteem.
Progress is being made, especially as I sort out my thoughts and emotions and my ambivalence about being a mother, which basically comes down to this: Daniel is amazing and beautiful and funny and delightful. But full-time caretaking is not a job I'm naturally inclined to like or find fulfilling. So I've been feeling a lot better just in owning that fact, because everyone likes some things and dislikes others, right? This is just another thing. I'm about 75% of the way to convincing myself that I'm not a bad person just because I don't enjoy, and in fact sometimes resent, my day-to-day activities. The mothers of generations past who did this had a totally different culture and much tighter communities. They would have gone stir crazy all alone in my living room, too.
So the next step is to try to change things somehow. The obvious method, or at least the first thing people say, is "well, start enjoying it, then," but my brainstorms along those lines are still tainted by guilt and fear of judgement. Anyway, how do you just "start enjoying" something? Everyone says "be grateful" and "find joy where you can" and "savor it while it lasts," but nobody says how to do that. So this method: not super effective.
The other obvious approach is lifestyle changes. I'm still thinking about this. Getting some time to myself outside the home has made a really big difference when I've managed it. I've figured out that I really, powerfully, desperately miss being a student, and although we don't have the resources for me to do grad school at the same time as Heath, it's been a useful fact to notice about myself. I've figured out that I love writing, and do it a lot better when I'm not at home. I've figured out that I feel fine about expressing my negative emotions when I can find a pleasing way to phrase them.
It would be cool if I could find a part-time job. Coming home to Daniel after just two hours away lets me start over fresh and be excited to see him, which feels like a much more fitting approach to his awesomeness. And it helps me avoid ever getting to the stage where, after being chased by him all day, I end up literally hiding in the closet because I can't handle playing clown anymore.
Side-note: It turns out I'm very introverted, and Daniel is very extroverted, and most days I'm his only source of socialization for like eight hours in a row. It is not a good fit. Days when there are other people around for him to talk to are 30973657 times better.
But yeah, anyway. Having a job just for fun is so not going to happen in this economy. I'm happy just to go out somewhere and write and breathe fresh air and not have anyone scrabble into my lap whining and crying for a little while. So when this school term starts, I'm asking my mom and my sister to each take one two-hour shift a week as part of the general depression-recovery project, and see how big of a difference it makes in my joie de vivre / ability to function. If it works, I can then deal with the fact that asking for help like that seems really selfish and weird. (But shouldn't it be okay? Communities are important, right? But most other people seem to have more graceful ways of dealing with the exact same problems I have. Or do they??? No, no, Rachel: worry about this later, remember?)
It's all a work in progress. But I'd like to be able to write in this blog, and I don't want to carefully tiptoe around the issue, so let's drag the elephant out of the closet and out into the open: I do not like parenting. I have been capital-d Depressed for most of my time as a mother. But I am going to keep doing it anyway, not because I believe it'll all be worth it in the end, but because I love Heath and I love Daniel and I already love my future kids, and I'm the only one in a position to do this for them.
Knowing it's all worth it in the end is a privilege reserved for people who are not depressed. I'm looking forward to that. Meanwhile, I do have a lot of moments of joy. They don't cancel out the badness, but they inspire me to keep fighting the badness off. Eventually I will find my balance, and I hope that time is soon. Juggling a household is one thing (and I'm prepared and happy to accept that that will always be difficult), but juggling while standing on a ball balanced on a pole just kind of sucks. (The ball, uh... represents my brain. Also, I can't do any of these stunts in real life. Also, I am so blessed and lucky and cared about and such a ridiculous whiner to dare to be depressed when I have as much goodness in my life as I do have. Also, shut up, guilt-lobe. I told you to go take a nap.)
Anyway, hi. I'm back. <3
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