Imagine my surprise as I became more and more NOT DEPRESSED. When I'd feel down, I'd remember I didn't have time "sorry ppd! maybe next time! ha ha ha". However, I did take note that my temper, once nice and even, was swinging here and there haphazardly. I ignored it. Who has time.
And then, yesterday, I was dragged across some sort of personal threshold for noise. In the car, C & A battling it out over some obscure thing ... a barrette, the battery cover for a remote control, an old straw ... who knows. Without realizing it at first, as the yelling and crying escalated, I began to tune in instead of out. Not to the argument but the noise ... I gripped the steering wheel, occasionally slamming on the brakes to stare into the the rearview mirror with my bulging eyes and scream "YOU GIRLS HAD BETTER STOP! STOOOOPPPP! STOP NOW!!!" It worked for two or three minutes at a time. I somehow made it to our destination (the library) without crashing the car but I was FRAZZLED. Shaking, upset, wondering how I was going to get them through the library and then back home again, alive. I considered calling John at work to come get us ... but then what?? For the next two hours, I yelled a lot, talon gripped their little shoulders with unnecessary force, and dragged them around by the arms until we were finally home. It was awful. I stumbled in the house and said to Carolina with gravity "please play with them downstairs until John comes home. I don't care what you do ... tv, candy, whatever ... I will be upstairs with Harriette" I marched off and left poor Carolina to get THEM out of the car.
I locked my bedroom door, took a hot bath, drank tea, tried to talk on the phone, but nothing could calm me. My blood pressure held steady at 150/95 (really high). I was so worked up, could have thrown a car over the top of our house. After an hour, with John's eta approaching, I was feeling desperate ... thinking of where we keep the hard liquor and finally settling on my little bag of leftover prescriptions where I found, among other treasures ...
Angels singing ...
... the remainder of my old Zoloft prescription. I admit, I self medicated wildly, swilling it down with tap water from that morning's coffee cup. I sat on the bathroom rug, trying to decide what on earth could be wrong with me. I wasn't depressed ... I was mad, really really mad. I craved cooperation and consecutive moments of peace so much that even when I got both, it wasn't enough to make me feel better. I googled until I found information that fit ... PPD can sometimes be PPR (r for rage) or A (for anxiety). Never PPB (for bunny rabbits). I am seeing my dr on Monday to get a real prescription. In the meantime, I cannot believe how much better I felt yesterday, doped up on zoloft. I could breathe, ... loved my children, in the sense I could be in the same car with them ... John came home and I wasn't angry that he had disappeared off to work all day ... I played on the kitchen floor with Ava while he cooked dinner. At playgroup, I mentioned my struggle to some mom friends. They ALL said "oh ha ha! I have the same thing! I am in therapy/on drugs/under the supervision of a dr etc etc" and one even confided she was regularly resorting to percocet, over the counter cocaine, to cope.
Really?? Are we all crazy? Does mothering babies and toddlers invariably require prescriptions and psychological diagnosis? Honestly, I don't know. John says American women are soft and that, until we start experiencing the hardship of birthing babies in fields of chinese vegetables, we will stay that way. (I added that last bit but I think that is really what he must mean ... what makes Chinese women so "strong"? It must have to do with the field thing ... or using chopsticks instead of forks?). Anyway, I'm not going to spend a lot of time worrying about it ... I am just very happy to have found that little bottle of oblong orangey colored pills.
Yes, and through this, I still want more ... maybe just one, though ...
