When You Have ALL THE THINGS To Do... Do The Stupid Thing

I've wanted to write so badly.

If you can call this malarkey I type "writing".

Pretty sure I have no fucking clue when it comes to grammar and syntax and proper use of the comma. I love me a comma. I will use that little bastard whenever I feel like it.

Anyway.

YOU GUYS. YOOOOOU GUUUUYS. The few of you that still read, and those of you who come upon this blog by accident by searching a vague porn term and are immediately and wholeheartedly disappointed: Life is chaos.

My little guy is so cute. I mean really really adorable. (Comma there? See, I refrained because I figured you were judging me for my comma use, and now I don't even know. And I just used one there.) He's so sweet when he is not crying or screaming. BUT.HE.HAS.BEEN.CRYING.AND/OR.SCREAMING/MOST/OF/THE/DAYS/ALL/DAY.

It is totally exhausting.

He generally will only catnap around 33-47 minutes. YES. I track it. And he will generally only do that if he is contact napping, meaning being held or lying beside one of us. He's so sweet and these days won't last forever, but man. I get NOTHING done.

This is the best you get because he's going to hate me when he's older. Because I consist of, and spew forth, embarrassment. Oh, and privacy and stuff. 

So, little dude has napped a little, and sometimes had a 3-4 hour stretch of sleep once I finally get him down at night.

AND THEN I SURVEY MY MAIN F*CKING FLOOR. And I withhold the immense urge to weep and light the place on fire. So much mess. So much clutter. So many random kid things strewn about the floor. And that is with me TRYING to put shit back immediately, and keep a hamper on the main floor for his dirty clothes and cloths, and gather up Baby D's stuff as soon as I see it somewhere it shouldn't be.

So I have some time to FINALLY accomplish something. ANYTHING. SOMETHING REALLY GODDAMN FAST BEFORE HE WAKES!! And do you know what my brain does? My lucky brain that can finally wash dishes, or clothes, or vacuum, or wash the floor, or put all the toys away, or tidy the art supplies and paper, or gather the items and (corresponding receipts) bought without being able to try them on at the store because he was screaming, or clean the toilets, or wipe down the sinks that have an IMPRESSIVE amount of toothpaste spray and spittle from Baby D?

My brain gives a hearty, intense DEEEERRRRRRRP.

I fucking BLANK OUT. I start something and see something shiny and fucking throw my chance away. I don't go to bed. I rarely watch TV (I miss the odd mental checkout of Chicago PD or Jim Jefferies). I just fucking blank out and scroll my phone and start three things and finish nothing. Then realize I haven't gone pee in 7 hours, so I do that for the first time by myself all day. Then grab junk food because that is all I feel like and have the time and energy to "prepare".

And I PISS THE MOTHERF*CKING OPPORTUNITY AWAY. And the GUILT. Oh man, the guilt. But I cannot emphasize enough how utterly draining it is to have a baby that doesn't want to sleep and cries so often in the day. I love him so much and it breaks me that I can't make him happier in the day. Holding him in my arms is the best solution, but it has a time limit. He is heavy. I have another kiddo. I have to eat and poop and SOMEHOW shove coffee into this gullet.

Those who don't have "high needs" babies have NO FUCKING CLUE how good they have it. Everyone has issues, and motherhood/parenthood is hard and requires sacrifice no matter HOW you slice it, but goddammit having a baby that won't let you be more than 1' away, that cries all the time... that is a serious brain drain. Emotional drain. And my anxiety just soars.

So anyway, here I sit. He actually stayed asleep after the initial put down in the crib for the first time in... seriously I'm trying to calculate but my brain is slow and mashed potato-like. I think in ever. He always wakes multiple times after the initial put down, until 11 or 12. Then it's every 45 minutes to 2 hours. And I poured the last of my red wine and sat to blog. Because I really wanted to. Assuming I'd get 20 minutes and start more again in three weeks. (I know, you're thinking - it took her more than 20 minutes to put this garbage together?!?!) And I have nearly a full post, and an empty glass, and no more red wine (WHAT THE FUCK, THAT'S NOT FAIR).

In truth, I've been so wiped out, this past week is the first week I've had wine in over two months.

Anywho.

I had the chance. The laundry hampers creaked. The table barely had enough room for me to push my laptop on top of shit to type. The floors are covered in baby food splatter. And I typed.

The mess is overwhelming. The sense of failure and disappointment is heavy.

My brain? She sends out a solid DEEEEERRRRRRRRRP.

__________________________

Pin It Now!

Coming off of an antidepressant, with a preschooler, and very little sense of hope

Here I sit. Quite still actually. There are hot tears rolling down my face and I'm pretty sure that my lab is merely sitting beside me out of pity. And you know what? I'll take it.



Say what you will about stigmas, and widespread knowledge of mental health, and acceptance. Say what you want about fighting a good fight, and remembering there are brighter days ahead.

Then imagine yourself curled up in the fetal position on the dog-drool covered couch, face mashed into a blanket, fancy mascara crumbling in a hot stream down your cheeks, too ill to move. Every eyeball shift, every head tilt resulting in a brain zapping hell that can't be described unless truly experienced.

It really sucks because it feels so lonely. The text to your hubby that says you're suffering probably just comes off as melodramatic. The physical pain and the physical withdrawal from the antidepressant Cymbalta.

But add in one more factor.

Have your wonderful, lively, bright eyed preschooler ask you repeatedly to please play with her Paw Patroller toys. You just can't. And then she sees your sobbing, messy face. And wants to know why you're crying.

My feeble attempts to explain that mommy's body is ouchy and that mommy just feels so sick just feel meaningless. I can't explain that this is a long fought battle that seems to keep ending in failure. That mommy is trying to find a way to be happy after a lifetime of hurt from various places, and a chemical imbalance in my brain.

That mommy hasn't slept through the night in over three years, and that Cymbalta has been the culprit for a good 18 months of that. I now see it's made me an angrier person and I've wasted some of her most formative years suffering physically from the effects of the drug.

And it isn't my first rodeo.

And I can't actually walk upstairs on my own accord at the moment, so I listen to her jam away on her piano Gramma bought her, while she sings her own made up song that she wants mommy to be happy. And that she is sad when mommy is sad. Seriously. Feeling low and then lower.

And as I can gut wrenchingly visualize her sitting in her therapist's office 15 years from now, she still manages to get a brain-buzzingly silent giggle out of me as she wiggles her butt to her song.

She tells me I'm a good mommy and all I can reply with is choked sobs. Counting the minutes until my mentally stable husband walks through the door.

Why am I writing this? I really don't know. I guess it's just really painful so I wanted some of it out of my head.

We went to a play date earlier in the day. I've been altering between no medication and a tapered dose. With Cymbalta, you can't just cut pills in half, you just dump granules out of a capsule. I haven't counted, I've just been slugging through. So I didn't want to miss her play date.

In a room full of joyous kids and happy moms and I feel like I'm dying. But I try to smile. I try. I try to joke, I try. The more of a downer I am, the less people want to be around me, for good reason. Everyone is fighting their own battles. No one wants someone in their life that is constantly negative or focused on all that is wrong. I've been told, more than once, that person is me.

It is just getting really old. Exhausting.
I want more for her.

And it hurts to feel so alone.

Oct. 28, 2016.


____________

Pin It Now!