Better by degrees

Things that would have gotten me down before but totally didn't phase me today:

• I nursed Ian on my left boob which was hard as a rock. As soon as I put him down on our bed he smiled and spewed milk all over my side of the bed.

• It poured cats and dogs and orangutans this morning on the way to work. I thought we were going to drown getting from the car to day care.

• My blood sugar was inexplicably crazy high this morning (305).

• I got to the house to discover our elder stateshound Sarah had pooped in our office.

• An hour later, Sarah pooped in the kitchen. I think she's gotten to the age where there's a fine line between farting and pooping.

• My ex-husband did not friend me on Facebook but friended Rich's ex-wife.

• Waterproof mattress pads are hard to wash. After pulling it out of the washer it dribbled all over my shoe.

So I'd say the Zoloft is helping. This helps too.

Situational adjustments

I have laughed and smiled more today than I have all month. When I had my horrible week back at work away from my son earlier this month, I vowed that I was not just going to take a pill to cope. I was going to do something to make myself happy. I started working from home for part of the week so I could type emails and participate in conference calls while a baby slept on my chest. It was supposed to make things better. I was supposed to feel better.

Except things didn't really get that much better. I was still sad and stressed and angry. I worried about getting things done. I obsessed about things people said or did. I didn't eat much. I still cried more that usual.

I came home late Thursday night after visiting my parents and realized we were on our last clean diapers and Ian didn't have any bottles prepped for the next day. As I prepared everything for morning, I stomped around the house and muttered pissy things to no one in particular. Rich had gone to bed earlier because he didn't feel so great, but I was just annoyed that he hadn't thought about what Ian needed. It was a classic case of my being annoyed that he didn't do something because I shouldn't have to remind him.

Friday I talked to my therapist Gary. I told him I was sad and mad and generally unhappy with life. I read all these pamphlets on postpartum depression but they didn't seem to fit. I don't think I'm a bad mother. I don't think about doing harm to myself or my baby. I don't even really cry all the time. I'm just pissed off and anxious.

Gary theorized that the hormones I'm dealing with are making me unable to handle my standard levels of anxiety and obsessive behavior. So while normally I'd be able to blow off something someone said or a minor inconvenience, I'm not letting it go. When I bitched about everything going on he asked what I wanted to make it better. I told him I wanted everyone who's doing things that piss me off to stop being that way, but that's impossible because they've been this way for years and won't quit any time soon. Changing every goddamn person on the planet seemed like a daunting task, so it just made me waffle between being sad and mad.

Jeremy's mom had a great saying of "if you have a problem with everyone in the world, maybe it's not everyone, maybe it's just you." I don't think she was talking about postpartum hormones when she told Jeremy this, but it seems fitting now too. I'm not able to change everything that upsets me, so I need help making it not upset me so much.

I ended up with a prescription for Zoloft after talking to a tiny little Filipino woman who reminded me of the Oracle from the Matrix. She diagnosed me with "situational adjustment with mixed emotions". Sounds pretty obvious, really. I'm not depressed. I'm just fretty and have an overactive sense of what's fair. In all my ranting to Gary I actually quoted Buddha that "life is suffering." That may be the case, but it doesn't mean we need to suffer through life.

Half a pill at bedtime and I woke up a new person. Well, actually, I woke up the same old person I used to be. I've missed me.

Living Out Loud volume 13: Drinkin' buddies

It's been a while and I assure you I'm still alive. This month has just been a little hectic. Last weekend was Ian's first plane trip to Boston and my mother came with us to watch him while Rich and I were doing our conference duties. In addition to being a great babysitter, it was a treat to have that much time to just chat with Mom. One thing I noted was several of her stories involved my grandparents and her friends' parents drinking. I think every single friend my mother had as a kid had at least one alcoholic parent. Apparently it was just the thing to do. Amazingly, my mother hardly drinks herself.

This brings me to our Living Out Loud theme for the month. Tell me about your relationship with alcohol. Are you a cheap date? Is your liver about to secede from your body in protest? Did you have a great experience the first time you got drunk? Do you even remember the first time you got drunk? Are you the perennial designated driver? Do you have a really great "no shit there we were" story?

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each issue above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don't email me, I'm likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, February 7th (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

Mosey up to the bar and bear your soul to the bartender. It's just between us.