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.