Author: jenzug

This Would Be a BAD TIME for the Medication to Quit Working…

Over the weekend someone fired the starting gun and now WE’RE OFF!

We hired a contractor to finish half our unfinished basement, which he will do sometime during the next month while Bryan travels (more on that later). This is not such a big deal as he said the framing can be done in one day, and the drywall is done in phases after that. The overwhelming part of all this is the amazing amount of STUFF we have to move out of the space before any work can begin.

If you don’t hear from me in awhile, call the authorities. I may be trapped under a box.

NW Corner - Before

Depression Revisited

Yesterday a few cogs dropped into place and opened a door in my mind. It was like that episode of Lost when Claire begins to remember what happened to her during the two weeks she was kidnapped – the Ah-Ha! moments came throughout the day, each triggered by another thought or something I saw.

Since my struggle with post partum depression began last year I have maintained that I do not struggle with depression in general, that this has been an isolated incident that took me by surprise. But yesterday I re-interpreted two events from my past.

In the Spring of 1992 I struggled in my college classes. I had always struggled – I was not a brilliant student to start with – but at this point I became paralyzed. I remember lying in my dorm room, lethargic, overwhelmed, unmotivated, and pinned to my bed by something dark and mysterious that I couldn’t explain. My best friend, Sarah, peeled me up from the sheets and dragged me – nearly kicking and screaming – out into the beautiful sun for the mainstay Seattle event called Folklife Festival.

I don’t have any memory of what happened the rest of that day, only that in the days and weeks leading up to it I felt exactly like I do now, and I am positive now that it was depression.

The ramifications of this are huge, because it was this episode that led to me failing a class, having a breakdown in the Dean’s office, and ultimately dropping out of school. I had always attributed that event to a crisis of purpose, not know where my degree was taking me. But knowing what I know now, I am positive it was depression.

“That’s pretty significant,” Bryan said last night when I told him my thoughts. And it is, but in so many ways that he doesn’t even know. Education is important to me, and I want my children to finish college. Realizing that maybe I wasn’t such a fuckup after all, that it wasn’t just an issue of my failure or lack of initiative, but that I was drowning in undiagnosed depression… well, that is very significant to me.

My next epiphany involves an incident more recent. The winter after Bryan and I were married, 2001-2002, I gained 20 lbs and became lethargic, unmotivated, and overwhelmed. I sleep-walked through my job and spent my free time on the couch doing nothing.

During that time Bryan left a partnership and moved the contents of his office to our home, dumping it all in our living room to be sorted out. Normally such a thing would not have fazed me, but I froze. Again to the rescue, Sarah came and led the way through the sorting and unpacking. She thought for me and made decisions for me and I just did what she told me to and the mess was cleaned up. (Thank you, Sarah).

Knowing what I know now, and remembering how I felt then, I am positive it was an episode of depression. And again, I believe this attributed to my lack of performance at work which ultimately led to my being “laid off,” or whatever they choose to call it at the time (THAT’s another story).

Yesterday I was in a Funk. My house caved in on me, I was stinky, and the pajamas I wore were like a favorite blanket comforting me. I did nothing but lie on the couch while Ruthie and her friends played and watched t.v. It was during this time that I reflected back on these memories, and was able to see them in a new light: I, indeed, am a woman who has suffered waves of depression.

This changes everything. It does not push me further into my dark hole, but changes the tactic by which I fight this war. You see, I keep waiting for this Thing to go away, so I become confounded and discouraged by its lingering. Now I know it will not go away, but I must learn to embrace it and manage it, much like the realization I had in this post the other day.

After the kids woke from their naps, we walked to the health food store around the corner and I bought a strong, food-based B-Complex vitamin and some fish oil capsules. I remember the B-Vitamins helped dig me out back in 2002, and I’ve heard fish oil can be very beneficial for the brain, especially in conjunction with regular anti-depressants.

So, I guess we’ll see what happens.

Bryan, My Love.

A couple months ago I was ready to leave him, but something snapped and we made it safely through the maze together. While on our blissful vacation in Portland, I asked him Did he really think we were getting better, or was there just nothing to fight about recently? I was waiting for the other shoe to drop because it was difficult to believe such a transformation could have taken place.

My theory was tested a few days after we returned when he said something that upset me, I sulked and lashed out at him, and I began having those thoughts flip through my mind: See? He’ll never change! And you? You’re a basket case who’s falling apart. No one understands your pain.

Bryan left for a meeting, then returned and we sat silently on the couch watching t.v. He wore his stressed out, defeated countenance, and I donned my stubborn, righteous resolve. We were together, but far apart.

When he stood up to go to bed I panicked. After experiencing the intimacy and comfort of the past few weeks, after remembering what it’s like to have humor and sass between us again, I loathed the idea of returning to another season of silence and bitterness.

So I spoke. “Wait! I don’t want to go to bed like this. I have something to say.”

I pulverized the voices in my mind and launched into an explanation of why I lashed out, of why his comment hurt me, that it had little to do with the actual comment but more to do with how it represented my fear of the past and the future and all that happens in between.

Relief washed over him and changed his countenance. He thanked me. We talked. We kissed. He went to bed. My head did not explode. The universe remained intact.

And I realized the answer to my question: Yes, we are getting better.

The Good Mother

The other day I was talking to a friend who also struggles with anger management. She relayed a story about allowing her children to “help” her with a task, knowing that in the end she would just become frustrated and lash out at them. But in her mind she believed that a Good Mother would be able to include her children in this task, that a Good Mother would make it work, that a Good Mother would enjoy incorporating them into her daily work.

When indeed she did become frustrated and lash out at her children, something finally broke in her and she recognized the lie swirling in her head about what a Good Mother resembles.

I listened to her with my mouth gaping open because it was like she was reading a script from inside my own head.

It was a valuable conversation to me because it turned to trigger points – those proverbial cherries on top, the straw that broke the camel’s back, and so forth. In the last few months since seeking help and accountability for my anger problem I have seen significant change – and not just behavioral management, but true inward change – yet I still found myself in moments of lashing out, and I wanted to explore the pattern (Ack! I’m starting to sound like Bryan).

When I noticed I mostly lashed out at my kids just before nap time and just before bed time, it clicked: I was becoming irritable because I was in desperate need for a break. As an introvert who needs down time alone to regroup, refresh, and regenerate, I became worn out by Ruthie’s constant need to engage me (an introvert, she is not).

Realizing this has been huge, and has allowed me to make adjustments to avoid irate breakdowns. For instance, I’ve started putting Ruthie down for her nap an hour earlier – before my fatigue sets in – so our morning ends on a more positive note. I spend the next hour doing something that refreshes me, like reading or writing an essay, then I spend the next hour doing a task that’s difficult to do when the kids are under my feet. If they wake up before the two hours is done, I leave them in their rooms because this is the two hours I have set aside for my sanity.

I’m learning that it benefits no one to embrace my limitations as failures, but if I accept who I am and learn to accommodate my limitations, I am truly a better mother and a better person. I am only a bad mother when I’m trying to be something I’m not, when I try to alter a part of myself that just Is, like trying to stuff your feet into a pair of shoes that are just too small.

I am redefining the Good Mother in my head to resemble something more familiar: me.

My Brain is a Pretzel

Over the weekend, while I was sitting on the living room couch, Ruthie grabbed my foot from off the floor and swung it up onto my other knee.

“Curl your legs like a pretzel!” she said.

My eyes widened and I looked from her to Bryan, who was sitting across from me.

“Have YOU said anything to her about pretzels and legs?” I asked him.

“No, but she was eating pretzels earlier today.”

“So she just made this connection on her own – matching the shape of a pretzel with how my legs look folded up?” I asked in shock.

We stared at each other for what seemed like a preschool year, each processing the ramifications of Ruthie’s observation.

She turns three years old in a couple weeks, and already she is learning apart from what I teach her; she’s observing patterns and making connections between two very different things. I remembered the time, over a year ago, when Bryan asked Ruthie to “apologize” for something, and she turned to me and said, “I’m sorry.” She had interpreted an abstract idea and translated that into a concrete response. Bryan and I had the same deer-in-the-headlights reaction then, as well.

These connections may be normal developmental stages for toddlers and you are all yawning at me right now, but I am completely fascinated.

I get that children observe our language and mimic what we say, that they take on our mannerisms and speech patterns. Just yesterday Ruthie watched Bryan dipping his hamburger into a pool of ketchup, and she positioned her plate, her arms and the burger in her hands to dip in the same precise way as her daddy. And now, instead of just saying “no” when she is defiant, she says, “Ahhhh, no.” just like I do when I have to think for a second before answering her question.

I GET the mimicking. But this… this… this independent learning just HAS to stop, or I’ll have to put Ruthie in her auntie’s Squish Machine to make her stop growing.

Practicing the Art of Being

This morning my mom left Minnesota for a month in sunny Arizona (oh, to be retired), and I called her last night to see how the packing was going.

After chatting for awhile I said, “Well, I should let you get back to your packing.”

But as usual, the conversation continued for another ten minutes. We talked about nothing, really. She mostly seemed to be talking to herself as she packed her make-up, lotions, and shampoos into a small carry-on. As I listened, I remembered a conversation we had last week about how tired she is of being alone all the time since Gordy died, that she misses having someone to talk to.

So I asked her, “You just like having me on the phone, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I kind of do.” So I decided that while she packed, I would make an egg bake dish to refrigerate for breakfast in the morning.

We stayed on the phone together for a long time, chatting about nothing as if she were sitting on the stool in my kitchen. It felt nice to be doing ordinary things while talking about nothing in particular. I’ve never lived near my mom since I’ve been an adult, and this experience made me think about what I’ve been missing being so far from her.

It also made me think about grieving and the many nuances of working through it. Sometimes I think it’s easy to miss the most important way we can support someone who is grieving: just being there. I often default to Helping others in need by bringing meals, or cleaning a house, or caring for small children, when sometimes just being on the other end of the phone is all that is needed.

A friend of mine once spoke about grieving in terms of the book of Job in the Bible:

2:11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Before Job’s friends went all conspiracy theory on him, their first response was to just sit quietly and grieve with him. Those of us who are fixers and problem solvers have trouble with this. We feel it is not enough to just be present; we need to be DOING something. Sitting on the phone with my mom last night, I learned the value in just being with her. It is exactly what she needed.

Ladies Day Out (which means waaay more than you think).

Last year on my birthday I had dinner with girlfriends at a great steak house called Jimmy Mac’s where they play loud country music and throw peanut shells on the floor. The conversation eventually took the turn that all female conversations do when drinking is involved… a turn toward any subject that makes some people blush.

In particular, we landed on a discussion of bras.

I had never paid much attention to my bras, but thought of them more as the bastard step-child of my wardrobe. To me they are constricting and uncomfortable, and for the most part I hate them. My girls are… not large… and don’t require much support, so it never occurred to me that there would be a right or a wrong bra for me.

Somebody mentioned getting a bra fitting, and I was intrigued. I had never heard such a thing. Another friend explained the way a bra is SUPPOSED to fit, and I wondered, How did I get to be 34 years old and not know the fabric in your cleavage was supposed to lay flat against your chest?

I decided that evening that once I weaned Thomas and my voluptuous ladies returned to their former modest selves, I would celebrate by buying new bras that fit correctly (sadly, I wore my nursing bras long after weaning Ruthie, and in comparison to what I NOW am wearing, they are NOT flattering).

Yesterday was that day.

A friend and I went to Nordstrom’s by recommendation. I knew in part what to expect, based on Melissa’s description of her experience in this post at Suburban Bliss, but you’re never quite prepared for what actually happens.

I was fitted by a gal named Isabella, who had a fabulous accent. I think it might have been Russian. As she fondled my ladies she would say, “See how the bra cohvers all of the bress teeshu?” She measured my circumference, then declared I was a D cup.

Had I been drinking coffee at that moment, I would have spewed it all over her in utter shock. Nevertheless, I humored Isabella and tried on several D cups, only to have this reaction. I may be the only woman on the planet who LIKES her small ladies – I was irritated that I might actually be bigger. I pushed her to try on a smaller size, and in the end she acquiesced that I was a C cup – albeit a BORDERLINE C cup.

I am now obsessed with my ladies. I want to fondle them all the time because they look so perky. I went from having embarrassingly few bras to now having a black one, a lacey red one, a seamless one, a few everyday whities, and a sports bra. I am in the midst of a BRA REVOLUTION!

Bryan is in full support. (Ha! Get it?)

A story to pass the time.

Our dead, brown, Christmas tree is still sitting in our driveway next to the shed. I guess I missed the city memo listing all the hoops we needed to jump through to have them take our tree away this year, because it sat out by our trash for three consecutive trash days and still no takers.

No worries, though. I’ll just get me a saw, hack it to pieces, and stuff it in the yard waste barrel. Sounds like a Stephen King novel, doesn’t it?

I mention this Christmas tree debacle because it reminds me of a story from the Glory Days. Years ago when the whole world was still single and I was living in NY, my friend Sarah loaded her post-Christmas tree into the back of her little pick-up and set off down the street to dump it at collection spot the city set up (the city I live in apparently has no such hospitality).

As her speed picked up the wind caught the tree and sent it flying out the back and into the street. Like a good citizen, she pulled over and dragged the tree to the curb and propped it up against a bus stop sign. Not really sure how to proceed since she didn’t want the tree to fly out of her truck again, possibly hurting someone or causing an accident, she left it there.

And there it sat.

And sat.

And sat.

It kept the good people waiting there for the bus on Dexter Avenue company.

And when I visited Seattle from NY in July, it was still sitting there next to the bus stop.

The end.

If in the country, I would have heard crickets.

One thing I like about staying at the Kennedy School (described in this post by Bryan) is there is no television in any of the rooms, so we are more inclined to talk, or read, or write when not out and about. The biggest television trap for me at home is watching in bed late at night and staying up way too far into Conan, which is completely unproductive.

This weekend I decided to start a new habit. I have decided to be in bed by ten with a good book, rather than the t.v. I felt so calm and relaxed each evening in the quiet as I explored the books we bought at Powell’s, and I know it helped me feel refreshed the next day. Plus, I’m more likely to fall asleep earlier while reading than while watching television.

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The other thing I like about staying at the Kennedy School is that every inch of that place is interesting. There is original art hanging in the halls, and each room is uniquely decorated with custom murals. Everything about the environment inspires creativity. One morning as we waited for our breakfast I found myself shooting stills of my coffee, the menu, and so forth, and Bryan says, “I like the transformation I’m seeing.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You are beginning to digitally scrapbook,” he said.

And sure enough, that’s what I was doing. Here is what I captured from our trip.

It was good while it lasted.

I’ve returned home and already my brain seems distracted again. I think whenever I’m in my house there is data running in the background of my mind that makes it more difficult to focus on what I’m actually doing in the moment. I hate to admit it – only because I’m not looking forward to the Dance of the Gloater Bryan will perform as he reads this – but I think multi-tasking has eaten away as many brains cells as if I’d dropped acid my whole life.