Diary Of A Nervous Breakdown

Posted on October 8th, 2008 by Your Aunt Becky

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A big and hearty thank you from the bottom of my shriveled and blackened heart should go out to each and every single person who thoughtfully left me a comment on my last post. Sometimes, it’s all I need to hear that I’m not alone, not really, in any of this.

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“You told me goodbye, how was I to know
you didn’t mean goodbye, you meant please don’t let me go?”

-Grateful Dead, High Time

I’d been feeling pretty overwhelmed, this much I was aware of. The collective works of Auggie Doggie and Alex meant that my home was destroyed about 20 seconds after I’d painstakingly reached down–not so easy with a burgeoning belly– to clean up the shreds of (insert destroyable substance here). I’d petitioned loudly to find Auggie a new home, but my cries were loudly drown out by promises of puppy school and a better behaved dog (neither of which has happened, I feel I must disclose).

And I couldn’t really see how giving up Alex was going to help anything. But with him napping at most for 2 hours a day on a really, really good day, I’m still unable to catch much of a break from the perils of toddlerhood during the day. Sure, I might joke about it now and again, but Alex is easily one of the busiest and most intense children I know. Which is exhausting. Simply exhausting.

Dave works a job that make other women with small children cringe. His hours are intense, he commutes about an hour each way and is beholden to the Almighty Train Schedule, and what I mean by intense is that his hours are insane. He’s easily gone before the kids are up and back after they’re in bed. I joke that I’m a single parent during the week, because, well, I am.

After some major thing was passed by some governing body somewhere, he had to scramble madly to suddenly take care of something brand-spankin’ new and important…

(aside here: it’s ALL important, top priority where he works. At least, in their heads. As someone who is at least TRAINED to handle life threatening emergencies, I find it absurd.)

…which happened to eat up most of the weekends for the past month or so. And the nights AFTER he comes home. And pretty much any time I might have needed his help with something as simple as “watching the kids so I can shower” or “carrying large baskets of laundry up the stairs.” It’s uncanny and Big Brother-like his job is with picking THOSE moments to require his immediate attention.

But, his job is what allows me NOT to use my training in life threatening emergencies (since I hate it) to earn a living, and for the most part, he really, really likes it.

After fusing my eyelids shut by crying so intensely this weekend (and after Dave was called to work for yet another day off, in which I had such un-fun, yet necessary things that required his help like Going To The Grocery Store, and Buying Gigantic Underwear planned), I realized that something had, indeed, given, just like I’d wanted.

Problem was, it was my sanity.

All of those things, all of these things plus everything I haven’t mentioned here has been nothing but additive to my situation. While I’d occasionally try and subtract something, it never helped, primarily because I never have been able to determine what it was that I could safely subtract.

Sure, I could not feed the (dogs, cats, rabbits, kids) but it wasn’t really THEIR fault that I had no one to help me out. Plus, with the exception of the rabbit, the rest of them would merely follow me around, getting underfoot until I tripped over them and fell SPLAT! on my large ass.

I think we’re going to hire a nanny or a babysitter for a couple hours a day for me so that I can actually do such chores that require me to go from the main floor to the other floors of the house without Alex having an abject temper tantrum (Ben had the Terrible Threes, Alex seems to have started with the Terrible Ones. This bodes ill.).

But, as anyone who has been overwhelmed (underwhelmed?) and feeling remarkably unstable knows, things like this, which are a process, not an event, can feel remarkably daunting when faced with all the steps to get from here to there. Stupid platitudes like “one day at a time” (something I’d normally appreciate) don’t really work right now, since I’m not sure how I’m going to make it through the next hour, let alone an entire day.

I started back on my Vitamin W yesterday, and while I can’t say I’m feeling loads better already, I’m glad I’ve taken a positive step towards getting better. After all, January is a long way off, and I’m pretty sure that new babies aren’t known for easing responsibilities, right?

Oh well. At least I’m lactating for her already. How sexy is that?

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