No, I’m Not Crazy; I’m Just Not You

When I was pregnant, I felt like superwoman. I thought I could conquer the world. I was creating a life. Step back. My hormones were in perfect sync. (Please don’t hate me. It’s the only time they ever were.) I am one of those women that was happier pregnant than not. I wish I could be pregnant all the time, but without the arrival a baby in 9 months. While I was pregnant, something clicked inside of me, and it was a click I’d been waiting on my whole life.

I knew my brain was short one screw (or several) toward normal. I felt I lacked clarity, sureness of self, confidence, social skills, and worst of all, decision-making abilities. Then I got pregnant. and felt like really, what’s the big deal? When my husband called me at work and asked if I’d stop by the grocery store on the way home (and it was quite literally on the way home), I didn’t want to weep. I went to the store. It was so simple.

I was able to keep this oh-so-not-a-big-deal attitude going straight through breast feeding. But then, I quit breastfeeding, and I was back to weeping at the grocery store.

Does anyone know what I’m talking about or is it just me? Why would a trip to the grocery store make a grown woman weep?

I felt the same way when I took Prozac for a day. A psychiatrist prescribed it for me and he said, “It’ll take six weeks for you to notice a difference. For it to get into your system.” Heck no. It took all of 24 hours. And again, I felt that click. Only this time, I was not pregnant, and the kids were 5 and 1.

Here’s what happened:

My then-5-year old asked if we could stop on the way home (from work and day-care), and get a video (back in the day). His brother was under 1. Which meant, you already know this, getting the baby out of the car seat, and keeping up with the 5-year-old in the video store, while jiggling the baby that wanted to go to sleep but could not, or it would mess up the night’s sleep routine. (And every mother knows, you don’t mess with the sleep routine.) And, this with dinner still to be made, baths given, and monster checks done (a billion times), and the hope (the desperate hope) that somehow I might-maybe, just might-maybe, get 5 minutes to myself after the kids were in bed.

Here’s the take-away: I said yes to the 5-year-old that wanted to stop at the video store. I felt like, I can do this. So, we got the baby out of the car seat, and got our video, and got back in the car, and then I had a 10 on a 1-10 scale anxiety attack, and had to sit there deep breathing with the car door open, and the children screaming. It seems Prozac can cause massive anxiety attacks in certain people, especially people who react to it as quickly as I did.

I handed my prescription back to the psychiatrist, and wondered, is there anything else? No more breastfeeding. No more Prozac. What was going to make my brain click and me normal?

Normal being a mom (or anybody) who could go to a grocery store and not consider it a death sentence, or pick up videos for the night and not contemplate leaving for Utah or Idaho, or wherever Sundance is, in hopes of becoming one of the privileged people who have other people buy their groceries.

Though, let’s face it. I’m not an adventurous girl. If I can’t get to the grocery store, chances are slim I’m heading out at sundown for Sundance.

But I wondered. So, what was that click?

Or, why am I not the Mom who loves being in charge of the booster club? Surely, she grew up with a clicked brain.

Then, I met a man at The Cove (the Billy Graham Training Center) this past fall. He was a Coastie like my son, and so we spoke through-out the weekend. I do not remember his name (it rhymed with crouton), but he said something wonderful. He explained that he believed communication was messed up along with creation, and mankind, and the universe when sin entered the world. “Think of it,” he said, “Communication in the garden was perfect. They weren’t comparing themselves to anyone or feeling misunderstood, because communication was such that they could completely understand each other. And, in that understanding, completely love each other.”

I wanted to kiss Mr. Crouton because my brain clicked for the third time in my adult life, and without benefit of hormones or Prozac to force it. I knew the problem. It was communication. That’s what was missing.

My ability to say, no, I can’t be you. I really can’t. But, I can be me.

Comparing myself to others had created what I thought was the missing part of my brain. The only gauge a kid has is what others are doing and how they are doing it. And, in the world I lived in, people showed confidence and go-get-em attitudes, exactly how I felt while pregnant or during the 12 hours Prozac was my friend.

Pregnancy hormones super-charged me and for 9 months I had more energy than I’ve had the other 642 months of my life. Prozac boosted me, and for 1 day I wasn’t overwhelmed by life’s overwhelming nature. The rest of the time? I was just me. And, I’m beginning to understand that me is okay. Click.