Anxiety | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Anxiety

Emotional Flambé Days

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

Mothering a three-year-old is not quite as easy as, say, demolishing a brick house with my forehead.

“Natalie,” I explain. “You need to blow your nose. It will help you breathe!”
She shoots me a look of petulant exasperation. “But I don’t WANT to breathe!” Huff.

She’s developed her own brand of logic that runs headlong against mine like a sumo wrestler, ridiculous but unmovable. It wouldn’t be so bad, this earnest illogic, except for the flammable emotions spilling out during each encounter. Tears gush. Drama overflows. Three-year-old PMS sinks its fangs into every other moment, gnaws, flings, thrashes, and leaves it in a mangled heap on the floor.

“Natalie?” I mumble through half-open eyes. “I’m not ready to get up yet. Why don’t you go play with your toys for a while?”
“Noooooo!” she wails, melting into a pool of little-girl despair. “Nooo, I don’t want to! I CAN’T! All my toys are BROKEN!”

I know very well how mothers and daughters can push each other’s buttons. It’s an unfortunate side-effect of female intuition, and shared blood tends to amplify shared grievances. I really do know. I just thought I had another ten years or so before we’d be slumped under the covers, crying from different sides of the same frustration. I thought that these young years would stay light and happy, that I would be the fun playmate-mom and she would be the cheerful Stepford-daughter.

“Why are you crying?” I ask.
“Because I don’t want to sleeeeeeeeep,” she wails from beneath her covers.
“Well, you need sleep so you can be happy tomorrow.” (Again with the logic.)
“B-b-b-b-but,” she sobs, “I AMMMMMMM happy!”

I cringe every time I use the words “need” or “have to,” proof that I consider her opinions inferior to mine. (Even if her opinions are that she should have chocolate ice cream for dinner and stay up all night watching “Toy Story” and balancing glass plates on her sister’s head, they’re still valid. They’re still an honest and valuable expression of her desires, even if they’re wrong. Right?) I worry that she’s developing too slowly because I haven’t been reading with her, playing with her, teaching her enough. (She should know Italian better by now, not to mention be fully potty-trained… Or, at the very least, be able to read at a second-grade level like our friend’s daughter of the same age. Right?) I sink under the guilt of days when I’m too tired or too “down” to give her the attention she craves. (I should be able to put on a brave front for her sake. Right?)

“Natalie?” I sigh. “I have a headache and need you to be quiet for now.”
“But!” she shrieks. “But don’t you wanna hear my song? My really, really, really long song? Listen! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE! MAYONNAISE!”

Of course I don’t see the humor until later, when I’m detailing the hardships of my day to Dan (“…and then my head literally exploded into little bits all over the rug because she wouldn’t stop singing about mayonnaise”), and he doubles over laughing. I wonder some days if my parenting skills have expired, if I’m doomed to spend the rest of my life as a sour-milk mom. I gravitate toward hopeful theories too, when I’m in less-pessimistic moods, like she’s just going through a stage or I’m still medically classified as a post-partum mess. (And this too shall pass.) Who knows? Maybe all that matters is that I still love her enough to hurt over our battleground relationship, and that when she starts school in September, I will look back on these emotional flambé days with nostalgia.

Right?

29Feb

More-Beautiful

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It happens the first time in complete darkness. The cell quivers, stretches, and divides itself in two. That’s all, but it’s everything–the hint of beginning life, deep in the secret shelter of your belly.

The second time it happens is under bright lights, expectant faces all around. Your cells waver, strain, hesitate like water droplets on the tip of a leaf. Then, in a rolling burst of released tension, you find yourself divided eternally in two.

I believe there are few aches in this world as profound as having a baby, and none as glorious. I’ve always felt that ache to a small extent at the symphony or the museum, feeling my heart lift out of my body, simultaneously wanting to call it back and wanting to relinquish it to that more-beautiful realm. That’s what the instant after giving birth is like, magnified to an unfathomable degree.

You gaze at her cotton-candy cheeks, her precious blip of a nose, her watery eyes. You can’t stop gazing, trying to find that part of yourself that separated with her. It’s there, of course, but only for an instant. Your features and her dad’s pass in and out of hers like a mirage, but in the end, the only face you see is her own. You nuzzle that warm crease where her neck will one day be, and you relinquish your heart to this more-beautiful place. Eagerly.

Of course, real life has a way of diluting wonder, or maybe just coating it in a layer of explosive baby poop. Your little miracles track ketchup across the newly-mopped floor and throw up all over your favorite sweater and WON’T GO POTTY!!! and scream because a milk-dispensing device is not in their mouth at that exact instant. They dump out a box of marbles behind the sofa and wake up before you’re ready and horrifically mistreat their diapers. You find yourself experiencing mother-pattern baldness.

The precious ache, though? It’s never gone–not really, not in those quiet moments when your mind runs wild with What Ifs. What if she never wakes up? What if she gets hurt by a friend? What if she drifts away from me one day? And oh, what if she had ended up with some other family? What if she had never been mine, my little princess? That’s motherlove, the real, painful, cosmically-magnified ache. That’s how you know your heart has settled in the more-beautiful realm for good.

19Feb

Construction Zone

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I know people whose days are shaped like circles, bringing them smoothly back to their concentric beginnings each night. I know of others’ days like squares and rectangles and octagons, structured in short, linear periods. Some ambitious people live in shooting lines, and some spontaneous ones ride out dizzy rollercoasters. Little children play on their days like playground equipment; octogenarians sink into theirs like pillows. PMSing women survive days shaped like chocolate briar patches. And my days? They’re the erratic patterns of an echocardiogram.

That upward peak is my heart bursting into light when one of the girls giggles, and that downward surge is my pessimistic realization of how quickly their joy will be diluted by age. This low point is the laundry basket lid, floating on the sea of my never-ending responsibilities, and this hopeful spike is an uninterrupted hour to pretend I’m Zen. That sudden quickening is a mad dash of courage to leave the house, and this gentle slowing is a half-asleep bear snuggle with my family. The points fluctuate, beeping steadily, a constant gauge of my emotions.

I once overheard someone close to me indicate that “moody” women aren’t worth marrying. That thought has stuck perniciously with me. I think of it during both up and down moments and especially during those dark flat-lining days. I’ve spent numerous birthday wishes on stability. I’ve hammered at my brain, trying to reshape its landscape, trying to replicate those titanium-plated models I envy. After all, multi-colored emotions = moodiness = worthlessness.

But believe it or not, self-performed brain surgery doesn’t work. Not even when I’m desperate for a transplant and especially not when my fingers are skidding on the guilt of being “complicated.” I often feel defective, and, unfortunately, the frontal lobe doesn’t come with a return policy. (Damn frontal lobe.) I guess this is the main reason there are often gaps and caverns and craters of time between my blog entries–because I can’t think of anything un-moody to write about–because no one will want to marry me* if I can’t equalize my feelings.

However, there’s this funny thing about the blogosphere… It’s made up of people–real people, not just unattainably cool, authory ones–who “sit down at a typewriter and open a vein” as Red Smith said. And I’m learning, in large part due to some wonderful, open-hearted bloggers, that nearly every woman is an emotional storybook. I had no idea that so many women found themselves dog-paddling through sudden oceans in their minds. Loneliness. Confusion. Depression. Doubt. Frustration. Irrationality. Pessimism. I also hadn’t realized how many women buoy the world with their hearts. Creativity. Appreciation. Compassion. Hope. Wonder. Devotion. Beauty in a million shades.

I’m still thick in my quest to disown regret, and this might need to become a construction zone. Maybe we women were made this way on purpose, to touch a largely impersonal world with our varying forms of tenderness. Maybe our emotions provide both the balance and the upheaval necessary for life to plunge forward. Maybe vulnerability shouldn’t be shamed or hidden or stigmatized. Maybe I should stop grimacing at my honest reflection on the page. Maybe someone can remind me that the heart monitor’s peaks and valleys and persistent beeps signal above all that I’m alive.

*Except my glorious husband, who insists on liking me despite my chronic unmarriageableness. (::Love::)

17Oct

Not.enough.sleep.

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When Natalie comes padding, bright-eyed, into my room, I am still curled in a fetal position, my breaths overlapping like a newborn’s. My body, my mind, and my motherly instincts are cemented to the bed. Not. enough. sleep.

I find the energy to put her back in her room simply because I have to. I hug her wearily and stumble back to bed with the image of her crumpling face superimposed on my mind. Pressed back against my pillow, I remember the dirty dishes sprawling across the kitchen, the editing work my brain just can’t focus on, the pastry crust in the fridge waiting for a pie I’m too exhausted to make. I realize that waking up is the most tiring chore on my growing daily list. I think about the years of therapy I’m carving out for Natalie by this third-trimester abandonment. She’s still sobbing in her room, and I simultaneously want to shake her until she stops and to cradle her in the kind of hug that absorbs every tear. But I’m too tired for either. It’s the lowest point of my week.

(I need this baby to come soon.)

22Sep

Operation Visa

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Up this morning at 5 a.m. to bid farewell to my hero of a husband, off to Operation Visa. Or, as I like to think of it, Operation Please God Help The Female Hitler Who Works In The Consulate To Temporarily Get Over Her Chronic PMS And Give Us The Visa Before I Have This Baby Or Teleport Myself Across The Ocean To Her Cubicle To Break The Sixth Commandment, Whichever Comes First. We have gathered every official-looking document within a 20-mile radius and have only refrained from including Dan’s first-grade report cards because The Womanazi would tell us they need to be signed in triplicate by the king of Libya. Only if our names were Dan & Bethany bin Laden would I understand the efforts this lady has put forth to not help us.*

Exaggeration aside, I truly am worried about this trip. Roundtrip airfare to the States seems an enormous price to pay for the chance to get a stamp in my husband’s passport. Yes, he’s been approved and authorized and affirmed by every necessary Italian office, and yes, he’s taking literally every document one could possibly show to get a Visa (and then some!)… It’s just that we’ve already tried so many times, and after nine months of waiting, my sense of realism feels a lot more like pessimism.

Plus, there’s the little person inside me kicking in Morse code, “I’m coming out soon!” Which she’d better, considering that her 33-week ultrasound showed she was already 6 lbs, 3 oz. If she goes to full-term, the doctor says she’ll be 10 lbs. So, ahem, she’d better come out soon. Just not next-week soon. That would result in a 1991-style comedy caper of Dan running through the airport to catch the next flight to Italy while I gracefully hyperventilate at the whole childbirth-in-a-foreign-country-without-my-husband concept. Which I would rather avoid.

And then, reasonable fears or not, I just miss my hubby when he’s gone. Quite a lot, in fact. Sure, Natalie and I will stay busy, and life will go on, but we’ll feel the empty space at every meal and during every long evening and when we go to bed every night. Our world just doesn’t rock anymore with him gone.

So now that it’s almost a reasonable hour to wake up, I’m going to curl back up in my big, empty bed and console myself with the knowledge that at least life is never boring.

(Ever.)

______
* Yes, I used a split-infinitive… ON PURPOSE. Oh, how daring I am!

19Sep

Fragmentation

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I’ve been a bit lost the last few days…

This is the same week of pregnancy that I was hospitalized with pre-term labor last time. I expected everything to be different this time around–after all, no complications had presented themselves yet–but then I woke up Sunday night with the familiar tightening across my belly.

So I’m waiting it out in a haze of fatigue and worry, relieved at the permission (a.k.a. order) to stay in bed all day but disheartened at the sight of Natalie wandering the house listlessly. I wish I could do bright and exciting things with her. I wish I could be productive. I wish I could fully relax. But my mind is too fragmented to focus on any one thing; it’s skipping recklessly from anxiety to anxiety, leaving no time for perspective.

Looking up stories on Italian hospital procedures isn’t helping. Everything sounds so different, and while I can get used to different transportation systems and different business hours, I can’t welcome the idea of a different birthing environment… at least not the kind I’m told to expect. This, plus looking up pictures of a dear friend’s wedding we couldn’t attend, and I’m spectacularly homesick for the first time since we moved here.

Is it OK for me to just be a little bit hormonal and emotional and possibly even irrational tonight?

15Sep

Going Hoarse

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Apparently, a week away from writing was too much. Or maybe late-pregnancy unmanageability has finally settled in my brain. Maybe I just haven’t gotten out enough lately to refill my stockpile of words. At any rate, I’ve had a dry week.

Writing the last few days has consisted of me sitting at my desk in a pool of afternoon sunlight, feeling the baby fidget, staring into space as I try to corral my creativity. I’ve typed an average of one word a minute, and reading back, it sounds so forced. I explain to Dan that it just isn’t clicking, as if my brain and the blank page were puzzle pieces, temporarily mismatched.

I want my voice back, soon, while I still have the opportunity to use it. I’m apprehensive about losing my spare moments or my motivation (or both) once the baby comes; I feel like the next month is all the time I have left in the world. Irrational, I know. But once I have two little girls here, I don’t know how I’ll manage even grocery shopping, much less building a schedule that includes time just for me.

Dr. Phil would probably say that anxiety about the upcoming birth is stifling my creative process. Oprah would probably tell me that I’m not in-tune enough with my own spirit. Jerry Springer would… I don’t know, but it would probably involve getting hit by a chair. Which might be exactly what I need. Who knows?

What I do know is that making next to no progress on my writing project this week has turned me into a grouch. Grumpy, frustrated, unsatisfied, disappointed. My mind feels like a movie kept on pause for far too long–spinning in aimless circles, leaving the rest of the story unplayed. I also feel guilty that my blog entries haven’t been the happy, waltz-y, sunshine-with-a-balloon-on-top variety. I guess I’ve gone most of my life putting on a good face no matter what, and it feels intrinsically wrong to admit ugly, gritty, human things like frustration.

I’ll keep trying to write, just to prove that I can. I’m very, very good at beginning projects, and very, very bad at finishing them; it’s my version of smoking, and I want to kick the habit. I only have one question… Am I desperate enough to actually conquer myself this time?

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