You know the game. You have a great day. Everything is going your way. You walk around with a song in your heart. Good for you. Brace yourself. Tomorrow is going to suck.
But you might get really lucky. Tomorrow might not suck at all. It might be just as good, even better. Maybe you are reaping some major karma frequent flyer miles and are having a long stretch of good days. Thats just swell, honey. Savor it. You deserve it. After all, it is important to enjoy the good stuff.
(If you are reading this while you happen to be in a depression pit and all this stuff about the good days is getting on your nerves, no worries, the cheer is about to disappear).
Anyway, sooner or later, you run of luck, or someone says the wrong sing, or you say the wrong thing, or nobody says the right thing, or you scream at your kids for being kids, or you can’t believe what your hubby just did (or didn’t), or PMS strikes, and all of a sudden: Nastiness. Big time.
So yesterday was a brilliant day. It was my 39th birthday, I had 4 hours of seep because I just published this blog in the wee hours of the previous night, but I wasn’t tired because I was so high on the fact that I just published this blog.
And the day held treasures: Ice cream with my 6 year-old, just the two of us, then I was able to do all the poses in my first yoga class in 4 months, which was awesome (why is it that the first thing to go when things get hectic is yoga and excercise? Will I ever be one of those women who excercise through the rough spots? I wish, but fat chance. Fat being the operative word here) OK, back to the good stuff. The weather gods gave me lake-swimming weather as a birthday gift, so I honored their generosity by promptly swimming in the lake (brrrrrr, nice!). The picnic at the elementary school, the dinner with good friends, the facebook birthday love, the transatlantic birthday calls, all contributed to a warm fuzzy feeling. Yay for good days.
Then today started. The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that my body was really mad at me for being an overacheiver in the yoga class. I got my period and it brought its cousin badmood. The best kids ever behaved like wicked beasts. The noise from the chimney work (don’t ask) was pounding on my headache, and by now I just feel like low-level shit. Familiar much?
So here is how I’m helping myself cope: I let it suck.
I cried a couple of times already, one of those was over spilled (soy)milk. I’ve let my kids know that I love them even while I’m yelling at them, told the husband that any bitchy fallout is not his fault, and I’m resigned to the kitchen mess growing even larger. Soon there will be no counter space left for one more dirty cup, and that’s disgusting, but OK too. And when the guilt over being in a funk shows up, I don’t try to fight it, I just mentally nod at it and say: hey, I know you, you are nothing new. So the guilt is put-off with me for not getting all hung up on it, and kind of sinks into the background. Sort of like how you drive through a skunk-zone, and at first you are overwhelmed by the stench, and a few minutes later it’s not so bad, and after a while you can’t even smell it anymore, But just because you are not consciously aware of it doesn’t mean the stench is gone, and if anyone would come into your car they would be all “woah, that’s gross!
Know what I mean?
Anyway, I asked my Self what I could do for her and she said “let’s just write a post about this, let’s use some of the suckness as fodder for content”. And when the toddler went down for his nap, I resisted the urge to clean up the kitchen and parked myself in bed with laptop in lap and first-grader next to me with a book. And while I’m wallowing lounging in bed writing this post, I can feel the air clearing. If you got in my car now, you wouldn’t even think of skunk, the only thing that might gross you out would be the pretzel crumbs everywhere, and I’m sure both of us could live with that.
And here is the best part about having a bad day (yes, I know that’s an oximoron, my life is full of them): The best thing about bad days, is that after the long and winding road from the PPD abyss back up, I actually have the mental skills and enough practice to not panic when the funk descends. I no longer see each bad day as a one way ticket to the doom. Bad days might turn into bad weeks, but that’s about it. A good day would come again soon. And good weeks are not uncommon. Even a good month here and there is no longer so shocking. I think what makes the biggest difference in the way I handle the ups and downs these days is this: I am no longer considering good days to be my birthright, I no longer interpret bad days as personal failure. Bad days are ugly alright, but I trust that even when I feel like total cwap, I’m fine. And that, my friend, is an accomplishment in my book.
From Postpartum Depression to Joy 