Transitions are not fun

I love to move, I love change, I love starting new things...

I do NOT love not knowing what's going to happen!  In fact, I legitimately hate it.  I do not love feeling like perhaps we are making all the wrong decisions.

We're moving in OKC in less than a month.  S will be in grad school.  We are living in the house my parents still own.

That is all we know.  We do not have:
1. jobs
2. direction
3. sanity

I "do not like button" this.

S and I are spending a lot of time sighing and looking off into space.  Let me tell you, we're really fun to be around.  We also fun bloggers right now, no?

Here's what I hope to share in the next few weeks:
1. We got jobs!
2. We have direction!
3. Hello sanity!

In the meantime, help?

In other, more positive news, my brother is engaged!  My brother is engaged to my best friend's sister!  Congratulations Philip and Courtney!

Navigating the Crazy

I just read a post from a favorite blogger about her postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter and how she's preparing for the birth of her son in a few weeks. I worry about this. She writes about how she's so angry about her depression, how it robbed her of the joy and happiness that she thought she deserved to have after her child was born. I've written a little bit about my experience with depression after S and I got engaged that extended into our first two years of marriage. I am angry too. I'm angry that I cried more out of frustration than joy during that time period. I'm angry that our first year of marriage was overshadowed by this specter of sadness and anxiety. I'm angry that is took S down with me. I'm angry that I didn't feel like I could be honest about how I was feeling.

And I am grateful that we've made it this far and made it together.

There's a term for depression after giving birth. Whether Tom Cruise thinks it's real or not, it turns out more women deal with this than we ever thought and I am glad that so many people are coming forward to talk about it. There's not a term for depression after other seemingly joyous occasions, except just depression, but I think we can still talk about it.

Before I read this blogger's post, here's what I thought: Oh man, she's super cute and she writes hilariously and she makes super cute stuff and sells it on etsy and she gets like lots of comments and she has this great kid and this super cute husband and her life is obviously infinitely better than man and I suck and use the phrase "super cute" more often than any 28-year-old ever should. Tells you more about me than it does about her, right?

So, here's my plea: Please be real. If you social media-ize and it's not to make money or promote a business, please be your real self, flaws and all. Please turn off the "here's why I'm awesome" show and let us see you fail, not so we feel sorry for you but because we all do and sometimes it feels like I'm the only one. I love it when my DYI bloggers post about a project and halfway through tell us, "then I hated it and I cried and we made 15 trips to Home Depot and I cried some more and then it worked." Oh, so you're not perfect. Thank goodness!

Sometime S and I are sad about something and we don't talk about it for a while until one of us says, "um, I'm a little bit sad about this" and the other one will say "um, I'm a little bit sad about that too" and then we might share a few tears and talk and by the end it all seems manageable because we realize that it's not just one of us, we're not alone, and the enormity of whatever it was that was bothering us is greatly reduced.

I think life with friends should be the same way, don't you? "I feel a little bit crazy." "I feel a little bit crazy too." "Oh, well then, let's navigate the crazy together."

Maybe I should rename our blog. Let's call it Navigating the Crazy Together.

More truth telling

I was out of town and now I'm back.  My little introvert self has to take several days to recover after spending time away with friends/family or having visitors at our house.  It's a personal "feature" that is so frustrating.  I love seeing people, so why does it take so much out of me?

But I digress.  I want to talk about another personal feature, depression and anxiety.  Whoo-hoo!  Get excited about this one!  You know how our little profile says we will tell the truth?  Well get ready for some truth telling, folks!

So here's the deal: you know how when you start something new, engagement, a job, moving, and, I imagine, having a baby, everyone says "Oh, how exciting!  You must be so happy, so excited, so thrilled, so in love, so hopeful, so amazingly perfect!" And, if it's a job or a move, you think, "yeah, I'm excited but I'm also scared and nervous and not quite totally 100% sure this is the right thing for me."  But if it's an engagement the only acceptable answer is, "Yes!  Absolutely!"

What's up with that?

Depression, anxiety, all that jazz is one thing during normal working hours and it sucks and I know far too many people who have dealt and are dealing with it in various forms but during the "happiest time of your life?"  Unacceptable.

S and I got engaged on June 16, 2007.  I spent the next three years struggling with depression and anxiety which means every time someone said, "You must be so _____!, " I lied to their face.  

Yeah, I know, you want to be absolutely, 100% sure about committing to a marriage, I get that, but are we ever 100% sure about anything?  Big events can trigger big responses.  For some people it's undeniable bliss, for others it's an impending sense of doom or, perhaps worse, an absence of emotion.  So what do you do?  Well, you don't really feel like you can talk to anyone because then you'll have to face the inevitable questions about whether or not you should go through with the wedding, questions you have been asking yourself for months and that you and your fiance have started discussing.  You've thought, "uh, maybe this is a horrible idea, worst you've ever had."  Yet, when you take off your engagement ring just to see what it feels like (the opposite of going to Tiffany's and pretending that you or a friend is getting engaged...you did that too, right?) or think about a future without your partner it doesn't make things feel better or alleviate the anxiety, it just makes you sad.  But, let's all be honest here, things aren't looking great for your marital future.

Fast forward ------> Things are so much better (thank you Dr. Therapist, thank you meds and then no thank you meds, and thank you coping mechanisms and things to look forward to) but, truthfully, I wish I could go back and redo many of those "happiest moments."  The one moment I wouldn't redo is when we said our vows.  That was the brief period of time that I had no anxiety or sadness and that gave me hope.

Vows make me happy!

So, what's the point of all this? Other than now you feel so sad for me.*

*If you feel so sad for me, I can suggest ways to cheer me up, perhaps involving shoes or the previously mentioned vacation package.  By the way, we are still waiting for our therapy graduation presents. Is this a not customary gift-giving occasion?  

The point is, or at least I think it is, that, um, I don't really know what the point is.  I guess maybe it's that we can resist the urge to insist that our "happiest times ever" be a frenzy of happiness, that we allow for normalcy even during exciting times and recognize that having a full range of emotions, even when you are receiving awesome wedding gifts, is normal and not a sign of horrible things to come.  And, when our loved ones are needing to question their choices, give them support without a side of guilt.

Or maybe I'm just bragging about how much S loves me because he stuck with me for three atrocious years, three years that included our wedding, our sad excuse for a honeymoon, moving, several career shifts for both of us, and Buddy (we love our Buddy).  Seriously folks, I don't know how he did it.

Let me sum up this way:

• sometimes life is happy
• sometimes life is sad
• sometimes we need help to be happy or even just regular (not normal...that's asking a little much)
• and, in the immortal words of the "How Are You?" song, "and that's OK!" 
• and it is.

The End.

A PSA from Dr. Oz

I struggle with anxiety.  I spent about two years being anxious about everything.  That was super fun.  Then I tried anti-anxiety medication which, unfortunately, made my anxiety worse in the longer term.  BUT then I caught a few seconds of Dr. Oz and he gave me a suggestion.  (See suggestion at 3:44.)

click on picture to go to the video

Things you should know about passion flower extract:

1. It comes from this awesome-looking flower.

2. It tastes kind of like prunes.  It's totally gross, but you mix it in water or some other beverage and then drink it really, really fast!

3. I got this kind at our health food store.  I don't think there is much difference between the brands.

4.  It really seems to work!  And if you are on anti-anxiety type medication, it shouldn't have any contraindications.  Passion flower isn't the only tool I'm using to combat my irrational anxiety but it certainly helps. 

That concludes today's public service announcement.