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My sister has recently pulled the twigs and leaves and ladybugs of Maine from her dreads and has driven down to stay with us awhile. She has come to NC, I believe, under the pretense that she is my daily assistant. Folding laundry at my side, preparing healthy dinners of fiddlehead spaghetti, and sweeping up Silas when his whining (it’s this new independence thing he’s into) gets to me. And pointing out, whether I like it or not, that I am an unfaltering stream of negativity.

If asked, I would boldly deny that I am a glass-half-empty sort. I might even go so far as to say that I am not only an optimist, but an idealist, a dreamer, a utopian perhaps.

Still, she’s there to catch my every less-than-chipper statement and throw it right back at me. I’m sure you understand how unnerving this can be, especially when she claims to be some sort-of Poppins incarnate, doling out spoons full of sugar (although she doesn’t eat sugar or dairy or honey or meat…) every chance she gets and promising to stay only until the wind changes. Whenever that might be…

I can barely keep my balance as she backspins every “this house is full shit” and “my breasts are like two, flesh-toned Gumby dolls that were caught beneath a steamroller” back at me.

Still, I felt like she was being a bit too obsessive and reactionary until I found myself complaining to a skinny friend about why I hate summer. (I don’t really hate summer; it just sounded good and further illustrated my point.)

Me: “I can never make it through a summer without experiencing a crippling outbreak of fat people’s rash”

Skinny Person: “Of what?”

Me: “Fat people’s rash! You know– oh well, you wouldn’t know– but that rash you get in the summer when your thighs rub together.”

Skinny Person: “You mean heat rash.”

Me: “Yeah, whatever.”

Skinny Person: “I get that too. It’s called heat rash.”

Me: “Yeah, whatever.”

So, yeah, I’m a bit down on myself at times.

(I hit a real low recently when I was about to perform in an improv show with two slender cohorts and I wouldn’t stop comparing the three of us to Wilson Phillips. I couldn’t remember the name Wilson Phillips so I just kept saying “you know that band from the 90’s with two thin sisters and the one fat sister. Then I spent 20 minutes on the Internet searching for “band and females and two skinny and one fat” so I could bash myself with the proper terminology. Now might be a good time to point out that A.) I’m not really that heavy, I just whine like to about it and B.) Carnie Wilson or Phillips or whichever one she was should never have been ousted by myself or anyone for her weight. And, she did a damn good job of losing it. Great work, Carnie!)

I believe the experts refer to this pattern as negative self talk. I know I’m supposed to use thought stopping techniques and have an arsenal of personal compliments to shower upon myself when I start thinking about things like, well, fat people’s rash. Except, what do you replace that with? Voluptuous people’s rash? Sandro Botticelli inspired rash? What, pray tell! Or, do I just stop wearing summer skirts?

Sarcasm aside, I am trying. As a mom, I need now more than ever to get the negative self talk under control. And, fast. If I am supposed to be a model of self-love and self-esteem, I need to start talking “I love a big-legged woman” and stop referring to myself as Grimace, the big, purple, pear-shaped.

So, I’ve decided to look on the bright side of my recent diagnosis as postpartum puddle of despair.

I’ve been told, and told, and told, I think as a means to help me accept and maybe even revel in the fact that I have some manner of bipolar condition, that some of the smartest and most creative geniuses also suffered from this affliction.

That never really made me feel any better because I just assumed that Virginia Woolfe, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Ernest Hemingway were among them.

I was wrong. Supposedly, Jim Carrey, William Blake, Tim Burton, Sigmund Freud, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Edgar Allen Poe all suffer or suffered from this malady. And that is just to name a few. That’s a little more uplifting (or for the glass-half-empty in me, more proof that the disorder is over diagnosed…)Either way, my point was not to drop famous names and try to see myself among them. That was just a side note.

My point was, that today, I decided to turn my negative thinking around by renaming my condition.

Instead of crazy, fucked up, loser, manic depressive, obsessive compulsive, bipolar, loony tune, I decided to instead believe that I have been rightly inflicted with S.P.A. Or, the Smart People’s Affliction. Which I can remind myself at times when I am cursing the F.P.R. Or, Fat Peoples’ Rash. (This whole post is starting to feel a little junior high school, don’t you think?)

Anyhow, cheers to those both blessed and cursed with the S.P.A. May you continue to feel your feelings deeply and may you find a positive, creative outlet for both your highs and your lows.

And, in the words of Anne of Green Gables, who was really quoting Gilbert Blythe, please remember that “being smart is better than being pretty.”

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Favorite Posts, On Friends and Family, Postpartum Bull Shit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.