I must admit, dear note-leaving souls, that your recognition of my most recent post has me floating on cloud nine.

Hello, Cloud Nine, it’s nice to see you again.

What? You’d like me to kick off my shoes and stay awhile? Don’t mind if I do.

Yes, I’d like to sunbathe here on cloud nine awhile. With you praise-givers around, it should be easy, right? Already this morning, you have prompted me to stop sweeping and start writing. Thank you. I only hope the momentum will last.

Still, I’m sure you’ve notice that my last three posts have all centered around my lack of inspiration, motivation, creative spirit. Needless to say, this shift is disconcerting and depressing. I’ve been busy, yes. But when have I not been busy? I will discuss the issue with my doc this afternoon, but I truly fear that the pharmaceutical leveling of my emotional dips and spikes is leaving me desperate and lacking.

Let me explain how it is that I operate:

Generally, I am in constant motion. With the rare exception of Savasana (corpse pose) after a vigorous session of yoga, either my body or my mind or both are continually racing. Sometimes, if my body or mind are really working it, then one or the other might take a little catnap. For instance, if I am truly dancing, dancing with my soul exposed, then I am able to escape my thoughts for awhile. If I am possessed by a vivid and fantastical day dream, I may find myself slumped over, staring trance-like at the living room blinds. (I am certain you have experienced the same.)

Usually, however, both my mind and my body are working in conjunction to get me to move, move, move and seldom sit idle. I am, right now for instance, typing at breakneck speed (well, not typing exactly: I hunt and peck with a wild woman’s fervor) whilst rapidly peddling my left leg, up and down, up and down, as if I my thoughts were somehow connected to an invisible peddle like that of an ancient sewing machine or a beautiful upright piano. I keep biting my lips and my heart is busily palpitating. I have electrical currents running up and down my spine.
Oh how I revel in these jittery, caffeinated, inspirational states.

After having Silas, I suppose I began climbing a steep, but slippery slope, in which I was practically in rapture, tongues of creative fire pouring down on me in torrential buckets. A small flicker of an idea would begin to smolder in my mind and then an inspirational breeze would come along and POOF! I’d be on fire. My skin tingling, my thoughts moving at Olympic speed, my breathing quick and wild. If Silas was napping, I would pound out my literary compositions with flare and gusto. If Silas was awake, I would strap him to my chest and sing and laugh and frantically tidy and talk my ideas aloud so that they wouldn’t fly away.It was perfect.

Except for the fact that I couldn’t feel my teeth.

Or sometimes my thighs.

I couldn’t organize my days.

Once darkness came, I had to obsessively create lists of things that I had accomplished so that I could convince myself that I was actually accomplishing something. If I didn’t feel like I had accomplished enough (writing two papers for my Master’s course, hiking three miles, writing two poems, washing the dishes, vacuuming, planting onions in the garden, and tutoring foster children from 6:00-9:30pm, all while tending to my newborn son never quite seemed like enough!) I would write lists of what I absolutely had to accomplish tomorrow and why I didn’t get enough done that day.

You see, I would be blanketed in creative fire and then I would just plain burn. Often turning to a pile of ashy mush crying on the bedroom floor.
Of course, I could not continue to live this way.

Still, I miss those fanatical days. The creativity was largely motivated by the insanity and perhaps the insanity by the creativity. Now, I am trying to find my medicated sea legs. It’s not so easy.

Yes, my priorities are clearer. My personal expectations have been whittled down to “reasonable” and I am not so damn hard on myself (or my husband). I would say that I am happier. And, thankfully, I can feel all of my body parts the majority of the time.

But, I am not as often swept up on a wave of passionate inspiration.

I am fearfully mediocre. (There’s that obsessiveness again.)

But, I was able to fly on an airplane with my son without nervously picking the skin from knuckles.

How do I strike a balance?

I will take any well-intentioned suggestions.

Thank you.

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.”

You might say I’ve had a breakdown of sorts.

But, I can tell I’m getting better. I can tell because I just used the age-old “sweep everything into the closet and tackle it in the morning” technique. Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have done that. Two weeks ago, I would have stood for countless moments staring at the pile of clean but unfolded laundry and reflected on how that pile represented the vile garbage dump of my personal failures. Then, I would have either maniacally begun sorting, hanging, and folding the laundry (despite the fact that it was near midnight and Silas would be up at 3am) while becoming increasingly irritable and frantic or I would have climbed into my bed and rolled up like a boxer’s fist and stared at the wall praying that my husband wouldn’t touch me and thinking about what an utter wreck of a person I was, what a poor, poor excuse of a woman and a mother.

That’s the truth. Just because of the laundry.

So, as I have said, since last we spoke, I have had a breakdown of sorts. I have been diagnosed with a postpartum condition. And, on top of that, the subject of my apparent bipolar disorder has resurfaced. Yippee. (That’s sarcasm.)

It’s funny how we Homosapiens are bestowed with the intellectual gifts of denial and justification.

You see, the incident described above, the one with the laundry, didn’t really seem all that bizarre to me. Or, maybe it did. But, it didn’t seem critical. Nor did the fact that I’ve been curling up like a slug that has been sprinkled with sea salt almost every time my husband tried to hug me. Or the fact that I’ve spent countless Saturdays sitting at the kitchen table with my head in my hands struggling– in sort-of a life or death way– to make a decision about whether or not I should go to the grocery store because going to the store might cut into all the fun things we could be doing that Saturday afternoon… until Saturday afternoon had passed. What’s so serious about locking myself in the bathroom and trying to talk myself out of cutting my thighs with a tomato knife just to make me feel present? Or leaving almost every group activity paranoid that everyone had been wishing that I hadn’t come, or worse, seeing right through to the ugly core of my true being? What about piling so many projects onto my plate that there was no earthly way to accomplish them all but still trying desperately not only to complete them with accuracy but with outrageous, perfectionist gusto? Or being so inspired and so creative that I literally felt like I was on speed? Or having so much anxiety I couldn’t feel my teeth? Or how about my rage? Or my lost-along-the-road- somewhere sex drive? Or how about holding myself in the fetal position and refusing to communicate except through gurgles and wails because I was certain, perfectly certain, that my son would be better off without me?

Or, and here was the clincher for me, how about seeing for a second, just a split second, a blond-haired toddler trapped behind the dryer and believing he was there just long enough to call out to my husband in fear and then sink to the kitchen floor in shame and despair?

Seem obvious that there was a problem, right? But, not to me. To be fair, these episodes seemed just that– episodes. I told myself that everyone has mood swings, especially when their postpartum hormones are raging. I told myself that I had closed the door on any previous problems I had had in the past. That I was in control. That I was, well, a little like Martha Stewart mixed with Anne Lamott, a little Sedaris, and a generous dash of Wonder Woman. I was, as you can see, in complete denial.

After the child-behind-the-dryer incident, I couldn’t really deny it any longer. Although, deny I did, as I became convinced that “others” (meaning my husband, my therapist, my doctor) were planting evil thoughts into my head. That they were the problemed ones and I was just, oh I don’t know, stressed out and creative.
It’s hard to believe, but I was experiencing bouts of psychosis.

It was hard to swallow. I was plodding about thinking I was SuperMom and friends kept asking me things like “how do you do it?” and “do you every sleep?” and telling me things like “I’m inspired by your energy” and “you look so happy and healthy and so together. I wish I were more like that!” And, just last week, I wrote a letter to Silas telling him that he makes me the happiest person on Earth. How goes this mad juxtaposition? You see, can’t you, how all the seeds of denial were being planted. I’m surprised, in fact, that I wasn’t also suffering from delusions of grandeur. (Or, was I?)

But here’s the truth:
I appeared at parties. Told funny jokes. Made people laugh. Mingled like a socialite. Then, I sobbed for hours afterward.

I patiently soothed my colicky son. Rocked and shooshed him. Practiced meditative breathing. Then, I threw insults and Nikes at my husband.

I got A’s in all my Master’s courses. Diligently turned in my work on time and with extra credit. Then, as the semester and my schedule soon let up, I collapsed into a heap of atrophied limbs.

Every positive thought was followed by one of paranoia. Every success was backed by self-loathing and self-doubt.

Am I starting to sound like Jack Nicholson in The Shining?

I hope not.

So, now we get to it. To the blue pills. Those pills I did not want to take. Those pills I did not even want to talk about. Those blue pills that I think MDs give out like jelly beans. Those pills that are for the truly deranged and afflicted. Those pills, those pills, those pills…

Those pills that let me shove my unfolded laundry into the closet without damning myself and allowed me to write this post instead.

Ah, those pills. Now, at least for now, I am free to write the three dozen other posts that have been rolling around in my head like so many happy acorns, bumping up against each other and laughing.

Those pills that may be beginning to set me free to start to love myself and my husband and to breathe.

As a side note: It has been estimated that up to 80% of women experience some sort of postpartum sadness or “the baby blues.” 10-20% experience a more severe form of the blues in the form of postpartum depression or anxiety. 1-2 women in every 1,000 may experience a form of postpartum psychosis. Women with a history of depression and/or bipolar disorder are more likely to experience these symptoms at some time during the 1st year after their child is born. Postpartum illnesses, while possibly related to already existing illnesses, are viewed as a separate condition and are often treated as such.