{"id":2933,"date":"2014-02-06T21:55:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T02:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/?p=2933"},"modified":"2015-06-09T10:37:18","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T14:37:18","slug":"my-nervous-breakdown-was-totally-lame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2014\/02\/my-nervous-breakdown-was-totally-lame.html","title":{"rendered":"My Nervous Breakdown Was Totally Lame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

As it turns out, having a \u201cnervous breakdown\u201d isn\u2019t all it\u2019s cracked up to be. Not that I used to think it would be this great life experience, like childbirth or skydiving, but I did think it would be a teensy bit more dramatic and significantly more beneficial.<\/p>\n

Like this post I wrote<\/a> back in October.<\/p>\n

It took me years to realize that the work I have to do will be there no matter how high my stress level gets. I used to say, \u201csomething\u2019s gotta give! I can\u2019t keep going on like this!\u201d every other day. But nothing could<\/em> give. Everything I was doing was necessary, either for my family or for me. I kept thinking that if I got more and more stressed, until I had a nervous breakdown or a heart attack or something, fairy unicorns would magically change things because doctor\u2019s orders<\/em> and I wouldn\u2019t have as much to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my imagination, a nervous breakdown would involve some kind of flashpoint, probably hospitalization (where I would get to SLEEP! ALONE!!!!), and then a (sheepish) return to normal life, after the doctors cured me of nervous breakdownism and gave me strict instructions to Hire a Maid and Possibly a Nanny<\/strong>. Basically, I figured if things ever got that bad, they\u2019d get easier, because they\u2019d have to. Once life become too much to handle, life would have to change.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNervous breakdown\u201d isn\u2019t really even a clinical term, but it\u2019s colloquially used to describe some kind of disorder becoming so overwhelming that a person is literally unable to function in their daily life.<\/p>\n

This is something that would be quickly noticed and tended to if your daily life included, like, working for money. But if your daily life mostly includes wiping butts and folding laundry, sometimes you can slowly start falling apart without even realizing it yourself. That\u2019s what happened to me. I thought everything was fine, even though I started noticing (with a little disquiet) that the house was kind of getting out of control and I kept forgetting to make dinner. That went on for almost two weeks, until I woke up one day and was like, holy shit. I have completely fallen apart without even realizing it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Sure, I was aware I was snappier, more irritable, angrier, weepier, and generally unhappier than I normally am. I was aware that things were messy and I was behind on laundry. I was aware that maybe I had let things slide into a worse state than my usual bi-monthly funk allows. But as I walked through the house in a kind of daze that day, completely confused by the utter chaos in every room, on every surface, and everywhere, I started to realize that this was something new. Laundry was half-folded, half put-away, and half-washed, but I couldn\u2019t remember which half was which or how long it had been that way. I had random notes scribbled to myself on random pieces of unopened mail that were utterly indecipherable. The calendar was filled with doctors\u2019 appointments that had been scheduled for the week before. I spent fifteen minutes searching in vain for a package of bacon that I remember buying, but still have no recollection of cooking. But the moment it really hit home that something was deeply wrong was when I put the dishes away and realized we were missing two dinner plates.<\/p>\n

Two whole plates. Like the kind you eat dinner on. The big ones. They were just\u2026gone. I had no clue where they had gone to. I was almost positive they didn\u2019t break, because I figured I\u2019d remember having to clean that up, but\u2026well, maybe they did, and I didn\u2019t. All I knew for sure is that I had lost some plates, plates that make a small loop from cabinet to table to dishwasher and back again. Where I could possibly have misplaced them along the way is a mystery. But even more pressing was the dilemma at hand: how do you go about searching for dinner plates?<\/p>\n

Retracing my steps, a tactic that has never worked for me anyway, was completely impossible. I could hardly retrace the steps I took to the kitchen. So I called the Ogre, hoping he broke them while I was sleeping or something. At first he sounded confused, then when he understood what I was saying, his voice got a little quiet and a lot composed. This is never a good sign, and it almost always ends with him asking me to do something I don\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n

A few weeks before this, I had two inexplicable days where I felt normal. Or at least, I felt the way I imagine normal people feel. I wasn\u2019t stressed and frazzled, and I didn\u2019t cry or yell. I just did my work and felt happy, because my kids are a blast and I adore my husband and we have a nice life. Things like the laundry or dinner were not huge, insurmountable obstacles because they came attached to a thousand tiny other stressors. I didn\u2019t freak out when we decided to go to the dog park instead of bathe the kids and get them in bed by 7:30. I just went, and who cared if they were in bed a little late, a little dirtier than usual? I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The Ogre said the difference in me was like night and day. He said he\u2019d never seen me relax like that, not in our eight years of marriage. That\u2019s when I understood, for the first time ever, that all human beings don\u2019t actually go through life as big unstable wrecking-balls of frazzled emotional turmoil. And I was aware that if that sudden, inexplicable peace disappeared, I would have to make some major changes. Because that is the wife, mother, and person that I want to be. Not the wrecking ball one, you know. The happy one.<\/p>\n

That peace receded slowly, but like low tide it pulled back much further than I expected. Stress and turmoil returned, doubled, tripled, quadrupled, until I was so paralyzed by irrational fear that I stood sobbing one day in my driveway, unable to walk next door to a birthday party. The Ogre had to buy new socks for Sienna because it was too overwhelming for me to try and find the dirty ones in all the soiled laundry, and I had begun crying hysterically every morning when she asked if I had clean socks for her. I had become convinced that my family would be better off without me\u2026not that I wanted to die, mind you, because I don\u2019t and never did. I just thought I should leave so they would be free from the shackles of me, unstable. I thought whatever vague sense of missing me they might experience would be rapidly replaced by relief and then profound peace. Even with a sitter, they\u2019d be able to count on normal rhythms of life and appropriate, controlled reactions. One night I seriously contemplated running away on my bike, with a backpack and my dog like freakin\u2019 Dorothy, which is proof positive that I am not a rational planner even in the midst of a crisis. I got so far as to run a google search for buses that allow dogs before I remembered that I had no clean underwear. The thought of doing the laundry so I could pack a bag was so overwhelming that I cried myself to sleep instead.<\/p>\n

The Ogre had been consulting with Dr. Google on a daily basis, trying to find different supplements and diets and exercise regimens that might help me stabilize my moods. He insisted that I try meditation and deep breathing, made me leave the dishes in the sink for him to do, and began to say\u201drelax, relax\u201d so often that I began to feel like Zoolander.<\/p>\n