This is an email I sent to a friend who called at a bad time today. I was trying to explain why I was in such a crappy mood and then I realized… aha! This is the sort of thing one should post on a blog. It’s not pretty. I didn’t re-read it, edit it, or think that hard about it when I was writing. But it is honest. Behold! The Crazy.

I don’t know what it is but I have just been feeling like I am going to explode with anger recently. I can’t even really say what the cause is, but the recipients are Justin, Andrew, and my mom – usually in that order, not always in that level of intensity. It is little things that set me off, things that annoy me, expectations not being met, life not being fair, you know – the usual CR suspects. Justin and I have been very snappy lately and I want to just scream at him sometimes but I don’t because I am afraid of what I will do if he starts screaming back (I really don’t do well with raised voices, I don’t know why but they make me cry and pretty much freak out even if they are not directed at me) but I feel like screaming is the only way to assuage the anger inside.

I have been doing weight watchers and although I am losing weight, I am not eating healthy foods. I am pretty much eating junk food and nothing else, so I stay within my points range and lose weight but I feel worse and worse. I know that eating healthy would probably go a long way to solving these problems (or at least allowing me to handle these problems rationally) but I am so caught up in the cycle of rewarding myself with food that I wake up each morning and think – Justin did something that really pissed me off, I deserve candy. So I go and get candy and eat some of it while I put Andrew in his crib whether or not he is ready for a nap and so he starts screaming and then I get stressed out and think – Andrew is screaming, I deserve candy. So I eat some more until I have eaten the whole ½ lb bar of chocolate that is on sale for $1 at Fred Meyer, and is all of my daily points allowance plus some and it is only 10 or 11 in the morning and I feel pretty shitty about myself and think about what an ugly, fat, gross individual I am and then I decide to combat that by not eating anything else for the rest of the day and going on walks to get more exercise points to make up for the points I used over my allowance, and by the time either Justin or my mom gets here after work I am crabby because I am hungry and have had a shitty day and I take it out on them, and we get in a fight and then I go to sleep thinking about the reward that I will get the next morning. This has happened, not every day, but many days of the last few weeks (4-5 that I can remember clearly).

I feel so confused about what to do with Andrew and the nursery. And I hate that I am incapable of making a decision and sticking to it and have to spiral around in these cycles for months on end, always worrying about things and paralyzed with fear that I will make the wrong decision and things won’t work out the way I want them to. Andrew has the major separation anxiety going on, he usually takes a nap during the time of the morning service and is in bed sleeping during the time of the evening service. He does okay being awakened from his nap if I am with him (i.e. playgroup at Alecia’s, the times that I take him to church and go in the nursery with him) but he freaks out to the point that it took me 20 minutes to calm him down the last time I left him in the nursery. I know that the screaming doesn’t bother some people but it makes me want to throw him across the room. I know that it is his way of expressing himself and that it has nothing to do with me, but I feel like he is condemning me for being a bad mother and screaming at me every time he gets out of control. When it happens, I start crying and the rage wells up. I haven’t taken it out on him yet, but I know that I am completely capable of doing that in those moments. It makes me feel like there is something wrong with me, or with him that I should be able to fix but I don’t know how.

In related news – my mom witnessed my reaction to Andrew’s freak outs early and has since done everything she can to try and be there for as many of them as possible so that she can deflect/absorb the anger and try to calm him, and me, down quickly. (note: I feel like an ungrateful ass for feeling this way about my mom, because I know that she is one of the cooler people in the world and that many people in my position would give their right arm to have my mom helping them. But my irrationality knows no bounds) At first, and during most of the time that she took off from work to help me, I knew that it was the right thing to do, for everyone involved. I was crazy and I needed help badly. Even though most people would say (after reading this) that I am still crazy and need help badly, it sometimes feels like she is intruding, or, more accurately, like she is helping because she doesn’t think that I can handle it. This is one of the major points of contention with my parents, that they always tried to protect me, always did things for me when I was scared or uncomfortable (my mom still returns things at stores for me and makes phone calls in my name for me if there is any chance that they might be confrontational. I ask her to do this because I am afraid of getting yelled at, spoken harshly to, or being uncomfortable. Basically, because I don’t think I can do it.) But with Andrew it is different, I feel like I can’t handle it. I am scared and I feel like everyone else has the manual for parenting, but I was absent when they passed them out. But I want to try. I know that there are some things that I can do better than anyone else with him. Before he was diagnosed with the GERD, I found a way to hold him that would calm him down and help him go to sleep and neither my mom or Justin could do it as well as I could. I love the quote that Justin gave me from Dr Cox on Scrubs, “you are an evil, soulless, chemically enhanced psychopath. Hell, I’m not sure you are completely human. But you are an amazing mother.” More and more, I feel my confidence growing with Andrew. I know that I will always rely on others for help with him, but I have the desire to try and do more things on my own. So when my mom offered to come to church with me and help with Andrew, I didn’t know what to say. I haven’t been in a service since before Thanksgiving. When I am there for even part of it, my heart is so broken that I feel like weeping and the tears do well up (which is saying something for me – I usually mock people who cry in church). I know that this is indicative of the problems in my relationship with Christ and I know that I need to work to make those good experiences more frequent, that they will help me remember what I believe and why. So having my mom there seemed like a good idea, until it actually happened. As we were driving to church on Sunday, she starts talking about how she is just going to play with Andrew in the foyer and/or nursery and I can just go in and participate in the service. I tell her that that plan is not what I wanted from her, as far as help goes and that it makes me feel like everyone will see us there and think, “oh, Jenny can’t take care of Andrew”. I think this because that is what I think about myself whenever I take him someplace and he starts crying. It seems like having here there just proved what I had already suspected, that I couldn’t take care of him and I needed help. (I ended up sitting in the nursery with him the whole time and he was fine, and Justin is going to set up the stuff so the service will get piped into the nursery next week so that should help…) I just hate the feeling that I am not good at something and that everybody knows it, and I take out that hatred on the people who try to help me.

It is easier to be the victim than to admit that my son’s, husband’s, and mother’s actions are out of my control.