This week, I talk about why you should NEGLECT THE HOUSEWORK. I am not suggesting you let your house look like it was hit by a tornado, but I do think it is important to let yourself take time to answer your divine call and do whatever creative work fires you up, even if that means there is a little dust on the picture frames.

I talk about one of my favorite books, If You Want To Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit, by Brenda Ueland, especially the chapter with the fantastic name “Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect It For Their Writing.” Amen!

If writing is not your jam, you might still enjoy Why You Should Write. Just substitute your creative passion as you read along. I have read this book twice now, and I think I am due for a rereading. As I flipped through the book looking for the chapter I wanted, I kept seeing passages I had highlighted that resonated deeply with me.

I still remember this commercial I saw as a kid. There was a mom stressing about the cleanliness of her floor before having her mom friends visit. She frantically cleaned the floors with the product being touted by the commercial. At the commercial’s end, she talked about how proud she was when the other moms let their baby crawl around her floor. That commercial left a deep impression on me. I often catch myself criticizing the cleanliness of my home and then feeling like I am somehow inadequate because my floors are not as immaculate as the ones in commercials and magazines.

UGH.

I want to follow Ueland’s advice and neglect the damn housework. I want to free up time to express my creative self.

Now, I’m not saying I want my house to look like it was hit by a tornado. That’s not good for my mental health either. But if I keep aiming for perfection in my housework, I’ll never have time to do the things I feel called to do.

It feels like housework is something meant to oppress women, keep us in the kitchen, too busy scrubbing floors to worry about bigger ideas.

On my deathbed, I don’t think I’ll regret that there were dirty dishes in the sink. But I will regret if I was so busy dusting, that I missed out on writing or painting or gardening.

Now, with the pandemic, my family is spending more time than ever at home. There are more messes and the dishes are reproducing and having dirty dish babies. I could spend every day cleaning and never have an immaculate home. It takes a real effort on my part to rise about the messes and sit down and write.

But it’s worth it.

I’m a woman with a fierce soul and I want to write and tell stories. I can’t keep delaying that part of myself.

For most of my life, I avoided, numbed, suppressed, mocked and ignored my negative feelings. I saw them as a sign of weakness and a source of shame.

For the past few years, I have been trying to allow myself to have negative feelings. I have done this work mostly through therapy and journaling; and for the most part, this work concentrated on just feeling my feelings instead of running for ice cream the moment I felt a twinge of a negative emotion.

I have made a lot of progress. I sometimes catch myself numbing crappy feelings with food, but those moments are coming less and less often. Last year, when my son’s school had to close temporarily from asbestos contamination, I gained twenty pounds. This year, the Covid-19 pandemic closed my kids’ schools and turned our lives upside down – and still, I have lost fifteen pounds since February. I know this is because I am not stuffing down my feelings with food.

But as much progress as I have made, I am ready to level up.

Recently, I have realized that my feelings require more than being felt. I need to pay attention to my feelings and be curious about them. Why am I feeling a particularly strong emotion? Is there a subconscious belief at the root of this feeling? How do I feel about this subconscious belief? Does it still work for me or is it time for an upgrade?

Then it’s time to take action!

What does it mean to “take action” in response to my feelings?

Well, I’m still working on that. Like I said, I’m a Feelings Novice.

But at the most basic level, I have learned that if I am feeling something good, like joy or happiness or contentment, that is my body’s way of saying, This is awesome! Do this more often! I recently took the kids to the park and felt so happy sitting under a tree, enjoying a breeze. I smiled and thought that I have to keep making an effort to get us out into nature. Everything feels better in nature. It’s where we belong.

If I am feeling something negative, that is my body’s way of saying, Holy shit! This sucks! Do something else! Change! Make some changes! I have recently felt frustrated when I do not have enough time to write because hello, 2020 cancelled summer and my kids are home a lot more than usual. When I realized my frustration came from lack of writing time, I started making an effort to take more time to write, even though that meant letting my kids entertain themselves. I have felt much better, and my kids are thriving as well. Turns out they do not need me to plan their every waking moment. Thank you, negative feelings!

I feel a little silly writing this post. After all, there are tons of experts who know way more about feelings than I do. Why should I be sharing my thoughts when they have doctorates and research studies and fancy knowledge about physiology and mind-body connections?

Because I am a novice, and there are far more Feelings Novices than Feelings Experts. For me, writing is a way to understand and transform. If I share my struggles with my emotions, I will keeping getting better at feeling my feelings, paying attention to their messages, and taking action. If I do this work enough, it will eventually become second nature.

I am still only a novice. It will take a lot more than a blog post to help me become a Feelings Master. But with time and work, I believe anyone, including myself, has the ability to become a Feelings Badass.

Today is Day 48 – 48!!! – of my menstrual cycle.

I have been back on Zoloft now for three weeks. When I first started, I thought I needed the Zoloft for pandemic anxiety. But when I started Zoloft, I was just on Day 28 or Day 29 of my cycle. Now I am seeing that there must be a hormonal component to my anxiety as well.

I do not want to discount pandemic anxiety. My god, there is so much going on these days. I am definitely affected by all this ongoing uncertainty and the complete upheaval of our daily lives; and I am grieving the 2020-21 school year that I thought we were going for have.

But still, holy shit: hormones!

I had insomnia the past four nights. I would fall asleep just fine, wake up to pee, and then be up for hours. A couple nights I did manage to get a little more sleep. A couple nights I did not.

Last night, as I lie awake, and felt surges of adrenaline rushing through my body, I remembered that when I had postpartum depression after both my pregnancies, I needed to take 150 mg of Zoloft. After I had Julian, my doctor started me on 100 mg, and that worked for about two and a half months. Then I had three nights of insomnia. My doctor bumped me up to 150 mg and I was fine. Maybe I need to go back to 150 mg of Zoloft now that I am on Day 48 of what appears to be perimenopause. Or maybe not? This is uncharted territory for me!

I emailed my psychiatrist. I have a feeling she will agree with my assessment, but if she suggests something else, I am willing to try.

I also scheduled an appointment with my primary physician. She is a naturopath and is great with recommending dietary changes and supplements.

I have also completely quit caffeine. I did quit caffeine at the beginning of July when I first felt all these surges of anxiety, but I was still having decaf coffee. When this new wave of insomnia started, I looked up the caffeine content in my Venti Iced Decaf Americano from Starbucks – 25 mg! That is not nothing! Now I am just drinking water, tea and caffeine-free soda. I’d like to wean myself off soda completely, but baby steps, folks. I am not a saint.

I do not know if Zoloft is good for perimenopause. If it is: hooray! If it is not, I am sure there is something that will help me soothe all this agitation and insomnia.

Here in Pasadena, the public schools are starting the year with distance learning. The way things are in Los Angeles County, Nathan and I both feel it is unlikely that our daughter Pippa will ever get to attend school in person for the 2020-2021 school year. (Her brother Julian is still in preschool which gets to stay open with its daycare license. Fingers crossed there!)

We did distance learning in the spring and it was a shit show. Our school district says it is switching systems and distance learning in the fall will be very different, so I am trying to keep an open mind… but I also bought an ass shit ton of second grade workbooks on Amazon in case distance learning does not work for Pippa again.

I can teach Pippa just about anything she needs to learn in second grade, but we see a lot of benefits in traditional school: socialization, time away from home, and exposure to different teaching styles. Distance learning loses all of these benefits and creates all sorts of misery.

And the pandemic is creating enough misery without the help of distance learning!

As I try to navigate the 2020-21 school year, I am going to remember my values:

• Being healthy – that includes mental health!
• Paying attention and being curious
• Honoring my intuition
• Doing my best – whatever that means at any given time
• Believing in abundance, not scarcity
• Surrendering to reality. This does not mean being passive. It means accepting what I can’t change and then making the best of the distance learning situation.
• Paying attention to my feelings! My feelings are a call to action. I am learning this. Last spring, my feelings told me: this is bullshit. Yet I kept forcing my kids to do it. If my feelings tell me that distance learning does not work for Pippa, I will make necessary changes.
• Stop judging others – because when judge how other parents are handling distance learning, that means I’m judging myself even more harshly.
• Authenticity
• Being conscious and intentional (hence this podcast episode!)
• Flexibility
• Courage

I also want to pay attention to my mothering and parenting values. Maybe I need a Personal Motherhood Bill of Rights! Some things I know that I value about mothering include:

• Not comparing my kids to other kids
• Not comparing my parenting to other parents’ parenting
• Getting outside and into nature
• Joy
• Curiosity
• Letting my kids follow their passions

Bottom line: both my kids love school and love learning. I will not let distance learning ruin that for them!

I recorded this episode on July 16, 2020, which was Day 41 of my menstrual cycle. As I write this, it is July 17, Day 42. What the what!?!

Two important observations:

(1) My period is SUPER late, and

(2) I am not pregnant. (I had an appointment with my gynecologist earlier this week, on Day 39, and asked my doctor to check.)

So now I am left to wonder: is this perimenopause? or pandemic stress?

My mom missed her period for NINE months when she was forty-one years old. I am forty-one years old. Does that mean I am just going to be in menstrual limbo for another seven or eight months?

And: I did not talk about this on the show, but what is my period going to be like when it arrives? Super mega heavy? I need to stop thinking about this.

I have been tracking my period for years, and I looked back at my menstrual cycles for 2019 and the first half of 2020. They bounced around with lots of irregularity, which has always been my uterus’ favorite mode. In case you are geek about numbers like me, the cycles were: 30 days, 23, 31, 31, 26, 27, 27, 28, 26, 28, 28, 28 (OMG! almost regular!), 26, 25, 31, 28, 30, 24, and 29.

My uterus is a creature of mystery and intrigue.

My gynecologist told me he could “jumpstart” my period if I hit Day 50. I told him that I’m feeling great (thank you, Zoloft), so he said to touch base after five months.

I have no idea what is involved with jumpstarting one’s period, but I am imagining something like this:

Before I let the Automobile Club have its way with my uterus (or ovaries? I seriously have no idea what this entails), I am getting educated. I have started reading Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health During the Change. I have only read about 50 pages, but so far, I am loving it. I love Dr. Northrup’s approach to woman’s health. She is very much about the mind-body-heart connection and using health issues to dive into deeper soul work. She writes:

It may not feel like a rescue at the time, but the clarity of vision and increasing intolerance for injustice, inequity and lack of fulfillment that accompany the perimenopausal changes are a gift. Our hormones are giving us an opportunity to see, once and for all, what we need to change in order to live honestly, fully, joyfully and healthfully in the second half of our lives.

The Wisdom of Menopause, pg. 19.

This is exactly how I want to approach perimenopause! I don’t want to look at it as a burden or cross to bear. I want to see it as an opportunity to do whatever work my soul needs me to do.

Dr. Northrup also writes:

Regardless of where you currently stand in your menstrual or perimenopausal transition, chances are you’ve inherited a few beliefs about your cycle that boil down to a variation of the following: “The issues that arise premenstrually have nothing to do with my actual life. They are strictly hormonal. My hormones exist in a universe that is completely separate from the rest of my life.”

The Wisdom of Menopause, pg. 37.

I feel like I need to insert a victory dance here. (I think I need to enlist my husband and get some photos of me doing a victory dance so when appropriate, I can pop them into show notes and blog posts.)

But seriously, as women, we have been brainwashed into thinking we are crazy because of our hormones. But maybe we just seem crazy because we try to accommodate everyone until we cannot take it anymore, and we explode. Maybe our hormones are just magnifying the issues we try to ignore.

I don’t want to keep ignoring my issues! Dr. Northrup writes:

PMS and the escalation of symptoms that is so common during perimenopause are really our inner guidance system trying to get us to pay attention to the adjustments we need to make in our lives, adjustments that become particularly urgent during perimenopause.

The Wisdom of Menopause, pg. 37

I want to tune into my inner guidance system! I want to make the adjustments that my soul requires so that I can be my authentic self.

I want to treat perimenopause as another adventure.

It is early July 2020 and here in Pasadena, we still have no idea what the 2020-2021 school year will be like. Hybrid? Distance learning? When will our kids go back to school full time??

This uncertainty was driving me crazy, but something I recently read in Loving What Is by Byron Katie has helped me accept the mystery of the coming school year. If you are not familiar with Byron Katie, she teaches that when we have thoughts that cause us discomfort or stress, we should ask ourselves four questions about the thought:

(1) Is it true?

(2) Can I absolutely know that it’s true?

(3) How do I react when I believe that thought?

(4) And finally, who would I be without that thought?

Byron Katie calls this process “The Work” and explains it all for free on her website, thework.com. She also has a podcast, The Work of Byron Katie. I have listened to a few episodes and they were very helpful. But if you are book person like me, I suggest starting with Loving What Is.

Katie does a lot of in-person events where she walks audience members through The Work. (Now she is doing Zoom gatherings.) The book Loving What Is includes transcripts of many of these dialogues. One of the dialogues concerns a woman’s fears about terrorism in New York City after 9/11. As I read that dialogue, I immediately thought about the Covid-19 pandemic and distance learning.

Emily, the woman doing this dialogue, is angry at her family because they are not helping her make a contingency plan in case the terrorism gets worse. (This dialogue took place only a week or two after 9/11). Katie guides Emily through the four questions about Emily’s desire for a contingency plan. As they talk, Emily realizes the futility of making a contingency plan because there are too many variables to predict. Katie observes:

To make a contingency plan work, from what I’ve seen of reality, you need to be psychic, so you can know ahead of time when to evacuate and where to go that would be safe.

Loving What Is, pg. 280.

I felt such a release of tension as I read that line.

The 2020-21 school year is a Big Fat Question Mark. I feel like I should be making contingency plans in case we are back to distance learning full time. Should I be learning about home schooling? Should I be figuring out different activities the kids to do to be social? Maybe tennis? (For some reason, I keep thinking about tennis lessons! As if that’s the solution to the pandemic.)

But in order to make a contingency plan for the 2020-2021 school year, I would need to be psychic. I would have to know how the virus is going to proceed in Los Angeles County. What the teacher unions will want to do. What the online distance learning will be like. etc. etc. etc. Oh my goodness, so many etceteras!

Last time I checked, I’m not psychic. If I really want to plan for the coming school year, I’d need at least a dozen plans. And even if I thought I had a handle on all the variables and had concocted all the plans for all the scenarios, reality could come up with something I never imagined.

Like the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here is something else that Katie says about contingency plans:

When you run in fear, it’s square into the wall. Then you look back at where you were, and you see that it was much safer. And without a contingency plan, when something happens, it just comes to you what to do. You can find everything you need right where you are. And in reality, you already live that. When you need a pen, you reach over and take it. If there’s not a pen there, you go get one. And that’s what it’s like in an emergency. Without fear, what to do is just as clear as reaching and picking up a pen.

Loving What Is, pg. 282.

This sounded crazy to me at first, but the more I reflect on it, the more it resonates with me. I have so far figured out what we need to do to stay healthy and sane during the pandemic as the various twists and turns come to us. I will keep doing that as needed. I do not need to figure out the 2020-21 school year when everything is in crazy flux. I’ll just figure it out bit by bit.

Embracing this sort of mindset does not mean I am just skipping along merrily, oblivious to the fact that the 2020-2021 might be slightly (completely) unorthodox. It just means I am releasing my fears and other negative feelings about it. It means I am letting myself get comfortable with the uncertainty. And then:

[W]ithout the fearful story ‘I need a contingency plan,’ various good moves might come to you: a place to meet up with your husband in case the phones don’t work. Learning to drive might be useful as your kids get past the toddler stage, keeping a few maps and some other things handy in the car. Who knows what a calm mind will come up with?

Loving What Is, pg. 289

Ah ha! Without the fearful thought “I need a contingency plan for distance learning,” I have a calmer and happier mind. Then I am in a frame of mind where good ideas can occur to me organically.

Maybe that is why I keep thinking about tennis lessons…

In my last post, I blogged about needing to quadruple my dose of Remeron, the anti-anxiety medication I take to sleep, because I was struggling with insomnia. The larger dose seemed to do the trick for a few days.

And then, it did not seem to be doing the trick.

I had two nights of insomnia. I only slept a total of four hours each night. I was deploying all my sleep tricks (including two natural sleep aids recommended by my naturopath) but still, I just lay awake in bed. Utterly exhausted and desperate to sleep but unable to calm my body and mind.

But then I realized: I was suffering from more than insomnia. My body felt like it was cackling with fear. A year and a half ago, we were rear ended on the freeway. We were in slow traffic, and no one was hurt, but the shock of the accident sent rushes of adrenaline racing through my body for several minutes.

That was how I felt for hours and hours on end.

It reminded me of the way I felt during the worst days of my postpartum depression.

I took deep breaths. I meditated and took deeper breaths. I listened to soothing music. I stretched and walked and still the adrenaline kept pounding through my body. I was anxious.

So last week, on July 2, I emailed my psychiatrist and reported what was happening. I wrote that it might be time for me to go back on Zoloft.

She called me back later that day. We had a good talk. She told me that everyone is struggling with anxiety these days, but I do not need to tough it out. I could and should most certainly go back on Zoloft. (I took Zoloft after both my pregnancies for postpartum depression. I have been weaned off Zoloft for just over two years now. Or is it three? Shit, the years of motherhood are a blur!)

I started Zoloft the next morning, July 3, 2020. I did not notice any improvement in my anxiety that day, but I did sleep better that night.

The next day, July 4, I still felt long bouts of adrenaline rushing through my body, but instead of lasting for several hours, they only lasted for an hour. The gaps between bouts seemed to get a little longer every time.

By July 5, I felt considerably better. Adrenaline surges only seemed to last ten or fifteen minutes – still far from pleasant, but much better that what I had been experiencing just a few days earlier.

Now, I should mention: I also quit caffeine. I had sixteen ounces of Diet Coke on the morning of July 2 (yes, I measured it), and then I decided to stop cold turkey. I know, from experience, that caffeine exacerbates my anxiety. When I am in top mental health (e.g. when there is not a pandemic), caffeine does not make my anxious. But when I am experiencing some anxiety (e.g. 2020), and I add caffeine to the mix….

BOOM!

So here I am, sitting at my kitchen table on July 8, 2020 with not quite a week of Zoloft and caffeine withdrawal under my belt, and I am feeling much, much better. When I feel like my adrenaline is activating, I take a few deep breaths and that calms me down.

I understand that for most people, Zoloft can take several weeks to take effect; but when I first took it in July 2013, I noticed a remarkable improvement in my mood after about three days. So I suspect the Zoloft is helping me again now, along with my new abstention from caffeine.

Whew! I think I have written enough for one post. I have a lot more thoughts about anxiety, Zoloft, mental health and the pandemic that I am still processing. I will write more in future blog posts. This is part of my self-care.

This is also yet another adventure in the grand adventure that is my life.

p.s. If you find that you need some extra help in the mental health department, rest assured: you are not alone!

I recently blogged about my decision to take a break from therapy during the Covid-19 pandemic. (I love how I felt the need to specify which pandemic I meant.) Long story short, my intuition told me to take a break from therapy, so I did. At the time I wrote that post, I had no idea how long the break would last.

Quick update: the break lasted six weeks.

I also blogged about how I have been taking 7.5 milligrams of Mirtazipane to help me sleep at night and how I was not going to try to wean off that small dose in the middle of a pandemic.

Slight update there: I have had to quadruple my dose to 30 milligrams in order to sleep.

Pre-pandemic, I was taking 7.5 milligrams of Mirtazipane to sleep at night, but my psychiatrist had actually prescribed 15 milligrams. Sometimes, when I was stressed or had PMS, I needed the extra boost to sleep. So I always had a little extra supply in reserve for those lovely PMS nights.

About a month ago, I started sleeping like crap. I’d fall asleep fine, wake up in the middle of the night to pee, and then never fall back to sleep. I took 15 milligrams of Mirtizipane for a couple of nights, and still, I did not sleep. I called my psychiatrist and we decided I should take 30 milligrams. At the end of our call, my psychiatrist warned me, “Don’t try to wean back down to 7.5 milligram too quickly!”

Yeah yeah, cool cool, right man.

Of course I tried to wean back to 7.5 milligrams too quickly.

I took 30 milligrams for a few nights, slept beautifully, and decided I was ready to wean back to 7.5. I took 22.5 milligrams for two nights and still slept great. I took 15 for another two and slept well enough. Then I forced myself back to 7.5 milligrams. I reasoned that I should only take 30 milligrams of Mirtazipane for as long as I had extra pills to supplement my dose. I did not want to call my psychiatrist for a new prescription. I had some internal resistance to increasing my dose.

Back on my regular dose, I slept okay for a few nights, but then the insomnia returned. But rather than think, Hey, maybe I have some extra anxiety and need the higher doze of Mirtazipane, I started looking for scapegoats. First, I was a little congested, so I blamed my allergies. I took Nyquil at bedtime and that worked for a couple of nights. But then the insomnia prevailed even over the extra strength Nyquil.

I tried blaming PMS, even though I was no where near the PMS zone.

I blamed refined sugar, even though I have not actually been eating much refined sugar.

Finally, after several consecutive nights of only sleeping for four hours, I woke up on Monday, June 22, 2020, and realized I had a problem. The insomnia was not a blip. It was my body’s cry for some help and tender loving care in the mental health department. I took a deep breath and called my psychiatrist and told her that I was struggling. Then I emailed my therapist and said I was ready to get back to therapy.  

My therapist had an appointment available the next morning that worked perfectly with my schedule. We talked about my sleep issues, and my resistance to increasing my medication; and I realized I still have some work to do in regards to my insomnia, anxiety and the medication I take to sleep.

I am still trying to figure out why I did not want to increase my bedtime anti-anxiety medication for more than a few days. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC. But I had subconsciously decided I should not need more medicine to sleep. Since being diagnosed with postpartum depression in 2013, I have done so much work to dismantle my anxiety. Surely my mindset could handle the extra stress of 2020. Needing to increase my medication felt like a sort of defeat or failure.

Right now, I am taking 30 milligrams of Mirtazipane to sleep at night. It is working. I am sleeping beautifully, and I also feel more like myself. Now that I am feeling better, I can see that the pandemic had activated my anxiety. But my anxiety is a sneaky beast, and instead of jumping from a 1 to a 10 all at once, it crept up slowly, bit by bit. I could not see what was happening until I was in insomnia hell.

I have another therapy session scheduled for next week. I am excited to keep digging into my anxiety and resistance to taking medication for my mental health.

I do not have a neat, tidy ending to this story, because this is my work in progress.

But here is one thing I have learned since my first adventures with postpartum depression: sharing my stories, especially my ups and downs with mental health, is something I have to do. When I do not share these stories, they start to feel like dark secrets that fester and make me feel ashamed of myself. I have to share these stories so I can banish my shame to distant lands.

p.s. My psychiatrist suggested I take 30 mg of Mirtazipane for the next four months before we even consider weaning me to a lower dose. I am fully on board with that plan!