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!

Whew, I gave my website a little attention today. I updated the Home, About Me and Podcast pages. When I get time to write, I just want to write a blog post or work on my fantasy series. But the website pages were so outdated, it was getting ridiculous.

I also did some work today for … [drum roll, please!] … my new podcast!

I created my podcast cover art, picked some music for the introduction, and brainstormed the first several episodes. I hope to record the first episode this week and have everything uploaded and synched with iTunes by the end of July. Then I will record weekly episodes about all the things I am learning ad adventures I am having as a woman in my forties.

I first got the idea for this show about a year ago. I even recorded the first four episodes last fall. But then I got overwhelmed and decided I did not have enough kid-free time to start a podcast. I would wait until Julian was going to preschool five times a week during the 2020-21 school year.

Well, shit, y’all. It’s Summer 2020 and I have even less kid-free time than I did in Fall 2019. But my inner voice will not leave me alone. It keeps saying, Podcast, podcast, podcast. Pandemic or no pandemic, this is something I have to do.

I deleted the four episodes I recorded last fall. -They are literally from a different era. This week, I will start fresh with some new episodes.

I am so excited to get this podcast off the ground already!

Several years ago, when Pippa was about one year old, I got an idea for a fantasy novel. It was just the tiniest glimmer of an idea, and I was already writing my memoir about postpartum depression, but the idea would not leave me alone.

I finally started writing the rough draft for the fantasy novel in Spring 2018. I wrote about 75% of that first attempt at a first draft, and then realized I had it all wrong. So I opened a new document and started over. I got about 50% written of that first draft before realizing, again, I had it all wrong. So I opened yet another new document and started yet again on the story idea that would not leave me alone.

Is it still a first draft if you have written 75% + 50% of the prior drafts?

After about three first drafts (I lost track), I wrote a very long outline. In Fall 2019 (approximately an eon ago, in an entirely different world), the outline felt right.The final draft will be very different from that outline, but I knew I had my heroine and her world. It was time to buckle up and actually finish a first draft already.

I started writing.

At the beginning of this year, as I was thinking about my 2020 goals, I looked at what I had written and decided I could probably finish the first draft of the first book in my fantasy series by July 31, 2020. I told myself that I was being ambitious but it was important to have a deadline. I would just push back the deadline as necessary.

Then the Covid-19 Adventures started.

I kissed the July 31, 2020 deadline goodbye. How could I finish a first draft of a first novel while overseeing distance learning with my kids? But I kept writing! The hour or two that I spent writing the first draft of my fantasy novel was a fun escape from the uncertainty of the pandemic. It energized me. I could not NOT continue working on my fantasy series.

Then I finished the first draft in mid-May 2020, two and a half months ahead of my self-imposed deadline.

WTF?

It happened quite suddenly. I have been using a four-part structure that I learned in Larry Brooks’ book Story Engineering. I highly recommend the book to anyone writing a novel. Writing the middle part of my first draft (Parts 2 and 3 in Brooks’ structure) was a slog. I kind of knew what I needed to write, but I abandoned my outline after writing about 10,000 words of the first draft. As much as I would like to be a plotter, I’m a pantser. I discover my story by writing it.

But then I hit Part 4, the last 25% of my draft, and holy eff, I just knew what I had to write. The words poured out of me. In the space of two weeks, I went from “I’ll be lucky to finish a draft in 2020” to “OMG it’s done!” It was glorious.

So now, whew, it’s June 2020 and I have not been blogging much because I have been digging into the first draft of my fantasy novel. First, I had to read it. I told myself I would read it as quickly as possible and hardly take any notes. By the time I finished reading the draft, I “only” had 28 pages of handwritten notes. (Both sides of the page.)

I guess “read it as quickly as possible and hardly take any notes” is not my process.

Now I am turning the 28 pages of notes into a Plan of Attack. I am getting a lot of ideas (many of which might eventually be good), and I am having fun. Once I have finished typing up my notes, I am going to attempt to reverse engineer an outline, and then use that outline to reshape the story.

I did not think it was possible to make any real progress on my first novel during the pandemic, but now, as I do the work, this feels very right. The pandemic is restricting the amount of time I have to work on revisions, but maybe that is a good thing. I am getting plenty of time to mull things over and have shower epiphanies.

Almost six weeks ago, I decided it was time for a Therapy Hiatus. I have done this many times with different therapists. It is how therapy seems to work best for me: for awhile, I need to go to therapy; but eventually, I need to leave and live without therapy for awhile. I figure out some things while I am in therapy; I figure out other things when I am not in therapy.

But I must admit, when I told my therapist during our early May 2020 video appointment that I was going to take an indefinite break, I felt a little insane.

Who takes a therapy break during the middle of a historic pandemic???

Well, apparently I do.

During our last session, I told my therapist that I did not know how long I would be going on break. At the time, I thought there was a very real possibility that an hour after ending therapy, I would email my therapist, Just kidding! I want another appointment! But I also thought that I might be on break for several years. Or forever. I never know how long my therapy breaks will be until I wake up one day and think, Yep, it’s time to go back to therapy.

I also never know why I need to take a therapy break until I let myself take the break. I will usually have a few hunches but mostly, my intuition says, Take a break, and I say, Okay.

Six weeks ago, when my intuition told me it was time for another therapy break, I had three hunches as to why I needed to go on break:

1. Hunch No. 1: I have been allowing myself to embrace my spiritual side more and more but I really only talked about this with my therapist. I thought that I needed to leave the comfort zone of therapy to force myself to talk about spiritual matters with more people.
2. Hunch No. 2: I have also been deepening my connection with my intuition. I thought I might need to leave therapy so I could get better at relying on my inner voice. As soon as I start asking other people to backup my intuition, I am undermining my connection with my inner voice. And since I often talk about my thought processes with my therapist, it can sometime feel like I am getting approval of my intuition.
3. Hunch No. 3: Finally, I also thought that maybe I just needed a therapy break video therapy just drains the crap out of me. It does not leave me energized the way that in-person therapy usually does.

Shortly after leaving therapy, I started reading Loving What Is by Byron Katie. On page 1, Byron writes:

You are the teacher you’ve been waiting for. You are the one who can end your own suffering.

Loving What Is, Pg. 1.

The quote hit me like a lightning bolt and I immediately thought, That is why I had to leave therapy!

I am the teacher I have been waiting for.

I am the one who can end my own suffering.

I have everything I need to live the life I want.

And that is why I am currently on an Indefinite Therapy Hiatus: to prove to myself that I am the teacher I have been waiting for.

I may go back to therapy someday. That someday may not be that far away. I don’t know. My intuition will let me know when it’s time. Therapy is a wonderful tool when I need it; but it is also wonderful when I need to set that tool aside and do my own thing for awhile.

Even in the middle of a pandemic.

I went to IKEA today to get an art table for the kids. Our closest IKEA only recently reopened from the Covid-19 shutdown, so I assumed there would be a line to get inside. I packed my headphones along with my face mask so I could listen to an audiobook while I waited to get into my favorite Swedish establishment.

I knew I was in trouble when I could see the line from the freeway. Still, I really wanted to get the art table. (That’s another story!) And once I stepped into the line, I figured it would take fifteen minutes max to get into the mega store. Social distancing really spreads out lines and makes them look a lot longer than they actually are.

It took fifty-six minutes for me to get into IKEA.

But do you want to hear the really crazy thing? I stayed calm the entire time I was in the line.

I used to be the sort of person who lost all of her shits in traffic jams, even traffic jams that were expected (for example: my old commute, every single morning; there was always traffic; and I always lost all my shits). Once, when I was twenty and my sister was ten, we went to Universal Studios and there was construction, so we got funneled on to a freeway going in the wrong direction. I flipped and started shouting obscenities and pounding the palm of my hand against the steering wheel. I recently talked about this experience with my sister and she confirmed that yes, I completely and utterly lost my mind over a minor delay.

I used to take every annoyance and inconvenience personally, gathering those moments as proof that I was a victim of a cruel world that was out to make me as miserable as possible.

A customer holding up the line at the bank or post office? Outrage! Torture! Fuck this shit!

The car ahead of me driving too slowly on the freeway? Abomination! Indignation! Fuck this shit!

The restaurant forgot to put croutons on my takeout salad? WHY DOES MY LIFE SUCK SO MUCH? FUCK THIS SHIT!

It was not a very happy way of living.

But today, as I waited in a fifty-six minute line to get into a store that had been closed for nearly three months, I caught myself gazing out at the freeway, admiring the mountains, and thinking, How beautiful this moment is.

This is not exactly the sort of photograph you find on a postcard, but I felt so calm and serene, I had to take a picture. The 20 year old who pounded her steering wheel over a five minute traffic delay is now a 41 year old woman who can calmly wait in a fifty-six minute line to get into IKEA.

The only thing that has changed? My mindset.

And how has that changed?

Well, I have started to embrace the idea of Enough. I have enough, and I am enough. I do not have to chase after some future version of myself in order to be happy and content. Everything I need is right here, right now. I do not need to lose weight or find the perfect lipstick before I can be happy. I’m happy right now, right here, even if here-and-now is standing in the middle of a fifty-six minute line (that does not even have the promise of a roller coaster at the end).

There are a lot of other ideas that have helped me get to a place where I can be perfectly happy to wait in a fifty-six minute line for IKEA:

• There’s The Obstacle is the Way, the book that taught me to see challenges as opportunities. Like today was an opportunity for me to experience something historic. In ten years, I’ll be telling my kids about the ridiculous line at IKEA while we enjoy Swedish meatballs in the IKEA food court.
• The Four Agreements taught me to stop taking things personally. The line? Totally beyond my control. And also: it had nothing to do with me. I chose to wait in the line, so there was no sense getting riled up about it.
• And most recently, I have been reading Loving What Is by Byron Katie and wow, I feel like I am truly getting at the root of my anxiety. Katie says there are three types of business: my business, your business, and God’s business. (God’s business being things like war, earthquakes, and oh, pandemics.) If I stray into your business or God’s business, then I just get anxious. I have been practicing this for a few weeks, catching myself whenever I stray into Your Business or God’s Business, and it’s becoming second nature. I did not even think to agonize over the IKEA line because shit, it’s just not my business.

There’s a lot more to my mindset. That’s why I am blogging. I am a writer, and I understand things by writing about them. I know if I keep blogging, I’ll start to understand myself better and I’ll be able to become a better and better version of myself.

In the meantime, I am going to look at my kids’ new IKEA art table as a sort of trophy or monument to my calmer, happier mindset. (And yeah, I let the kids decorate their chairs and table with stickers and washi tape. That’s the whole point of buying their furniture at IKEA!)

p.s. As calm as I was in line today, there is no way I am going back to IKEA this summer!

p.p.s. That’s a lie. I’m totally going back when the food court opens. Nom nom meatballs.

Sugar.

Oh, sugar.

I feel as if I could write a book of poetry dedicated to that sweet temptress and our epic, tumultuous relationship.

I have been paying attention for several years, and every time I quit sugar, I transform into a woman of radiant health. I sleep beautifully and feel my body buzzing with joyful energy. And every time I go back to sugar, I feel ragged, raw and depleted.

When I write about sugar, I mean refined sugar. I can eat all the fruit I want and still feel gloriously healthy. And when I write about refined sugar, I mean the amounts present in ice cream, cupcakes, cookies and candy. I know there is sometimes a little sugar in a pasta sauce or pizza crust, but that bit of sugar does not make me feel deranged.

I have observed, several times, how too much refined sugar unbalances my hormones and affects my sleep. Common senses suggests I should just walk away from sugar already and get my kicks with salt and fat.

The problem is, I have tried sugar abstinence several times.

And I have failed abysmally at sugar abstinence several times.

I just love sugary treats too much. And, I can have some sugary treats without any ill consequences. Total abstinence just tortures me. When I cannot have sugar, it becomes forbidden and then I think about it constantly. I become hyper-aware of every Snickers bar. My willpower might be able to resist for a few months, but then I succumb to sugar’s siren call and end up attacking ice cream with a frenzy that would disgust Augustus Gloop.

So sugar abstinence does not work for me.

I have noticed that sugar affects my sleep if I have it during the second half of my menstrual cycle. If I have too much sugar after I ovulate, I wind up with homicidal-ish PMS. That is not ideal when you are responsible for small children, so in the beginning of 2020, I decided to just have sugar two or three times during the first half of my menstrual cycle.

Then, of course, we began to shelter-at-home in March, and ice cream felt necessary. At first, I only had some every few days, but soon enough, I was having it every night with Nathan after the kids went to bed. I started having some sleep woes, but as I am wont to do, I blamed my insomnia on the weather, hormones, and stress.

When I am on a sugar bender, I am very good at blaming anything but sugar for my sleep issues.

But I am not beating myself up for eating so much sugar, I found myself struggling with insomnia. After all, there’s a pandemic and zero certainty about what the 2020-2021 school year will be like. I know I am not alone in finding comfort in a big bowl of ice cream.

But as much as I love ice cream (and I really love ice cream), I also really, really, really love a good night’s sleep.

I have never met a bowl of ice cream or slice of cake that tasted better than a good night’s sleep.

So just over a week ago, I took a deep breath and hit the reset button. I’ve been abstaining from refined sugar again, and I am sleeping like an angel. I am sleeping so deeply, and feel so glorious, I do not even miss my sugary mistress. But I am not attempting any sort of long-term, total abstinence. Been there, done that!

In fact, I am probably going to have ice cream tomorrow night.

Probably Chocolate Moose Tracks. But maybe a scoop of Mocha Almond Fudge as well…