Our conversation is interrupted by a woman and her two sons waiting for their order at the tiny Martensville Tim Hortons. It's clear a tantrum has erupted over sugar laden donuts when her older son, about 5, is red in the face with anger. He's not overly loud, but he is very upset, and it isn't long before the first punch is thrown and words are launched in defence.
"Look at those kids! Do you see any of them behaving like this??!!" she screams as she points in our direction. I turn to Reno and hold my breath. I want to interrupt her before she continues her comparison... tell her that just 5 minutes before, my children were unraveling me like a kitten with a ball of yarn. Completely out of control, I stuffed their mouths with Vanilla Dip donuts and raspberry lemonade. I gained a moment of solace using bribery and trickery. I had no more control, nor did my kids have any more respect.
I don't interrupt. I don't want to undermine her parenting. Everything in parenting is hard enough without someone stepping in your way, right or wrong. Truthfully I don't see the point in saying things like that. Children don't deserve to be compared to their peers or siblings in ways that provide no resolution. It's unfair to put a child in a situation of telling them to do something without providing them a means of achieving that. What's more is that I am sure that woman will regret having said that to her boys when it all calms down... I know I always did. I do understand saying things you'll regret later because at the moment it feels like the right thing to say. I digress though as this isn't about what she did or didn't say... It's about keeping control over my own erruptions.
For months my "life" has seen a downward spiral. I felt as though my every waking moment was a mix of serving others, and wishing something more for myself. I felt spread too thin in every possible part of my life - doing only what I needed to to get by, and a shit job at that. Everywhere I looked I had mounds of things to do, and not enough time to do it all. The writing, the drawing, the puzzles and games... all the things I wanted to do to in my free time were all things I longed to do. No energy to do any of it, I'd lock myself into a game of Candy Crush and drop out of life.
My anxiety had me wound so tightly, my arms and legs seared with energy. Any time my mind blew past my physical ability to perform, a rush of anxiety would run head to toe. My chest would tighten. My heart would beat out of my chest and radiate in my ears. I sat in fear for 2 days while my chest hurt so badly I feared a heart attack. Finally, I booked that appointment with my doctor, and I made the commitment to fix whatever was wrong. My husband deserved more. My children deserved more. I deserved more.
My appointment came and I sat waiting... frightened by what he might say. I worried about drug therapies and therapists and what this man might possibly suggest was the problem or the solution. As I divulged what was happening, he nodded and noted. He'd interject with some questions, most of which were a resounding yes. I know he knew what plagued me from the second I spoke, but I had no idea the proposed resolution would sound so simple.
Sleep. Plain and simple. He prescribed Lorazepam for anxiety attacks when they get overwhelming, but the base solution was sleep.
I had envisioned hours of divulging why my life sucked so much and the therapist suggesting ways to talk to everyone to make my life easier. Talk to my employers to get time off... talk to my husband to clean the house more... talk to my kids about being better behaved. In reality, I'm just a normal mom with a normal workload and a normal family that doesn't get enough rest to deal with it all.
It seems irrational now to me. I wanted to stay up later because I wanted to do all the things I wanted to do, but I couldn't do them because I didn't have the energy. I got lost in my self-loathing until I forced myself to bed at midnight. I'd drag my sorry ass out of bed and put in a pathetic day of work again, and return to home where I engaged with my children on a need be basis only, all the while completely and utterly exhausted... Only to be repeated over and over and over again.
For the last 5 nights, I've dropped off to bed between 9 and 10 PM. In those 5 nights, I feel like a different person. No, I don't have more energy by the end of the day. What I do have is a feeling of ambition and initiation. I'm engaging with my work. I'm interacting awith my kids. I'm helping more at home. I'm feeling much more at ease and it's just the beginning. I have many, many, many nights of sleep to catch up on. I'm hopeful with time it will all come, but honestly, sleep has done as much for my soul as the activities I enjoy so much.
To bring this post full circle, I'll go back to the Tim Horton's incident. I love my kids. Kids are immature and do irrational and reactive things. Without sleep, I was very much like a kid. I was dangling that string in front of the kitten and freaking out when the unraveling began. I met the kids on their level rather than rising above it. Today - while bribery and trickery quieted the crowd, and at times my anger shone through, I didn't let their behaviour spin me out of control and do things I'd regret later. While I was frustrated with how the kids "behaved", I am now doing a little happy dance for not losing my shit over it. And that, my friends, is an accomplishment in my books.
I think prescription for sleep is just what I needed.
