Is it Depression, PMS, or Just a Natural Response to Hard Times? - Empathy For the Win! #43 by Darcy Reeder
And when will it feel better?
“Weekly” Newsletter #43
Ugh. It’s been one of those weeks where I’d forget to get out of bed if it wasn’t on my to-do list.
“If I cross a whole bunch of things off of a to-do list, I feel better about myself. So every day I make myself a list of easy things to cross out. You know, things I was probably going to do anyway, like talk to another human IRL, drink coffee and change my underwear (then put my same pajama pants back on).”
—You’re Not a Failure—You Just Need an Easier To-Do List (short humor piece by moi)
I sent my angel of a child off to my mother-in-laws so the full moon and I could experience my period in peace. Seriously, my kid’s so amazing that I always devote a whole section of my newsletter to how amazing she is. But when you just want to curl up in a blanket and eat barbeque potato chips—the trashy Lay’s kind, not the Kettle ones—it’s tough to have a perfect bundle of 6-year-old joy adorably asking you to make pegasus-themed art with her.
We all need a break sometimes to cry and eat chocolate.
(Pictured: If anyone has any clue where this quote or art is from, I would love to include a source. I come back to this image every time I feel like this.)
Okay, really, I think I’m dealing with a big mood drop since coming home to the isolation of my little nuclear family (during a pandemic) after 7 beautiful weeks of living with our besties in Seattle. Being part of a household of 10 people who all loved each other was so, so good for my mental health.
I think of myself as an introvert, but… I don’t know.
My loyal readers might notice I completely skipped my newsletter last week. Yeah, I’m having a hard time right now.
My husband’s grandma died this week. She was 97 and had 30 great-grandchildren. I’m trying to be there for my husband, in his time of grief, but I feel like I’m failing him.
My daughter, meanwhile, continues to be a ball of sunshine, but lately I feel like I’m watching her from underwater. It scares me. I can’t help thinking back to the hardest time, when I first went off my post-partum depression meds:
“This was the month my two-year-old daughter developed her first fears. In a moment where I felt well enough to stand, I cleaned her wipeable placemat, erased a doodle I’d drawn of myself: a smiley face with curly hair.
When she saw the placemat, she started screaming, ‘Mama erase! Mama erase!’
She wouldn’t leave her bedroom for a day and a night. I drew a new doodle, but this upset her more. She was afraid her real mother was disappearing too. And she was right.”
I don’t want to disappear again.
(Pictured: A baby tree, growing out of a long-dead stump, in my yard)
Friends links for my Medium pieces referenced in this newsletter:
You’re Not a Failure—You Just Need an Easier To-Do List
Published April 14, 2019 in Writing Heals
Curated in Humor and Self
A Menstrual-Tracking App Debunked the Myth of the 28-Day Cycle
Published March 6, 2020 in Fearless She Wrote
Curated in Women
It’s Not Easy to Parent When Your Soul is Leaving Your Body
Published June 23, 2019 in Human Parts
Curated in Mental Health and Parenting
If We Care For Robots, Who Will Care For Us?
Published April 19, 2019
Curated in Artificial Intelligence and Technology
If We Care For Robots, Who Will Care For Us?
I subscribe to Vox’s ‘Future Perfect’ email, and this week they wrote about the issues surrounding social/caregiving robots. Hey, I wrote a great piece about that last year: If We Care For Robots, Who Will Care For Us?
I am so proud of this piece. When I first published it, it was featured by Medium in both Artificial Intelligence and Technology.
Check it out.
My kid is amazing!
She really, really, really is. She is the source of most of my desires to get better, to feel better, to do better. I want to be the mom she deserves, to help build the world that she deserves, that all kiddos deserve.
I just looked at my phone, which is usually full of photos and videos of her and her art. I haven’t taken a single photo of her this week. I really haven’t felt like myself.
So here’s a throw-back to a year and a half ago, Tzivia holding up her very first pegasus-themed artwork.
Thanks for reading, friends! I seriously appreciate all your reads, claps—you can clap up to 50 times per piece—highlights, comments, and shares.
I’m on a hiatus from publishing on Medium right now while I full-time pandemic-parent my kiddo. But all of my old writing continues to earn money when Medium members read it. If you enjoyed these Medium essays, please share my writing on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else you’d like!
Love,
Darcy