The Last Psychiatrist has taught me two things--1) articles should be carefully read to find what the data actually means and what the authors want it to mean [ie what is the story]; and 2) everything boils down to narcissism. Go ahead, read a few posts, and you may come to hate that word. Most people function in their own narcissistic world because, really, in my world, it is all about me. I see the world through my filter, and my decisions matter more to me than anybody else, though they can affect everyone around me. It's so true. Try talking to somebody else about their problems, and those issues may seem so trivial, so not-problems, compared to yours.
This narcissism is partly why civility and compromise is so lacking in our current political system, but this blog is not about that. It's about the day I shed a little of my narcissism; or should I say it was forcibly removed from my screaming grasp?
It's a day I will never forget. To set the scene, I was in pain after a post-labor surgery, a time when every step resulted in agony. My husband and his family traveled to museums that day leaving me home with a screaming, projectile-vomiting two-month old and a couple of cats angry at the visiting dogs.
It had always been about me beforehand. I was unhappy. I was in pain. I needed something. But now, it was no longer about me. It was about this inconsolable stranger of an infant. Everything had always come so easily to me, except this. Mothering was difficult, almost unnatural. Why couldn't I be good at this? Why didn't my years of yoga and meditation help?
With these thoughts tumbling through my skull and hours upon hours of a baby's crying, I lost it. So I gently placed a shrieking Stinkbug in his cradle and threw an almighty tantrum--screaming, crying, throwing pillows, stomping. And when all was finished, I felt cleansed, calm, almost happy. It really wasn't about me, and that thought took the weight off my shoulders. I didn't have to be good or calm. I just had to be there, doing the best I could.
I felt a shift that day, and the big things began to matter less. My anger came less often than pre-pregnancy me, and my moods leveled out. To this day, I laugh at things that would have gotten my back up, even though, like all moms out there, I now cry at things I used to laugh at.
