The Sense of Spring

Yesterday, as the babies and I were frolicking about in our Music Together class, I suddenly felt a surge of light. I almost became teary; it was a clear, acute sensation. It was happiness.

I was holding one baby; the music teacher was holding the other baby, and we were dancing to this Canadian sailor’s song, Lukey’s Boat. Both Baby A and B love this song, and we play it 5 times in a row in the car. Baby A was laughing and clapping, and Baby B had the biggest smile on his chops imaginable. We were all singing away and I felt so light and bright, like I had a cloud in my chest.

I have had the same kind of sensation in the past, at other purely simple and happy times. It has been when I was doing something fun and interesting or when I was getting ready to go somewhere and I knew it would be great. At these times I get the feeling of looking down upon myself, but not in a removed sort of way. I am definitely still part of the scene, and can feel and see and smell and taste with an extra sensitive touch.

Perhaps it is the sunshine, or the scent of warmth and new shoots. Perhaps it is the therapy or the flower essences. Perhaps it’s the fact of Spring and the pollen; it’s making the DH sneeze, it could be affecting me too, but mentally.

The happy cloud blew away and I was back to my regular programming. I got the dinner organized, got the apple and strawberry tart together for the playgroup the next day, and did some laundry. By 8:30 I was ready for bed, but the boys were resistant. Baby B threw his fire engine down the stairs and nicked our new paint, and Baby A ran around yelling until about 9:30. But, eh, s’alright. B didn’t mean any harm and we can paint again. A was just over-excited about being alive, and he eventually put a sock in it.

So, I felt a bit crabby by late evening, s’alright. I’d be inhuman if a pair of whiny 2 and a half year olds doing a I-don’t-wanna-go-to-bed shtick after a 16 hour day didn’t make me feel a bit grouchy. I feel perfectly content, even if my fine, white cloud has dispersed. Now that I have been reminded of the feeling, I am sure it will come back.

It could be Monday's visit to the endocrinologist. My TSH was 2.74 in November of 2005 and in now, in March of 2006 it is 2.95. She increased my Synthroid by one extra 88 mcg pill every six days. I took the upped dosage that day, and it might be affecting me already. I am a sensitive blossom...

Only two days ago I spoke about this happy cloud and light sensation. I was just telling someone about a happy time in my life a few days ago, and how I used to feel as if I had a light bright cloud inside me that illuminated my life. A light that shone upon the best path for me to take and kept me from stumbling. How odd that I should feel it again so soon after verbalizing how much I missed that light!

White cloudy days are here again.

Well, y'all know I don't sunbathe!

Flower Power - available in England since 1930!

Recently, between rushing around with the children to school and to music class and getting me to the gym for a two hour spin sessions to help work out demons, I had a few conversations with my lovely friend in Nashville. She and I are quite similar in that we both have a penchant for trying all kinds of New Age healing processes. (Cranial-Sacral massage! Fabulous! Make me an appointment, would’ja? Eye Movement Desensitization and Regression Therapy? Sounds super, and I think I actually know a practitioner! Honey, did I tell you about that Feng Shui reading I did on my house? Ever since I hung that mirror next to the door to help my Qi bounce back into the home, I have felt sooo much better….)

I called her as I was running errands, as she had left a message, concerned about me from my last post. (Gee, I wonder why? Heh.) Anyway, as she was telling me all about these flower essences she has been taking as part of her therapy, I walked into my local Happy Granola Organic Market. Just as she was describing the power of Oak extract, I walked over to the part of the market where all the natural cosmetic and vitamins are sold. What did I see before me? A whole shelf full of flower essences and mixing bottles and sprays of this concoction called Bach Rescue Remedy. Do you know how many times I have been in that store? Maybe 200 times in the past four years. It is the source for non-chemical skin care products, organic laundry soaps and the like. I get 90% of my vitamins from HGOM, and I have been to that section almost every time I have been shopping. Had I ever seen the selection of Bach Flower Essences and the enormous “Guide to Using Bach Flower Essences” hanging on the wall behind the register where I have paid for hundreds of purchases? Nope. They were just there, waiting for me to have my consciousness awakened.

I got several different essences and started taking them right away. I chose Crab Apple, Impatiens, Oak, White Chestnut and Willow. Here are the brief descriptions of each essence’s intended use:

Crab Apple helps you when you feel self-disgust, and cannot look in the mirror and appreciate how you look. Crab Apple helps you look at yourself without unrealistic critique.

Impatiens helps you when you get impatient and irritated with slow situations or people. Others appear slow and inefficient and you get frustrated; Impatiens helps you relax and cope calmly and diplomatically with irritating problems.

Oak helps you when are exhausted but you keep to struggling on. You are normally strong and brave, but because of your sense of duty you ignore your tiredness and do not allow yourself rest. You feel tired, frustrated, stressed and depressed. Oak helps you restore your energy and makes you recognize the need to take time off to relax and look after yourself.

White Chestnut helps you when your mind is full of unwanted thoughts and mental arguments. White Chestnut helps you clear your mind and get the thinking under control and can be put to positive use in problem-solving. Worry is replaced by trust in a positive outcome.

Willow is for those times when you feel bitterness and self-pity. It is also to assist you in forgiving past injustices when you feel resentful and critical. Willow helps you regain faith and optimism and. Feel that you are in control of your own destiny


There is another company, from California called FES , that sells slightly different blends and essences. I am quite interested in one, Buttercup. Here is a description:

Buttercup: For potentially self-assured people with a radiant inner light, who suffer from feelings of low self-worth, and an inability to acknowledge or experience that inner light and uniqueness. Buttercup helps rebalance the self-deprecating.

I’m going to get a gallon of that.

I am sure some of you might think this is all in my mind, and that drinking flower essences don’t really help anything. One of my friends actually suggested I get the DH to slip me a placebo drink for a few days to see if I notice the difference. I thanked him for his suggestion, but I’m so totally not going to do it. That is precisely the thinking that caused a bit of bother in the recent past.

You know, thinking my troubles are “all in my head” and that I should try the “just don’t worry about it” tack. Repressing my desire for help has led me to the edge of the cliff of mental instability. I have only been seeing my Dr. Tell Me About it for three weeks, but already I feel more confident in my abilities to decide what I need to do to help me. I will not let self-doubt and un-needed worry get me in my own way, damn it.

This flower essence thing has been around in its present form for about 80 years, and, obviously, has been used for thousands of years. It is working already.

Why, just the other night, I happily brought home my new oil paining, purchased from a real gallery, by a real artist (with a real price tag, 'natch). I leaned the painting, wrapped in paper and bubble wrap, against a low cabinet as I took off my shoes in the dining room. Baby A, who had not seen me in a few hours, was equally delighted to see me as the large amount of bubble wrap I had brought home. Before I could move, he knocked over the picture and stamped on it, to pop a bubble, of course.

Naturally I was a bit concerned for my picture, and took it into the kitchen to assess the damage. Of course it was damaged; there was a big dent in the top quarter, because, of course, when he knocked it over it fell with the picture up and the hollow space behind the stretched canvas down. When he stamped, the canvas went down that 1 and a half inches and left a dent. I fixed it by moistening the canvas right behind the dent and allowing it to air dry. This shrank the canvas and smoothed out the dent. But really, Baby A! Such violent exuberance. Please note, I did not freak out. The DH was on the cusp of flipping, I saw it in his face and heard his voice, but I felt oddly floral and calm. I really think the Impatiens Essence helped in that situation; I had just taken it a few hours before.

I am going to ask Dr. Tell Me what she thinks about flower essence therapy. She might tip her head to the side and ask me “What do you think I think?” but it’s worth discussing.

The Bouquet of Flowers

Two weeks ago I called my parents to see if my mother wanted to meet me at Ikea one day to look at kitchen cabinets. Two days later, I was beaten up and made an appointment to see a psychiatrist.

That night, a Monday, my father told me that I needed Prozac because I am deeply depressed. I pointed out that my thyroid was messed up and that I was weaning myself off coffee. He said, “You are depressed! Whenever we see you, you are always upset and angry!” I said I got anxious around them, but since my sister has scolded me about it, I was doing my best to be “normal” when I saw them. He agreed I had been better that last few times I saw them and then he told me that a TSH of 3 was just fine and my thyroid levels had nothing to do with me being moody. We got into a little squabble about that, when I said new studies show that a level of 1 to 2 is best for women. My father, with his 1967 medical degree, is a little bit stuck in is ways, and disagreed. He is a doctor, but he thinks homeopathy and naturopaths are twaddle. I also told him that I get dizzy spells and have periods of exhaustion, even after a night’s sleep. He said, “If you lived in Iraq you wouldn’t worry about dizzy spells!” Well, you’re right, Daddy – if I lived in Iraq right now I wouldn’t worry because I would probably be dead! What a comfort. Really.

A friend recently told me that she has had the same difficulty – reconciling her right to have problems with the fact that there are others who suffer too. My view is: my broken finger, while not as big or as painful as your broken leg, really, really hurts, and I have the right to say so. Everyone hurts, and has a right to feel it. I really do have an obligation to myself and my DH and my babies to go see someone. I am waiting so eagerly to see this new endocrinologist, and to hear what she says about the thyroid/moodswing/anxiety realationship. Because I really do have anxiety attacks and mood swings. I am not depressed – I never just sit and cry and feel incapable of doing anything. I know I am capable of doing everything and I know I need to get it all done before the babies wake up/go to bed/get out of bed/come home from school. I just can’t seem to get it all done and that makes me anxious, nervous and upset.


A lot of my “problems” come from me having unrealistic expectations and getting all flipped out about the failure to accomplish impossible goals. I have known this and I have tried to talk myself out of behaving this way for many years, but to no avail. For twenty something years I have been saying, “Now, MOT, don’t let it bother you!” But that doesn’t work. Therefore: the therapist. I hope that a trained professional will help me find what it is I am seeking, and help me find in myself. Then I can stop looking for fulfillment in cut abs, lean legs, flawless skin and a real conversation with my parents, because none of that is ever going to happen.

I have never been skinny, so why do I think I can do it now? I need to do some deep soul searching and discover exactly what I hope to accomplish by being a size 6. At the same time, do I really want that? If I really do want to be sexy, why do I them engage in self-destructive behavior, like eating? Why do I persist in eating dark chocolate on a daily basis? Am I trying to sabotage myself so I don’t have to find out what it’s like to be sexy, because I might not like it?

I have never had a great relationship with my parents. I was petrified of my mother’s disapproval for millions of years, and I still am. If she says, “Sit and wait”, I do. She was always late to come get me from school, or from the train when I was in college, but I would just sit and wait – sometimes for hours. I got a lot of reading and snacking in, as you can imagine. In the same conversation in which he made his Iraq comment, my father, told me that my mother is now afraid of me, and vomits before I come to visit. I make her that nervous. I find that beyond ironic – the child who was scared of her mother now terrifies her right back.

I wanted to apologize to my poor mother for making her vomit, so I called the next day, a Tuesday. I thought we should get this out of the septic system of our relationship, so I asked her, “How can you be scared of me? I am helpless and powerless! Why do I make you afraid? What can I do to stop you throwing up? How can I apologize? How can I be nicer?”

She told me that I made her incredibly nervous and twitchy and that she never knew if was going to get mad and yell. She also said she didn’t have any time to talk, as she had a busy day at the office and rafts of mail to open and so much to do and proceeded to tell me about her frantic lifestyle for the next twenty minutes. She completely avoided the reason I had called, didn’t let me say more than, “Yes, but…” and “Well, I …” for the rest of the “conversation”. By the end of it all I was so frustrated I was crying so hard I could hardly breathe. Her last remark was, “I always feel I never tell you what you need to hear.” I wanted to respond, “I don’t want you to tell me anything, I want you to listen to me tell you for once,” but I was choking, so I just said, “Don’t worry about it, goodbye.”

My babies were in school at the time, so I no one to distract me, or to get mind off the frustration I felt. I just got madder and madder. The DH was in a meeting and my sister wasn't home. I thought and thought and became somewhat hysterical. I screamed, I roared, I wept and sobbed. I screamed as if my mother could hear me, and I screamed at myself. I shook my fists in the air and then took them to myself. I punched my legs, my abdomen, my arms; everything I have always hated and been ashamed of. Then I slapped my face, over and over and hard, until I managed to get a grip. I beat myself up because I couldn’t force my mother to listen to me.

I beat myself up for being too weak to make myself heard, for being incapable of telling her what she needed to hear. Because I can’t, and never will, be able to slap my parents and say, “Stop ignoring me! I have a right to be,” I gave myself multiple bruises and two black eyes instead.

The next day, a dear friend saw me and cupped my face in her hands; I saw the start of tears in her eyes. I made to note to self: Call a shrink. I actually called five, have met with three, and have decided on one. This psychiatrist says, “Tell me what you think about that,” and “How does that make you feel?” She also pointed out, as I told one of my many stories, that my mother, as a young woman and a young mother was just holding on by a thread all through my childhood. Does this mean I am like her, or does it mean I have greater abilities because I am willing to admit failure? I am comfortable with defeat and with seeking professional help. I wonder if my mother ever saw a shrink? I am 110% sure her own mental discomfort is why she became a therapist. She thinks: If you are a therapist, you don’t have to go outside yourself to seek help. Unfortunately, she is not right about that.


Just knowing that I have a sympathetic, experienced ear to listen to me is a real relief. I am not sure if I will go the medication route – I will let the therapist advise what’s best for me, and not push her one way or the other.

Meanwhile, I am going to follow my brother’s advice. I asked him what he thought I should or could do about the unhappy situation with our parents. I asked what he would do if he lived just thirty minutes away and never really saw them, unless it was at their house, on their terms on their schedule. I asked how I could get our parents to come see me, to relax a little, to play with their grandchildren and listen a little. I asked what he would do. He said, “You know, my new daughter is almost six months old. They have been away three times since her birth and have not even considered coming to see her. They can’t be bothered. MOT, they will never approve and will never love you and pet you like you need to be loved. They care, but they can’t show it. They don’t know how to show it, and can’t be bothered to learn. It’s too hard for them to change at this point. So, fuck them.”

Let’s see what my brain doctor says about that; but, when I feel like I do now, I think my brother is absolutely right.