Day 11

My Peruvian guardian angel called this morning and asked if she could come over to clean and cook. I was sleeping in and really wanted to stay in bed until I needed to leave to pick up the boy, but told her to come over. While ostensibly doing the crossword puzzle in bed, I did go back to sleep while she worked in the other part of the apartment.

The funny thing is that I generally force myself to get out of bed and do something productive when she's here because she works so hard and I don't want her to think I'm lazy. But I just couldn't do it yesterday. I don't seem to have the same desire to use brute force to manage my life. At the last possible moment, I collected the dry cleaning, wrote her a check and headed out to pick up the car, which was parked near my office.

We ran into friends at the dry cleaners and had lunch together, then we took off to run our errands and then back home. The boy wanted to play Monopoly but I managed to dissuade him and I went back to bed. I really thought by now that I wouldn't be spending chunks of the weekend in bed, but there it is. The Lexapro still has some work to do.

Day 10

I forgot to take the Lexapro this morning! I gave my son his chewable multivitamin but neglected my own. There was a lot of multitasking going on. Lunch made while teeth being brushed, that sort of thing.

It was overall a pretty good day, however. I was slightly more focused at work, taking care of a number of small tasks that I've been avoiding. After work, I headed home, took the Lexapro and had a quiet evening of television and a few beers.

Day 9

At last, an improvement.

In my physical condition, at least. I woke up after 10 hours sleep feeling almost back to normal. And as I walked home from work, there was actually a spring in my step. Of course, I was still quite unproductive in the office and might as well have taken the whole week off, but my body had turned a corner.

I'm concerned about my lingering lack of focus at work. I'm coasting, doing the bare minimum. This is not who I am, and it bothers me. I've always been a perfectionist which means I'm also a procrastinator, since I let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but it's been getting worse the past couple of years and it's certainly not getting better on the Lexapro as such. A perma-grin and more tolerance for my mother's nonsense are not enough to claim success.

While work is problematic, there was an interesting development today in my personal life, which I thought I handled well. Almost 7 years ago, I had a brief affair with a married man. I was terribly attracted to him. But we weren't right together and I wanted something better and I broke up with him. He brought two dozen roses to our break up date.

Since then, we had remained friends until a misunderstanding escalated into an unfortunately incident and he unfriended me on Facebook. He had invited me to a dinner with his colleagues from his law school and said there was someone in particular he thought I would enjoy meeting. I thought that meant he was trying to set me up. It didn't, the guy was married. So I accused my friend of being selfish and possessive and that was the last we spoke.

This morning there were roses outside my door with a dinner invitation and a note saying he misses me. I knew he'd separated over the summer and had wondered why he hadn't been in touch, and now he was. On my way to work, I noticed he'd sent me a friend request. And while at work, I received a text wondering if 18 roses don't garner at least a text in response. So I replied that I was planning to send an email, which I was.

The email was direct, clear and he wrote back thanking me for setting the perfect tone. I know he still wants to get in my pants, but I'm quite pleased with my assertive, non-flirty volley. I just hope the Lexapro kicks in enough over the next month to help me stand up to the flattery and persuasion that will certainly be lobbied at me during dinner.

Days 7 & 8

A day late and a dollar short.

I was very under the weather the past two days. I could have stayed in bed and slept for 48 hours. But I pulled myself together enough to get the boy to school on time and myself to work. It's not quite clear what was wrong with me. Certainly the UTI was taking some toll, though I had a host of other weird symptoms, including a raging headache (possibly due to caffeine withdrawal as tea is a bladder irritant), chest tightness, body aches and the inability to hold still (my legs were constantly moving).

Saw my therapist on day 7 and we discussed possible effects of the Lexapro. Besides being able to handle the birthday party, I also had a conversation with my mother the other night during which she said a number of things that would normally irritate me, but that didn't seem to bother me too much. She also said that I appeared to be smiling more during the session, but I chalked that up to the weird perma-grin situation that I think is connected to the clenched teeth situation. I certainly didn't feel smiley.

But, I made a conscious decision to accept an automatonic existence if it meant less anxiety and less self-doubt in my life. I guess I shouldn't complain if it comes with a perma-grin.

Day 6

A setback.

Today I woke up early to move the car, made a pot of tea and sat down at the computer to enter my time. The network rejected my password and wouldn't let me into webmail, either. There was some maintenance conducted on our server over the weekend, but it should have been complete. And maintenance didn't explain my password's sudden impotence.

Then it hit me. I'd been feeling the vaguest hints of a urinary track infection for a day or two. And it had arrived. I am for some reason susceptible, though they generally are associated with getting laid (which I haven't lately). Weak, feverish and utterly defeated, I went back to bed. The boy got up and amused himself in the living room with his legos while I slept. Just after 9:00, I dragged myself up to feed him breakfast and take him to school, quite late and self-dressed in red from head to toe (he looked quite impish). I'd left a message for my boss to say that I was running a fever and would be in later if things perked up.

I came home and went back to bed. For hours. Perhaps it was the disappointing raise and bonus news I'd received the week before, but I just couldn't be bothered to do much more than monitor my email and play scrabble with a friend all day. I did start feeling better by the afternoon, the heavy dose of cranberry extract doing its job, but I couldn't get myself into the office. This is weird because I did go back to the office a week ago Friday after supervising movers all afternoon, and that was before the Lexapro.

Maybe the UTI was bad enough to keep me home. But I'm worried (because that's what I do) that I was better at managing my life through brute force and willpower, which the drug has dampened. I'll talk to my therapist about it tomorrow, but the dullness I've felt since last week and today's attack of malaise certainly don't seem like good signs to me.

Day 5

Today was the first day that I may have noticed some positive change. One of the kids in the boy's class was having a birthday party. Having received an email from his parents a week or so ago asking about our weekend scheduling and explaining that their child wouldn't "tolerate" a party that my kid didn't attend, we would have been conspicuously absent. It was a small party and I was the only parent who stuck around.

This is the sort of situation that requires a lot of effort on my part. I have to gather up the energy to make small talk, appear interested, not get annoyed about kids being kids (even my own). It's exhausting. Today I felt a Stepford-wife-clenched-jaw-perma-grin take over my face and I wasn't consumed by an overwhelming desire to lock myself in a bathroom or run screaming from the house. I don't want to have to do it again anytime soon, but it really could have been much worse.

The nausea was largely absent today, which was a relief, but I've noticed another physical symptom. It's hard to explain, but I first noticed it a couple of days ago. It's this feeling of being outside my body, either infinitesimal or exceedingly huge. So really, hard to explain. But it's something I've had my whole life. I can remember lying in my bed at home growing up and feeling this way. It's pleasurable, but also a bit frustrating, because I'm not quite sure what it is I'm feeling. I've generally equated the feeling with being connected with something larger than my body. Like being a concrete part of the universe.

I'm taking my out-of-body galactic traveler feeling as a good sign. Now if only I could relax my jaw.

Day 4

This will be short as I have lost my internet connection and am logging in from the phone. But, in general I still don't register any change. I spent a chunk of the afternoon under the covers even though the day started with a glowing review of my son's performance in Spanish school. And, there was the desperately needed bonus of my paycheck hitting the bank account. Teeth clenching continues and the nausea is now most pronounced when I yawn. I'll try to explain tomorrow when I'm back on a regular computer.

Day 3

Another night of restless sleep. The nausea is not as bad today, but still there. And I'm clenching my teeth.

I'm also just as prone to annoyance as ever. While walking to school this morning, the boy let go of my hand just as we were crossing a street. Rather than giving him a cheerful reminder of "hand, please," I grabbed the sleeve of his coat and held on to it until we were back on the sidewalk. This elicited tears and the dreaded "sorry, mommy."

I hate myself for acting like that. It's not fair to the boy and I'm so afraid that it hurts him. I don't want him to walk on eggshells around me. That's what it was like living with my ex-husband and it was awful. I also don't want to be some sort of happy clown parent.

My therapist reminds me almost every week that I need to view the constant, positive feedback I get about my son as a reflection of my parenting. I'm just much more focused on my shortcomings than my strengths. If the Lexapro is supposed to achieve a better balance here, it hasn't kicked in yet.

Day 2 - Update

Again this morning, the nausea. But it passes by lunchtime. Today, though, I am really dragging. My doctor said that my liver will thank me for reducing my alcohol consumption while on the Lexapro and I wonder if the three beers and few sips of wine are to blame for my intense desire to curl up in a ball under my desk and sleep. As my friend R.E. is fond of saying, I really need to straighten up.

Day 2

Some people get the blues during winter. I have reverse seasonal affective disorder. As huge, heavy, wet snowflakes started to fall at 4:00 yesterday afternoon, my heart leapt. A friend texted to ask if the boy and I wanted to meet up for snow happy hour. Why, yes, yes we did.

Three beers and a bite to eat later, my son and I headed back out in the snow bound for home. We passed a guy near Dupont Circle who said we wanted to avoid the snowball fight that was raging around the fountain, so we watched from the street for a while. I read the boy some Shel Silverstein and tucked him in, poured myself a glass of wine, but soon decided that I was exhausted and ready for sleep.

I woke up just before 3:00 and was thinking about doing a crossword puzzle when the boy came in to say he'd had a bad dream. So he climbed into bed with me and I tried to go back to sleep. Not an unusual restless night, but a pattern I hope becomes less common as the Lexapro kicks in.

I don't feel great this morning. I'm tired, cloudy-headed and distracted. The beers weren't the best idea, I think...

Day 1 - Update

Nausea. I've closed the door to my office and keeping the trashcan at hand.

At first I thought it was a hangover. I certainly know the feeling well. But a beer and two glasses of wine were all I tippled last night. My self-medicating behavior is one of the reasons I decided to try the Lexapro. It's also one of the reasons why I doubt my parenting ability.

If this keeps up, I might ask my boss for the practice group laptop and head back to bed. The cats would welcome the company.

Day 1

The beginning.

Today I took my first 10 milligram dose of Lexapro, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. I have big hopes for the imminent balance of my brain chemistry. I also have huge reservations about taking this step.

But I'm trying to stay focused on the glass being half full. I don't want to hear criticism in innocent comments and I don't want to wake up every night to go over my worry list. I want to feel like the good mother that people say I am. I want to lose my fear of emotions.

So this is the beginning.