There was a screaming baby in the observation area of the gymnastics center. Like inside the building where people with ears were present. The mother was staring into space, mindlessly bouncing and sshhing. The baby screamed louder.
I took the Asshole Express to Judgementville, and then went outside to wait for the class to end.
While pacing in the parking lot, here’s what went through my mind. Wtf ? Infants live on the lowest rung of the hierarchy of needs ALL THE TIME. Work it out. The only problems they have can be solved with a diaper, bottle/boob, pacifier, nap or medicine. It’s not like the baby’s having some existential crisis or it’s pissed off at another infant for cutting them off at the diaper changing station. The shit it not complicated yet. They just GOT here. Anything a baby could want can be found in a well-stocked diaper bag, inside a bra, or on a shoulder. If unrelenting unhappiness persists, distract it with something. ANYTHING in a common purse will do. Babies are dumb. Seriously – they’re fascinated by a pen.
Because I’m usually not a heinous individual, when I go on a horrible assholey rant like that it gets my attention. Unless I’m in the car, and then it’s completely warranted and requires no additional thought. I’m an excellent driver. When I’m not lost on my own street or rear-ending people while texting. My point is a crying baby should not set me on the course to be crowned Miss Intolerance USA.
But it does. I go from oh, to ohmygahhhhdshutthatkidup in four seconds.
It makes no sense because I’m not a mean-girl mom. I’m a nice and supportive mom. When I see an exhausted mother in the grocery store negotiating her toddler’s mind-bending meltdown, I don’t look down my nose at her and think she sucks. I think poor lady. I know she can’t wait to get home and get that child in the bed. I hope the dad is there so she can pack her things and move out I mean take a bath.
No I really think that, and then I want to recoil from myself, which is really hard to do.
Here’s the craziest part: I’ve had a baby myself – witness below. Therefore, I should be patient and understanding – even offer to help. I should be an it-takes-a-village experienced maternal peacemaker lady. Not a giant butthole.
So I dissected my really awesome attitude at the gymnastics place that day (this is an exercise you can do while you’re practicing how to recoil from yourself) and learned something.
I don’t like to hear babies cry because when Anna was an infant I had postpartum depression. The sound of an infant shrieking takes me right back to that dark and hopeless place where the walls of my mind collapsed in on me. I was so overwhelmed I didn’t want to go to the store alone. I was afraid if her father gave me the car keys I would leave and never come back. I couldn’t hold my own baby in the dark because I had hallucinations of her mouth being filled with jagged metal.
When Anna was crying, I wasn’t thinking about a Snow White ballet-run over to my majestic diaper bag.
I was thinking about disappearing.
I suffered and struggled for almost six weeks before I finally called my doctor. She knew me well – I refuse medication more often than I take it, and I try to solve ailments with nutrition, exercise, more water, more rest, and vitamins. None of that worked for me with postpartum depression. As soon as I heard the doctor’s voice on the phone I blurted out that I needed medication and started sobbing. She knew I was in trouble and called in Lexapro. Within 24 hours I started to feel some relief – less panic. Within 48 hours, I was back to my normal self. I was okay. I could manage the day-to-day – it was even fun. I was finally enjoying being a mother the way I had always imagined I would. Life was good again.
That was my first experience with depression, which is very often the case. 45-65% of ever-depressed women have their first episode of depression during their first postpartum year (National Institute for Healthcare Management Foundation). I am not unique. One in seven women will get postpartum depression (JAMA Psychiatry).
I took Lexapro for several months. Calling my doctor that day was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. My only regret is not calling her sooner. Medication may not be the solution for everyone, but it was for me…
It only took me nine years to figure out why a crying baby turns me into a giant butthole – I’m super fast like that. But now that I know, I believe my experience will be different. It’s kind of like the boogie man in the closet. Or the baby in this case. Except babies aren’t in closets. Or they shouldn’t be. If your baby is in the closet please call me…Once you turn on the light and see there’s nothing there, it’s not scary anymore. I hope so anyway, because right now I’d really like a do-over with that lady at the gymnastics center.
This time I would pay more attention to the vacant look in her eyes and not be so quick to assign it to indifference. I would consider there might be a reason she’s unable to make the baby stop crying. Maybe it’s not because she can’t be bothered. Maybe she’s so bothered she can’t.
mollytopia.com 
Leave a reply to transparentguy Cancel reply