Magic Pills and Extra Effort

I haven't been around much in my niche of the blogging world. I haven't posted as often as usual and while I've been keeping up on 2 or 3 of my favorite blogs, I haven't been commenting like I normally do. This is not a reflection of the blogs I read or the people who write them. It is strictly a function of time and energy.

I think Lexapro might be my 'magic pill' because when I compare my activity levels prior to starting it with this past week, there is a staggering difference. In the past 10 days, I have cooked dinner 4 times, eaten as a family more often than not, programmed a database, made it to almost all of the kids' activities, only snipped once at Baby-Mommy, and made some good parenting decisions.

Since I started doing these things, I have been completely exhausted most of the time. At any given point I can lay down and fall asleep within 10 minutes. (I still can't stay asleep, though. Grrrr) But on the other hand, I have actually been doing these things, despite being so tired. Always before, I haven't had enough energy to do the stuff, with or without being exhausted.

The Shrink asked me if it felt good to take a proactive approach rather than my standard passive control style. I told him that it kinda did and kinda didn't. I was on my way out the door so I didn't elaborate. It feels good to be doing things that are good for the kids and things that make Hubby happy. It feels good when the kids list that they like dinner and eating together on their list of good things about their day. I felt good when Hubby used the database for the scout meeting.

I really like being able to help people. I always feel like I can't quite help enough, do enough, or be enough. I feel the need to justify my existence. At the core, I don't feel I do enough to be worth the oxygen I consume. So doing things to help or make people happy feels good, if insufficient.

On the other hand, I have extremely mixed feelings when people notice what I've done and label it "good". I feel so embarrassed at the attention, even when that attention is praise. I don't generally believe the praise either - I think in large part people will give praise even when they don't mean it, especially if they want to acknowledge effort and/or if they think the person would feel hurt by anything less than glowing praise. And yet parts of me do listen to the praise, do believe it, and feel warm and tingly to hear it.

People's actions tell me more about how they actually feel than their words do. Hubby was telling all sorts of people about the database at scouts. If it was crap, I don't think he'd have bragged about it. He even told the one guy that he would offer it up at next year's district planning meeting for popcorn sales. He certainly wouldn't do that if it wasn't good. Likewise, if everyone says dinner is great - but they don't eat it... yeah, I can read between those lines. So when what people do indicates approval, I get embarrassed and want to hide - but I'm smiling to myself.

Back to The Shrink's question... I do feel good about the things I've been doing. And I feel embarrassed that people are noticing. I feel exhausted by all the extra effort I've been putting in and that is discouraging and frustrating. I am worried that I won't be able to keep it up. How long can I run myself dry before there is nothing left to give? I feel proud because I've proved to myself that I've been correct when I've been hiding behind incompetence but secretly believing I could do it if I tried. I feel guilty that I haven't been doing it all along. I feel awkward because I don't like being in a dominant role - I much prefer being backup, the one who works behind the scenes to make other people look good and sees proficiency as measurable by those other people's success.

So, overall, I think I am heading in the right direction. I'm a little worried that I am going to fast and likely to hit a wall if I'm not careful, but I guess I'll cross that bridge - or... uh, erm... wall - when I get there. Or whatever other mixed metaphors I can think to throw together haphazardly.