From Super Mom to Psycho Mom

Have you ever had one of those days where you woke up in a great mood and felt like super mom?! Those days are few and far between for me in all honesty. Walking train wreck here!!!!!! Anyway... The difference between a great day and an atrocious day can be as simple as missing a dose of my bipolar meds. I'll talk more in depth about the medication situation in another entry because it's a lot, let me tell ya! So today I woke up and I felt like a million bucks! Ready to take on the world (aka my children)! Haha! So majority of today was fabulous! For starters, little D, my 20 month old, slept till 1pm after going to bed at 8pm last night and sleeping all night. Sounds crazy, right? He's been doing that the past few days in a row, but there's no change in his usual super happy-go-lucky behavior. He just eats more, which leads me to believe he's in a growth spurt! And that's always fantastic! All of us mommies want strong, healthy kids and my little dude is on his way! Soooo prior to D waking up, I was having a blast with my oldest, B. We talked and laughed and made kool-aid pops! My hubs (aka Dad) was here too working from home. So it was a pleasant morning!

Now B is 6 1/2 and going into 1st grade next month. He is a little behind on reading so dad has been working on that with him and I have taken on writing/spelling and somehow ended up doing math with him, too, which is odd. It's odd because I'm ridiculously mathematically challenged! No lie dude! But it would be sad sad sad if I couldn't do 1st grade math, so it's fine! I'll be good to help till right around jr. high, let's say! Well today's writing and reading started off fine. D had just woken up and all was well. I don't know what the hell happened, but I snapped when B wouldn't focus on his work. Now, I am fully aware that he is 6 and his attention span is short. We only work for 20-30 mins at a time. But he was being completely unruly and it completely flipped my 180 switch. I went from feeling like super mom to feeling like that psycho mom who had completely lost her sanity. But let's be honest, in my case, you can't lose something you never had! Haha! For real, though, people! Ok back to me turning into psycho mom. There was yelling and I became soooooo IRRITABLE! I had to find my zen! Breathe in with the positive and out with the negative. And REPEAT! Like 20 times!

So this situation has lead me to brainstorm about what triggered this meltdown. It's not an uncommon feeling for me. Was it mental illness (my bipolar)? Probably. Which, by the way is not EXCLUSIVELY limited to mania (extreme highs) or depression. Severe irritability is a part of the mix also. To quasi-briefly explain my particular bipolar situation, I suffer from type I bipolar disorder and rapid cycling bipolar disorder. Type I previously known as manic depressive disorder is most severe of the 2. With type I, there are periods of mania that for me can last weeks or months as well as depressive phases that can be equally as long, with times of "normalcy" sprinkled in here and there. Rapid cycling is cycling through 2-3 or more drastic mood changes throughout the course of one day. From extreme anger to extreme despair to euphoric happiness, etc. It makes you feel like an absolute nut job that belongs in the damn loony bin!!!!!!!! I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, if I had any. So all of that being said, I have just now come to the conclusion that I am rapid cycling today. Booooo! Pray for me people! I have no clue how this is going to pan out. It hasn't happened in longer than I can remember. Over a year at the very least. I will have some time away from my children tonight, which (theoretically) should work wonders.

I am aware that these types of feelings are not always associated with mental illness, but I am VERY self aware and intuitive. Especially with what's normal as far as my moods go. I feel for anyone who EVER feels this way. We ALL have those psycho mom moments. Some of us more often than others. But we need to support one another through these hard times and empower one another as mothers and more importantly, as women.