Months have passed and it’s a typical work day and I am driving home from the shop.
The afternoon traffic is a symphony of various horns, revving engines, and hums of electricity.
My head starts to throb, pounding to the rhythm of the traffic as if there were a direct correlation.
As I
reach the top of the bridge, the brake lights become a sea of red, cascading all around me. Something about this over-stimulates the fuck out of me.
I can feel the rage in me sparking, ever so slightly. Subtle, but it’s there, brewing beneath the surface just waiting for its dramatic, fiery entrance.
My to-do list begins to spin inside my head. Round and round it goes, threatening me, menacingly. Dinner. Homework. Housework. Bedtime routines.
They all flash inside my mind like a taunting strobe light, metaphorically blinding me, bit by bit.
I think I may just stroke the fuck out.
I rub my eyes, and pull into the driveway ten minutes later. As I put the car in park, I can feel the crushing weight of the impending sense of doom creeping in.
Against my will, I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. It feels chaotically erratic. As I hear the sound of my frantic heart in my ears, my thoughts begin to race, blurring together, becoming harder and harder to decipher.
I take a few deep ragged breaths, attempting to ground myself, just like my therapist suggested.
It doesn’t do a mother fucking thing.
I sit there in the driveway for a moment, soaking in the discomfort of my anxiety.
When I finally forcibly make my way to the door, dread consumes me.
As my fingers make contact with the door knob I hesitate, paralyzed by the obligations and responsibilities that lie on the other side of this door.
With a deep exhale, I will my fingers to open the door.
Upon stepping inside I immediately want to run away.
The house is a disaster, just as I’d left it.
Piles are everywhere. Laundry. Mail. toys. Craft supplies.
You don’t even have to take a full look around the whole room to see that I’m falling behind on this thing called adulthood.
You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?
From the looks of it, you’d never be able to guess that I take medication for my ADHD. Unless you count the side effects. Lately, the only thing they seem to be doing is sucking the creativity out of me while simultaneously making me a raging bitch.
Already feeling unhinged, this realization pisses me the fuck off. With impeccable timing my rage that had been bubbling beneath the surface unleashes in a frantic fury. The rage is unreasonable but that doesn’t prevent it from happening. I can feel it coursing through my veins, vibrating with an intensity that be felt through each layer of my flesh. Hot tears spring to my eyes.
What is wrong with me?
I don’t bother waiting for the answer to this to come to me. A “normal” person would have sat with these feelings for a moment, but not me.
Instead, in a moment of spontaneous tears, rage, and side effects, March towards the bathroom plucking my meds for my purse. With the frustrated twist of the lid, I hear they satisfying a little pop as it gives away. I take a final glance the little orange pills in the bottle before promptly dumping them down the toilet.
FLUSH
Bye bye bitchessss!
I watch those little orange pills swirl round and round with a smile on my face.
Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
I start to wonder if I just made a huge mistake, but as a I watch the little orange pills swim out of sight, I know it doesn’t really matter if I should or shouldn’t have. The damage is already done. Fuck. I’m already struggling to get stuff done.
I start to think that this is all too much. I can’t keep up with the shop, my home, and motherhood. I just can’t understand how women everywhere are doing this.
What’s their secret?
After this little tantrum, I spend the next week on the couch, barely able to move. As a result, I start spending more time on Facebook, mostly advertising and marketing.
