My Medicated Mother's Day

It's 9:00 p.m. and I just heard a trumpet played from my son's room.

What part of getting ready for bed this is I'm not sure.

Today is Mother's Day, and I had a wonderful day.

There are a number of reasons why I would be just as likely to be sitting here reporting the exacty opposite, but I'm not.

The last few days my head has been so quiet and I've felt more at ease and able to just be than has been possible in...well honestly I can't remember.

Today I gardened in the rain. Today my ankle continued to hurt. Today my house was still messy. And today I still hadn't lost the weight I'd like to.

But today I was able to enjoy each minute for what it was and for that I'd personally like to french kiss my psychiatrist.

Modern medicine is an amazing thing!

A diagnosis of depression years and years ago was the jump start I needed to take back control of my ever-racing, self-insulting brain. Therapy and medication did wonders to lift the yoke I had been carrying--carrying for so long at that point that I felt positively weightless once it was removed.

Then marriage and children and life continued and I became convinced that I could handle it all and I didn't need to manage the depression anymore.

You can stop laughing now. Really. No, seriously it's getting annoying.

A brief stint back on the meds after giving birth, justified as the baby blues (read ridiculous PPD that I couldn't bring myself to name) and then heh heh heh I was fine. I would just wean myself right off that medication.

But darn if those years of therapy didn't actually come in handy.

I started to notice the signs. And much to my disbelief, I stood up for myself. I marched my ass right to the aforementioned doc and demanded something new. Okay it took me three years to do it, but I did.

A few dosage adjustments and a couple of months later and I freaking enjoyed a dreary Mother's Day because I was able to enjoy the single moments that made it up.

Now back to the bedtime, trumpet playing son.

We made the decision this year to treat his recently diagnosed ADHD with medication. My story should make it clear why I'm comfortable with this approach (along with close medical supervision, of course).

After just a few days, we had a son we could sit down and talk to. School came easier again and the sweet boy we had known had returned.

It was fairly miraculous. But I was familiar with this.

Now he's still very much a pre-teen boy, and I would have stopped the medicine immediately if he was anything but. But once again, I've been applying chapstick and hoarding the Binaca getting ready to maul his doc.

So why the trumpet playing?

Oh, because today he didn't take the wonder drug. And today, he spent most of the day picking at his brothers, talking back, not doing what was asked of him and bouncing off the walls--in other words, being reprimanded ALL day.

So tonight, this Mother's Day evening, I want to thank the mothers of the scientists who conducted the research and invented the drugs who make our lives better--not just those that improve our mental health, but our physical well-being too. Thank you for raising such brilliant people--and I promise I won't try to french kiss all of them.

Because of you, I enjoyed today and my son won't have to suffer many more days like he did today.

Thank you.