Anxiety dreams

Last night I had two dreams that pretty much sum up my personal life anxieties. (Talking about dreams! Is there anything more boring? Ugh! Sorry!) In one, Cookie wrote me a letter (on the dusty layer of grim of a car's door, uhm) about how he couldn't believe we could go from having a good, nay, a happy, great day, to not speaking to each other, and how it all boiled down to my relationship with the baby. It was resentful and accusing, and then I read it again and the spirit was the same but not accusing, just sad. I woke up feeling like shit from that one. Because yes, I had just lost it before going to bed while we got the baby ready for bed. As I have been losing it all week. He was asleep on his side of the bed, far away, and the baby in the middle. I don't know how to fix that. They are both (should be both) my priorities, but I seriously don't know how to do *more* without turning into psycho bitch.

The other dream was more violent. I was heading out of my parent's house with the baby in his car seat when a short woman started pushing me, poking at me with something. I felt angry, and asked her what the hell she was doing. She had a gun, and was nervously trying to rob me. I got so angry, I started to fight her for the gun, with the bay car seat still in one hand (all 20 pounds of it). She was much smaller and was making no sense and I was Not Letting Her Take My Baby Or My Money, so I turned the gun on her. I woke up before I shot her, feeling like I already had, like she was already dead, feeling no remorse, only vaguely wondering if I would go to jail.

I have been so afraid of someone stealing the baby, I guess it's no surprise that it would eventually show up in my dreams. And I have been so neurotic and impatient with Cookie, that I guess it's normal to feel sad and afraid about the state of our relationship.

I did fall back asleep pretty easily after both dreams, though. And I just managed to put the baby down for a nap, so I can work for a bit before school. So. No big deal. I can do this. I will beat the anxiety.

We are five weeks away from the end of the semester. One of those weeks is finals so I keep telling myself I just have to make it through another month without blowing up, and we'll be done. My students aren't helping much, though, whining and complaining every step of the way. I know I have been doing much of the same, but I feel like I'm gritting my teeth through every class with them, I see no glimmers of passion or interest. I brings me down, specially giving that it's my favorite subject to teach, Lanscaping. But I just feel like the biggest nerd, super excited about permaculture and companion planting and rain gardens and everyone looking like ughh, when will she let it go? And there's few creatures better than a 19 year old at throwing disdainful looks. It shouldn't matter to me! I'm an adult! Right? ...it definitely gets to me, though.

I am dreading talking with the department heads at both schools to let them know I'm quitting. I know both will try to convince me not to, for different reasons, and they can be really pushy (which is how I ended with so many hours this semester). It's hard because, in theory, I love my classes. I love teaching. I loved teaching? I am not sure I have it in me anymore, though. I do know I need to take some time to work on my mental health. Which is the speech I'm working on, because it would be a shit thing to tell a teacher you neeed them to work regardless of their mental health, right?

A friend of mine went through PPD and is encouraging me to make an appointment with her psychiatrist. I keep thinking about it but not doing anything. I feel like, if I can find some time for myself, some of the anxiety will go away. So I think I'm going to give myself until January, see if I feel better or not, before going to a doctor for meds. By then I think I'll know for sure if I can work through this on my own. I do feel a bit more stable these days -we're back at having some sort of sleeping routine, so even if Peanut wakes 5/6 times a night, I'm sleeping better- but I'm usually exhausted and Cookie suffers for it. It's hard to not be resentful of his freedom. But I have talked about it a bit with him, and it helped, and he's trying to have us tag along with him more. Even if it's not freedom, at least is something of a social life, which is more than what I had.

Baby Peanut is beginning to be able to stay ib a sitting position for a short time, which xan be fun. He's a super happy and smiley baby. I love his silly face :3

Restless

The sleep front remains the same, with the baby sleeping a three or four hour chunk some lucky nights and then waking up every hour and a half or every two hours to eat. I have kind of found my peace (and comfort) with cosleeping and I feel better. I'm still battling a lot of anxiety, I live in constant fear that someone will kidnap or steal the baby when we're outside, or that someone will break into the house and steal the baby. It's obvious these thoughts are out of control and very unlikely events, but I'm having a hard time not thinking them. At night I still struggle with fear of SIDS, specially while he sleeps in our bed. Recent research shows that proper safety in the family bed actually diminishes the risk of sudden infant death, but we do have a cover and Cookie and I do use our pillows, we have made a sort of spartan zone in the middle of the bed where the baby sleeps. Before bedsharing he was sleeping in a pack and play (where he sleeps the first chunks of the night) right beside me, but for some reason he can't settle back in there in the middle of the night.

I feel like we're doing what we need to sleep right now, so I try to not cling to the anxiety monster too much. I'm still very short on patience at school, and rather disenchanted with work, as it feels very grindy right now. K's house is still NOT finished, mostly because I haven't gone to do the last details and because they just decided on the lighting fixtures this week. Next week we just HAVE to be done with it, I don't think I can handle having it in the back of my mind anymore. H&C's entryway is almost done too, and with some luck it should be finished in a week or two tops. Ms. Prado's dining room renovation is going well-ish. I am afraid of a hundred details going wrong, but so far nothing has gotten too out of hand, so I hope it continues that way.  No end in sight for it yet, maybe a couple of weeks.

I just feel like I need to do... More. Time is so short, I have a lot of things waiting for "when I have a chance", and it's frustrating. I know everyone struggles with deadlines and work loads, it's not anything special, and in a grindy, harried way, I think I am coping as well as I can with the workload. But it's the restless feeling, the frustration and impatience, that I feel is making me bad company right now. I wish I could get rid of those, since I know work is just never going to stop being challenging. My brain is using up energy I don't have to spare to worry about things that don't matter. I wish I knew how to deal with that.

Vet visits

Our dog Odin is a special dog. He's overcome most of his anxiety issues thanks to Max's confidence and Lana's playful company. Max was never very playful, but then again, I noticed the limp that eventually revealed itself to be to bone cancer two weeks after we adopted him. Lana indulges Odin a lot more, but is still dominant and confident enough to keep Odin's anxiety away. Odin has become a very playful and social dog, he's only afraid of some men and some small children, but my friend P's son and baby Peanut are great in his book, as are most of Cookie's male friends. I think he's really turned around from the scared, insecure dog we took in. But some issues remain: he's always had a very sensitive stomach, and we have to test him again for ehrlichiosis after having kind of treated it last year.

That being said... We have had to take him to the vet twice in two weeks -always Sunday afternoon, too! When nothing is open!- because he eats some plants then throws up.. And throws up some more... and more... And stretches and whines in pain, and throws up... And aghh! Why does he keep eating the plants? Why youuu do thisss dawggg!! Over and over again... I ended up moving most of the plants to the backyard, out of his reach, but I wish we could address the reason why he inflicts this on himself. Dumbbb doggg.