下载本文档
版权说明:本文档由用户提供并上传,收益归属内容提供方,若内容存在侵权,请进行举报或认领
文档简介
1、pregnant, pill-free and panickedbecause ive lived so long with anxiety, there were lots of things i figured id never, ever do having children was one of them. in fact, in my 20s, before id managed to stumble on the combination of drugs and exercise that allows me to be as sane as i can expect to be,
2、 i was so sure id never give birth that i got a tattoo of a giant koi fish extending from one end of my abdomen to the other.seven years later i found myself hugely pregnant the koi fish had expanded to a koi whale, stretched out into a giant, fleshy billboard advertising the grand impulsivity of my
3、 youth. on darker days, it was a villainous rebuke. its growing eye stared back at me in the mirror.to be clear, i did choose to become pregnant, and when i did i found myself in a very ironic situation: my decision to have a child was the result of a sense of stability i enjoyed due to taking an ar
4、ray of anti-anxiety medications that i would be strongly advised by most doctors to stop taking now that i was pregnant.it was also my medicated, logical brain that reasoned that the possible side effects of the drugs on the baby would be even greater than the anxious thoughts and behaviors that wou
5、ld flood back in when i stopped taking the pills. i can do it! i told myself.so i stopped taking the pills.so i stopped taking the pills. and this is what happened.my pregnancy was one long, nonfunctional funk, in which i oscillated between the couch and the bed and seldom removed my favorite pair o
6、f stained elastic-waist pajama pants. if i had to make a pie chart of my activity during pregnancy, the two largest sections would be “crying” and “apathetically watching law & order reruns.” i worried that upon birth my child would not recognize my voice or that of my husband but only the gestation
7、al background noise shed heard the most the sound of a gavel slamming onto wood.pregnancy without drugs made it impossible not to constantly entertain the giant, looming questions of mortality all throughout the day. few things can make one focus on death more than the life- giving process. at pract
8、ically the very moment i found i was host to a living being, i realized that that living being could stop living. i remembered, that i, too was a living being who could stop living. whenever i allowed myself the slightest glimpse at the new potential zenith of loss made possible by this gift of a ch
9、ild, i became paralyzed.the specter of doubt in my head was a convincing one it took on the form of a wizened voice that brought to mind an elderly philosophy professor in a sweater vest sitting in a rocking chair andthoughtfully puffing away at a pipe. “just look at you; look at your life!” the voi
10、ce said. “how exactly would someone like you macgyver a human baby from the ether of sarcasm, eggo waffles, and dog hair that is your existence?” its true, i thought. its enough of a triumph for me to remember to turn off the coffee maker each morning that im literally proud when i do it. did i thin
11、k id actually somehow managed to conjure up and nurture another person?relatedmore from anxietyread previous contributions to this series.this, of course, spawned worries for me that the pregnancy wasnt proceeding correctly. for example, the “nesting” energy id been told about did not kick in and ma
12、ke me want to clean things. a dust ball behind our bedroom door slowly grew to the size of a small cantaloupe. instead of removing it i manufactured an odd link between the growing dust ball and my growing fetus: i did not pick it up or throw it away for fear that tossing the dust ball would cause m
13、e to miscarry. when it grew so large that our dog began to regard it with suspicion sitting several feet away, trembling, emitting a low growl i finally compromised by vacuuming it up but not emptying the vacuum into the trash: it was still safe, i assured myself.encapsulated and going nowhere. i co
14、uld toss it after i gave birth.on the bright side, pregnancy actually decreased my anxiety in certain areas mainly relative to physical appearance. leaving the house without changing into actual clothing, for instance, wouldve made unpregnant me feel self-conscious, but pregnant me never gave it a s
15、econd thought. it made going through the mcdonalds drive-thru while wearing a bathrobe at 3:46 p.m. on a weekday feel seven percent less embarrassing than it had before. ditto for pumping gas in oversized tropical bird patterned pajama pants. when someone at a stoplight recently used their phone to
16、take a picture of me drinking from the mouth of a 2-liter bottle in my car, i was blissfully unaffected. in fact, i had to actively rein in my apathy at others judgment of my sloth.amazingly, my baby was born without a hitch. and ive begun to resume the taking of my beloved anti-anxiety drugs.but no
17、w that i am a mother, i am at the threshold of a whole new set of anxieties i havent even allowed myself to contemplate. im about to enter a club where increased anxiety is the norm even for people with regular brains so where will that leave me? when i do allow myself to think about whats beyond th
18、e cliff, its the worry that i wont be able to handle the worry: that no amount of medication, cathartic yoga, or omega-3-enriched, low-preservative-diet food could ever possibly be enough to handle it. i worry about the games and tricks my brain will play on me in its misguided attempt to try to hel
19、p me cope with the hurricane of what-ifs. but if theres one thing ive practiced to date in my life, its anxiety. if anything has prepared me even slightly for whats about to come, maybe its that: maybe my life-long nemesis was just a gateway to motherhood all along.alissa nutting is author of the short story collection “unclean jobs for women and girls” and an assistant professor of creative writing at john carroll university. her debut novel, “tampa,” will be published next week.“”“”at the end, xiao bian gives you a passage. m
温馨提示
- 1. 本站所有资源如无特殊说明,都需要本地电脑安装OFFICE2007和PDF阅读器。图纸软件为CAD,CAXA,PROE,UG,SolidWorks等.压缩文件请下载最新的WinRAR软件解压。
- 2. 本站的文档不包含任何第三方提供的附件图纸等,如果需要附件,请联系上传者。文件的所有权益归上传用户所有。
- 3. 本站RAR压缩包中若带图纸,网页内容里面会有图纸预览,若没有图纸预览就没有图纸。
- 4. 未经权益所有人同意不得将文件中的内容挪作商业或盈利用途。
- 5. 人人文库网仅提供信息存储空间,仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理,对用户上传分享的文档内容本身不做任何修改或编辑,并不能对任何下载内容负责。
- 6. 下载文件中如有侵权或不适当内容,请与我们联系,我们立即纠正。
- 7. 本站不保证下载资源的准确性、安全性和完整性, 同时也不承担用户因使用这些下载资源对自己和他人造成任何形式的伤害或损失。
最新文档
- 餐饮改革预算方案
- 2024年度二手小产权房买卖及装修权转让合同2篇
- 2024年度便利店店铺运营加盟合同
- 餐饮安全自救方案
- 2024年度企业销售团队建设劳动合同范本(2024版)
- 2024年度烟草工厂防水施工及保修合同
- 2024年度影视版权转让与购买合同3篇
- 餐饮公司报价方案
- 2024年度房地产销售代理合同:房产销售代理合同
- 车间闭环生产方案
- 外科手术切口感染
- DLT 689-2012 输变电工程液压压接机
- 神经源性膀胱的护理查房
- 人教版选择性必修第三册课件Unit2-Habits-for-a-healthy-life-style
- 人教版五年级数学上册《解方程》专项练习(含答案)
- 义务教育书法课程标准2023版
- (高清版)DZT 0265-2014 遥感影像地图制作规范(1:50000、1:250000)
- (高清版)TDT 1034-2013 市(地)级土地整治规划编制规程
- 工程部年终总结项目工作总结述职报告
- 叶脉书签制作课件
- 锁骨下动脉 (1)讲解
评论
0/150
提交评论