I'm not sure what separates us from sanity and insanity but I'm pretty sure the line is thin. Just ask a pregnant woman, a woman with a baby who isn't sleeping, or woman whose job is so stressful she thinks about it all night long. I'm not excluding men, I'm just not including them.
Sometimes I feel as though I am hanging on by a thread. They say sleep deprivation causes all sorts of wacky things to go on with the body. My favorite two happen to be the body functioning as if it is depressed. Brain scans of the sleep deprived look just like those of people who are suffering from depression. And the second great one is that the body goes into a pre-diabetic state and people actually feel hungrier and eat more food. Great news, right?
While pregnant I often feel very agitated and irritable. I can't put my finger on why most of the time. I've felt this way at other points in my life as well. After Daphne was born comes to mind. I'm not sure if it was the hormones from just having a baby and breast feeding or if it was the complete sleep deprivation I experienced since she didn't EVER sleep longer than a 1 or 2 hour stretch until she was 3 months old. All I know is that I was a barely functioning, angry, tired, confused person. The line between insanity and sanity was thin. Probably nonexistent at that point.
I was reminded of all of this while I was shopping at the grocery store today. I first encountered this mother in the produce section. She had a young boy and girl with her, somewhere between 4 and 6 years old I would guess. They seemed pretty well behaved and she apologized when one of them was in my way. I hadn't even noticed. She should have seen me the day I let the girls each bring their baby stroller and baby to the store. We were in everyone's way. At any rate, I didn't think much of it until I saw her again later. I was in an aisle buying sugar when I heard her yell. I looked up and she was at the self checkout lane. Her kids were standing quietly beside her and she was angry. I'm not sure what happened before I looked up but she went on, and on, yelling at them about their behavior. My first thought was "clearly this lady must be having a hard day because these kids are not really misbehaving." Now, I don't pretend to know the whole story here, this is just what I see. I made eye contact with another woman in the aisle and she gives me a look like, "do you hear the crazy woman?"
At this point I realize that while I may never go *crazy* quite like that in public, I have been known to blow things out of proportion in my own home. Naomi reminded me of this today when I overheard her say to Daphne, "No, you are not LISTENING TO ME. Lis-ten-to-me." That last part was rather staccato and firm. My kids can't be expected to understand why I am not as patient as usual, or why I am *firmer* some days than others. I think that was what I felt most about this situation in the grocery store. I completely empathized with the crazy woman but felt like sheltering her children, protecting them from this stressed out mother.
So here I am, two months away from complete sleep deprivation again. And, don't get me wrong, sleep deprivation isn't the only thing that often pushes me over the edge to become crazy mom. Sleep deprivation is, however, looming over my head. It scares Arthur. Maybe I should have him write more about what crazy Andrea The Wife is like (but that would be WAY too revealing for me.) At any rate, it all makes me think about how we have to be conscious of the things we do and say, no matter how insane our brains may feel. I'm not sure how to do that. I know that calmness, quietness, and prayer really help me return to reality but I'm not sure how to catch myself as I'm falling off the edge. In reality, we are all close to becoming that mother in the store losing control.
I don't have all the answers but I know they lie somewhere between understanding I am only human, and knowing God is not. Of course understanding alone can only take you so far.
