Modern Parent: Tricks for coping when it’s just… too…much - OCRegister

“What do you do with the mad that you feel?” sings dear Mr. Rogers in his anger management psalm. His suggestions: pound some clay, play some tag and such.

In my family, it’s more like “What do you with the anxiety/depression that you feel?”All four of us have some variation of the off-balance chemical cocktail that leads to low- to mid-level depression and/or free floating anxiety. Our number one way of dealing with the crazy that we feel is medication. We’ve got on three Lexapro and one on Wellbutrin.

I can understand if you disagree with that. There are lots of people who think you can use the power of positive thinking to will mental illness away or walk it off. I think of our chemical imbalances as just that, a physical thing in the body that needs to be adjusted, like taking insulin for diabetes. Plus, for us, the stuff works.

My 20-year-old recently hopped on the med wagon with the rest of us. She’d been feeling a constant sense of impending doom and sadness and was texting me daily with medical fears (red skin around a hangnail = sepsis?) It was a little annoying (“Girl, can you open your mouth? Then you don’t have lockjaw!”) but I got it.

Hypochondria is also how my chemical tomfoolery manifests itself. (If you want to try it at home, here’s how: 1. Notice something happening with your body — doesn’t matter how minor or easily explained! 2. Draw the most deadly conclusion. 3. Excessively ruminate on your quickly impending demise.) She’s now on a tiny dose of Lexapro. Yesterday she told me that she finally feels like herself again.

So, yay meds! But whether you’re on meds or not, there are still going to be times when it gets rough and you have to figure out “What do you do with the crazy that you feel?”

Honestly, most of Mr. Rogers’ suggestions also works quite well for us, too. My very tactile 18-year-old has an extensive collection of Play-Doh to grab a hold of when her overload of AP classes gets to be too much. And all four of us go on long walks, solo or otherwise, wandering the neighborhood and nearby parks like some sort of nomadic tribe wearing earbuds.

But whenever one of us seems particularly overwhelmed, panicky or is comatose on the couch, we have some backup fixes.

• Food. Most often, if someone’s acting jerky or irrational in my family, it’s because they haven’t eaten. If you’re the one acting jerky, it’s sometimes hard to realize that you’re just super hungry. Grab a banana, then re-assess.
• That is, DECENT food. Last Easter I called my mom, weeping tragically, “I just feel so…sad.” She, momishly, asked “Have you been eating sugar?” I flashed back to the pastel-coated chocolate eggs I’d been sampling every time I passed through the kitchen. “Yes,” I answered, irritated, partly because my blood sugar was out of whack, partly because my mother thinks all problems can be solved by eating more protein and was (again) right. Annoying.
• Sleep. Lack of sleep will mess with you. Get some.
• Get outside and move. You can play tag as Mr. Rogers suggests or go for a bike ride or a long walk. It seems to work extra well if you contemplate nature. Stare at the clouds, gaze upon the ocean, look up into the branches of a tree.
• Do a mindless project. Cook a meal, clean something, make some music, build a birdhouse, whatever. It gets you away from your phone and grounds you in the rhythm of the task at hand.

Those pretty much cover all manner of freak-outs, but if you’ve gone on a 4-mile walk, ate your friggin’ protein, built a birdhouse and are still panicking, we’ve still got a couple more tricks to try.

• Worst case scenario. Take whatever you’re worried about and take it to its worst conclusion. Failed a test? OMG, you won’t get into UCLA…but that’s okay. You still have a place to live, you can go to the local community college, etc.
• Mindfulness. When the worst things are actually happening, about the best defense we have is going deep into the moment at hand. Notice the place where you are, its temperature, the sounds. Slow your breath down, focusing on long, deep exhales. In this moment you are safe. This works for all situations. Even if nuclear bombs are about to hit in 30 seconds, in this moment you are safe.

And you there reading this in this moment you are safe. Good luck, my friend.

Jill Hamilton is the mother of two teenage girls and lives in Long Beach. Email her at jill.longbeach@yahoo.com.

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Modern Parent: Tricks for coping when it’s just… too…much - OCRegister
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