Joyfully At Home: Chapter Six - Part Two

I can't believe we are in the first week of August already! The summer weather has been so cool and wet compared to a normal year that I keep thinking we are in the first week of July.

 This week I have my long-awaited endocrinology appointment.

 I don't remember how much I've talked about my recent health issues, but I've been fighting fatigue since February that I can't seem to shake.  I can easily sleep 10-12 hours a night and be ready for a 2-3 hour nap when my son goes down for his nap....and then be ready for sleep by around 7pm.  Around Christmas, I was averaging 15,000-20,00 steps a day.  Now, getting 10,000 steps a day is a struggle.  I have depression and anxiety, but this doesn't feel like a relapse of either because I feel happy and content when I'm awake; I simply hit a wall of exhaustion much faster than I ever had before.  Similarly, I used to drink 0-8oz of caffeinated pop a day with a weekly total of 16oz because caffeine can trigger anxiety in me and would keep me up at night if I drank it after 3pm.  Right now, I can easily drink 24-32oz of caffeinated pop daily to try and stay awake through the day - and still fall asleep at night.

 I assumed that the fatigue was a physical symptom of having high levels of chronic stress for the last 2.75 years - but I figured I'd better have a work-up done to make sure I wasn't anemic again. Turns out that in addition to mild anemia - which is SOP for me unless I'm on prenatal vitamins so I went back on prenatals - the blood test showed that my thyroid had crapped out. I knew that diagnosis was treatable, so I went in for follow-up bloodwork and a thyroid ultrasound thinking that I'd get a diagnosis of Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Much to everyone's surprise, I have no signs of Hashimoto's (which is a very common disorder where the body attacks the thyroid gland) and the ultrasound of my thyroid looks completely normal - no lumps, bumps, cysts or other things that show thyroid dysfunction.

My doctor wants me to be checked out by an endocrinologist before putting me on synthetic thyroid medication because she's concerned that the issue is starting from my pituitary gland which she is concerned was injured from the amount of blood I lost from HELLP syndrome when my son was born.  She also mentioned that she didn't want to start thyroxine before I was checked out because there was a chance that thyroxine would exacerbate an underlying disease state and send my blood pressure through the roof.    Normally, this would have freaked me out and sent me on a Google search.  Thanks to exhaustion, I made the appointment 12 weeks ago for the first available slot, asked to be placed on the call-for-no-shows list, and stocked up on caffeinated pop.

I was mostly concerned with if I'd be able to start working in retail again while short on thyroid hormone, but I've done fine so far.  The main downside is that my hobbies have taken a hit since "sleeping" is now my main life goal and hobby - but I'm honestly grateful that I can grab as much sleep as I can during this time of my life.

Speaking of waiting, we've entered the section of Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" where she creates a series of strawman descriptions about dreams that interfere with living contently in the present as a single SAHD.   I classify the vignettes as strawman because the treatment of the subject obscures the valid complaints of SAHDs while implying that wanting change is a sign of immaturity and poor thinking skills.

Here's the first example:

We cry it out at different times. We might be crying it out when we're feeling discontent about the monotony of day-to-day life. " Oh, dear Lord! I'm so very anxious for the day when I'll be able to look past the pile of soiled laundry, the stack of dirty dishes and the mound of schoolwork to behold - and have a home of my own, where things will be infinitely easier!" (pg. 78)

Notice that Ms. Baucham covers two complaints: housework is tedious and SAHDs lack autonomy at home.   Ms. Baucham's response is "Ha!  Housework sucks equally much regardless of whose home it is!  Resign yourself to a life of monotony, ladies!"

Ms. Baucham's reply is not a ringing endorsement of finding satisfaction in a domestic life, is it?

Ironically, Ms. Baucham's ignorance of the joys of running your own home limits her ability to refute the strawman she created.   Housework is tedious - but the freedom to decide when and how to do housework changes the feel. 

For example, Jasmine Baucham had no input on her parents' decision to start adopting kids to grow their family - and that's normal.  But thanks to her enthusiastic embrace of SAHDhood, she got slammed with far more laundry, dishes and schoolwork to correct for her four younger siblings than would be normal for a teenager or young adult.

By comparison, a married woman would be able to mentally decide the additional amount of work that a new baby in the family would add to her workload plus the effect that the physical demands of pregnancy and caring for a small infant would place on her.  My toddler has added an entirely new level of work to my life in terms domestic and educational - but there's a very different feel to choosing to have a child and having a time-suck of a sibling dropped into your lap.

The next two quotes make me into even more of a proponent for dating instead of parent-led courtship:

We might cry out when we are feeling romantic. " Oh, dear Lord! I'm so very anxious for the day when I'll be perfectly loved by a flawless man will always have my best interest at heart, will never disappoint me, and who will never ask anything of me that I won't be willing to give." (pg. 78)

*Dissolves into snorting giggles*

The absolutely best type of crush is on a person who you never get to meet in person.   The beauty of this crush is that the obnoxious habits and quirks that everyone has will be safely hidden and never revealed.

Of course, you'll never fall in love, either, so pick your poison.

This strawman is where most pre-teens and young teens are before they start dating or spending much time with a variety of people they are attracted to.   The best antidote to unrealistic expectations about others is to spend time around other people - and this is where CP/QF homeschooling for the purpose of sheltering outside viewpoints can derail the growth of young people into marriageable partners.   In most families, parents try to act with the best interests of their children at heart and act as arbitrators/judges when siblings have conflicting interests.  Those roles work relatively well in functional families - but those same assumptions get wonky when applied to peers.   As a student (and as a teacher), I never liked group work - but group work does demonstrate quickly that different people have different goals even when working towards the same endpoint.  My goal was "Do exactly as much work as I needed to get an A then work on other subjects"  This would lead me into conflict with group mates whose goal was "Do as little as possible so I can do what I really like doing" or "Create the project by which all other projects will be judged wanting because I like acclaim."   Notice that none of us were trying to screw the other group mates over; we just had very different priorities.

Similarly, the best way to believe that other humans will never disappoint you is to avoid relying on other humans.   The downside of making "I am a Rock" a personal mantra is that you lose all the benefits that accrue when people support you.

Finally, the last clause about how a normal husband will ask his wife to give things that she's unwilling to give is freaking weird.  What does that mean in day-to-day life?  Are we talking about dealing with a husband who changes jobs and geographic locations every two years?  A husband who wants to try sexual acts that the wife doesn't?  A Maxwell who moves more than one mile from their family of origin?  A husband of a Botkin or Duggar who says that they will need their wife to work outside the home during an extended period of unemployment?  That part drives home that a marriage in CP/QF land is not two adults working together to keep their family moving forward but one leader and one subordinate.

And our last quote for the day:

We might cry out when we're feeling insecure. " Oh dear Lord I am so very anxious for the day when I'll be perfectly loved by a man who will complete me, with whom I'll always feel perfectly adequate and confident, and who will never take me outside my comfort zone."(pg. 78)

Yikes.

When I was struggling with depression for the first time, I had a fantasy that I would feel better if I could get away from all of the stressors in my life like an extended monastic vacation.  Turns out that's a common fantasy - but actually taking that massive vacation rarely works because changing the scenery doesn't treat the chemical imbalance that causes depression.

Likewise, Ms. Baucham stumbles onto a basic truth: marriage will not make an anxious, timid, hollow-feeling SAHD into a confident, fulfilled, outgoing woman.   The most perfect husband cannot fill the longing a woman has to get an education, work outside the home, trust herself more or believe that she is loveable.  Those desires can only be met through a woman working on her own goals herself.

I suspect that even Ms. Baucham as a young woman would agree with the idea that life is meant to be lived - we just disagree on what that looks like.