Crisis Mentality
A Good Night Sleep is Everything
I finally understand why Ariana Huffington transitioned her career from media mogul to sleep guru, and why Michael Jackson died while in the desperate pursuit of a few hours of Zzz’s. A good night’s sleep is delicious.
I was always the person, who slept effortlessly. Steve was the one to get up when the babies cried, not me. But about five years ago, the three horsemen of insomnia — perimenopause, parental worry, and work deadlines — causing me to reach for my cellphone at 2am for late night sessions on Twitter and various gossip websites. On really bad nights when I completely gave up any hope of rest, I logged into google docs on my phone and finished off an article.
But I slept well last night. With my window open a crack, so I could hear the crickets and the wind rushing through the trees, I slept. The three horsemen were absent — my hormones have stabilized, an article draft is on the editor’s desk, and, most importantly, parental stress has lifted. My youngest son, the one with autism, has been in a bad spot for two years. The school shutdowns during the pandemic and his inadequate post-high school situation have kept me up all night and in crisis mode for too long. With a resolution for those problems around the corner, I am a different person.
I have written extensively about how bad the school shutdowns were for my family. And then Ian graduated without the social skills to get a job in McDonalds or to attend in-person classes at the local community college. We’ve been working all year to get him admitted into the right program, to work out a deal with our school district, and to get him into the disability bureaucracy. It was a huge year-long, full day project, and I’ve been documenting that process on my other newsletter. We’re almost there.
And as all this was going on, he got epilepsy. He had an adverse reaction to the medication and had to be hospitalized for a while.
Dealing with these crises made my world really small. My brain simply could not hold any other information than “MY KID IS IN CRISIS. MUST HELP.” A friend of mine, who sadly suffers from macular degeneration, once told me that she no longer had any peripheral vision; it was like seeing the world through a paper towel tube. My parental fears were so intense that I, too, saw the world through a paper towel tube for two years.
My brain could not shut up. All night, I was constantly running various scenarios through my head, reliving past traumas with the school, thinking of things that I should have said, kicking myself for fifteen-year old missteps. It takes a lot of work to be this neurotic.
I imagine that people, who get cancer or go bankrupt or lose a loved one, also experience this kind of hyper focus. I suppose that in someways, it is an evolutionary advantage. When cornered in a cave by a sabertooth tiger, it is really important for the brain to spend all its energy finding a way of escape. But when these crises drag on for long periods of time, it’s not terribly helpful to lose sleep and relive missteps.
Our country is going through its own crisis. Gunmen on rooftops. Gunmen in schools. Uncertainties about the next election. Gas prices. Inflation. Death and chaos abroad. Unlike Ian’s situation, which was resolved with research and a good lawyer, these problems are not so easy resolved.
With all those crises in the background, people are still going about their lives, doing everyday things, like having dinner with family or taking weekend trips to a mountain lake. The fact that people are still going about their normal activities means that we’re surviving. Our country is still getting a good night sleep, even after a day of horrors on the evening news. We’re going to be okay.
LINKS
On the blog, some pictures from our holiday weekend.
Schools are tackling mental health this summer, according to the WSJ. But I’m hearing gossip that summer programs like this aren’t really happening, due to staff shortages. I actually have a lot more to say about schools and mental health, but I’ll do that another day. More great links on this topic from Alexander Russo.
Americans are more likely to live in areas that are richer or poorer than the regional norms. The middle-class neighborhood is shrinking.
Megan McArdle writes about how she deals with online trolls.
Academics are quitting. Some because of woke crap. Others because they want to work elsewhere. Could be because their salaries have actually gone down.
Cooking: I made chicken and pineapple tacos with a cilantro/avocado spread this weekend. Actually, we made it twice, because we had two parties. Steve did chicken his own way, but the pineapple and the avocado spread were from this recipe. Home-run recipe.
Shopping: During the week, I'm wearing shorts and t-shirts. Weekends are for hippy dresses.
Adventure: On Saturday, we're taking a day trip with Ian to a rail trail and new brewery in New Paltz, NY. Last weekend, we visited a friend's cabin in the Poconos; the cabin has a unique history, but I just loved the retro vibe. Picture above.
Watching: We're watching Ms. Marvel on Disney+. Tomorrow, we're going with Ian and a group of autistic kids to see Thor. Last season of Peaky Blinders.