A Mother's Garden

As Mother's Day has been approaching, I have been doing my gardening with motherhood on my mind.  I have been thinking about the cultivators, the nurturers, the harvestors, the gatherers, the chefs, and the makers of beauty.  I think about roots, seeds, blossoming, providing, and nourishing .  We have so much in common, gardens and mothers.  And for me, the garden is where I go to rejeuvenate myself.  Not in a lawn chair, but wandering and working, pulling weeds and observing changes. 

One of the early projects in my garden came with budget considerations and serendipity.  I asked my mother and my mother-in-law for some babies from their gardens, and both of them gifted me with Periwinkle.  The periwinkle from my mother's garden was actually planted by her mother, my maternal grandmother, because that's where my parents now live.  For best effect, I combined the Periwinkles from two different locations and planted them in a ring around a large oak tree in our back yard. 

It wasn't until after they were planted that I became sentimental.  This flower bed is a combined legacy of both my and my husband's mothers, and from both of my children's grandmothers.  I simply LOVE this bed!

Another contribution from my maternal grandmother is jonquils, which are also in bloom right now.  After she passed, the cottage she lived in by the ocean was in such bad shape that my parents had it taken down, put up a new house on the same foundation, and moved in.  The "taking down" process was going to ruin Grammie's flower beds, so I took some bulbs from her garden, a bed that I often weeded as a Mother's Day gift to her, and planted them in the garden of a wonderful old apartment building I lived in for five years.  When we made the move to  a house, there was no question that the jonquils would join us.  Aren't they sweet?  Miss you, Gram!

Now my Paternal Grandmother lived in the same home for at least fifty years, and the flower that most reminds me of her is the lilac.  My mother had white lilacs, but I was always soooo admired Grammie's dark purple ones.  They were in an intensely sunny spot behind her house where I often played with my cousins.  I vividly recall the luxurious scent of those gorgeous blooms!  With every inhalation of lilacs, I think of my grandmother and her house.  When we bought our house, it came with MANY lilac bushes, but none of them were getting nearly enough sun.  I recall one of my first serious gardening efforts being the relocation of multiple lilac bushes.  There are so many that I divided them and have given many away.  Mine are light purple (see pic), but part of my garden visions include a dark purple lilac just like my grandmother's.  Hmmmm...... I wonder who lives in that house now... And if it would be weird if.......

Anyway...  I have to say that my biggest "gardening for beauty" inspiration has been my mother-in-law.  In fact, I think that she is a descendent of.... is it Linneus?  A Swede who documented and classified hundreds of species of plants and flowers?  I'll double check on that.  My MIL's garden is gorgeous and fills her with a lot of satisfaction and pride.  She will not travel or plan any medical procedures in the sprintime because it would interfere with her gardening.  Some of the things she has taught me is the "one person's weed..." lesson (see photo below of a wild strawberry), and that tree stumps make wonderful plant holders.  She believes in natural beauty that is cared for.  Here are some pics from my garden, all inspirations or donations from my wonderful MIL.

GREEN THUMB BLESSINGS

TO YOU ON MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Funny Pharma - Antidepressants and Miracle Gro

I just read a GREAT article by Katrina Alcorn in the Huffington Post titled Peaceful Revolution:  If You Give a Mouse A Prozac http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katrina-alcorn/ipeaceful-revolutioni-if_b_531042.html.  She began experiencing crippling symptoms of depression, exhaustion, panic attacks, and sleep disturbances while attempting to "balance"  a demanding commute and job with young children. 

Her quote/recap in red summarizes her story.  My comments are in black.

1. Trying to work full time and raise young kids put my body under unendurable strain (Been there, done that)

2. My body broke down. (Symptoms of depression including sleep disturbance and anxiety)

3. The doctors decided that something was wrong with me, so they prescribed pills (antidepressant)


4. Those pills made it impossible to sleep, so they prescribed more pills. (sleeping pills)


5. The second pills depressed my breathing and made it look like I had sleep apnea. (extensive sleep study)


6. The doctors gave me a machine to treat the sleep apnea (expensive and not covered by health insurance), which dried out my (medium-to-large) nose and made me sick (with a cold).

Mamma Alcorn took the diagnosis off from herself and gave it back to its orignal owner: It is crazy to put working parents in impossible situations where they are bound to go crazy, and then act like there's something wrong with them for going crazy.  This is a classic case of treating the symptoms and not the problem.

This article REALLY spoke to me.  When I became a mother, I was self-employed with a thriving psychotherapy practice and loved my work.  I was fortunate in that I stopped working at week 36, was not limited to 12 weeks of maternity leave, could come back to work part-time, and could schedule my own hours.  I pumped and napped in my office in between clients.  Ideal, no?

Actually, no.  With the sleep deprivation and multiple life-stressors, my own symptoms of childhood trauma began to surface.  Despite being a trained therapist, I was also ignoring my own symptoms of Post Partum Depression and Anxiety.  At the time I was too 'in the thick of it' to see the forest through the trees.  We just had a newborn (who did not sleep well for the first couple of years), bought our first house, moved, my father began having health problems, and I had two miscarriages.  I was simply in survival mode and functioning on adrenaline and cortisol.

As I became more and more specialized in trauma treatment, my workload of clients became more skewed in the direction.  I began having nightmares of not only my own trauma, but those of my clients as well.  I had intrusive thoughts about my patients, panic attacks, sobbing spells, was not thinking clearly, and very irritable.  I was waking in the middle of the night and  unable to get back to sleep, blah blah blah blah blah.

Finally I made the extremely difficult and painful decision to close my practice, something I had worked so hard for and had so much pride in.  I was given a prescription for an antidepressant which I did not fill.  I tried two jobs as an employee thinking that a different line of work would solve my problems, not medication.  But I just couldn't maintian the pace.  Those memories of racing out of the office to pick up my kid from childcare and coming home to a dark and empty house are forever burned in my memory.  My husband typically didn't get home until 630pm from his job, leaving me to care for a tired child and attempt to make a healthy-ish meal.   You know the drill, right?

After being essentially fired from my last job, I finally filled the prescription, got back into therapy, took some tai chi and yoga, starting getting acupuncture, and was able to sustain my next pregnancy.

So let us draw some parallels to gardening, shall we? 'Cause you know that's what I do!

Placing an overtaxing burden on any organism is going to make them unealthy at best and unsustainable at worst.  People and plants need the proper nutrients and environment in order to thrive.  People should ideally have adequate housing, healthy and plentiful food, a supportive environment, rest, relaxation and some sun.  Similarly, plants thrive with the correct balance of nutrients in their soil, adequate water, the proper amount of sun for their species. 

Now what about synthetic assistance?  There is a lot of research out there, as well as my own anectodal experience, which suggests that anti-depressants improve your mental and physical health.  Similarly, Miracle Gro can cause your plants to shoot up quickly and prolifically.  You don't have to google past the first page to find some very strong opinions on either side of each debate.  A lot of the arguments for both anti-depressants and Miracle Gro involve:

         

          Research & professional recommendations          
          Ease of use         
          Financial implications
          It's not hurting anyone
          t's my decision and my body/plant/soil

The arguements against both synthetics include
         Treating the symptoms, not the problem
         Side effects on body/plant/soil
         Environmental (negative impact on soil, water)
         Political (research studies skewed, big industry, fossil fuels)

Personally I shy away from synthetics when I can, but when I was down and out and could not see my way to a solution, I caved.  And guess what, it helped enormously.  If I were a farmer and my tribe was depending upon me to feed them or they would stave, perhaps I would break down and head to the local hardware store for some of that Grower of Miracles.


A few months ago I went to dinner with 3 other moms.  We enjoyed pleasant conversation about our children, work, holidays, and books.  But by the time the bill came, the conversation had taken a severe turn.  Suddenly we were all sharing about our anxieties, our overwhelm, our failing health, and ordering another bottle of wine.  Three of us "confessed" that we are taking antidepressents and the fourth, the only one with tears streaming down her face, was not (but she is now!). 

Everyone's circumstances are different, and judging individual decisions for their particular set of circumstances was trained out of me in college and grad school. However I do think it important to really examine the big picture.  What is the common denominator that now four out of four women (granted, a rather homogenous sampling) are taking antidepressants for virtually the same complaints?  And what can we do to TRULY replenish our soils?  What will give us REALLY deep roots so we can grow really tall, strong, and colorful?

Commitment

I have just spent an INORDINATE amount of time trying to set up my blog, figuring out if I'm selling my soul by monetizing my account, wondering about all of those "I agree to" boxes I check-marked, and fretting over pics, fonts, and edits galore.  I started writing about my pansies, then had to "draft" that post because what is truly on my mind is... well... what exactly am I committing to here?  Is blogging a good way to spend my time?  I like the idea of the whole blogging gig because I like to share, I like to write, I like to read (in spurts) and I like my self-selected topics, and I like the social aspect (presuming, of course, somebody reads this someday!)  But at the same time my seedlings need some attention and the towels have been sitting in the dryer for 3 days now.  Can I add on one more project?  Can I sustain a blog?  If I actually get followers, will I disappoint them if/when I do not write?  Is it a project that I will naturally be drawn to or will it become a chore?  Can I truly commit?

Gardening was a chore when I was a child, but now I am naturally drawn to and committed to it.  I never feel like I have spent an inordinate amount of time on ANYTHING when it comes to gardening, I just wish that I had more of it (time, that is).  But blogging and gardening do have a couple of things in common. The first commonality that comes to mind is that there are tangible results.  When one writes or gardens, you can step back, take a deep breath, look at your work, and feel a sense of accomplishment and pride.  This is something that I rarely felt as a psychotherapist.  The changes the clients made were not nearly as tangible.  I certainly celebrated the successes of my former clients, but they were not a daily occurence.

One problem that I encountered as a psychotherapist was my inate extroversion.  I found the profession to be quite isolating actually, especially in private practice.  Despite "talking" all day, it was one-sided sharing and I couldn't exactly talk to my family and friends about "work."  See what I mean, here?  Mothering has been rather isolating as well.  I used to be quite social but now I do not have the time nor the budgetary availability to socialize the way I used to.  I believe that this will change as the children get older.  For now, I meet a lot of my socializing needs through Facebook.  My gardening helps to cure the "I can't hear myself think" (NOW I know what all those moms meant by that phrase), but not the social isolation.  So I am hoping that blogging will help fill that void that my inner extravert is screaming for.

Something that I may find pleasurable in blogging about gardening is that I can post pics of my garden.  I finally bought a grown-up camera (still in need of a grown-up lens) and I look forward to displaying my botanical creations to those who share an appreciation.  Now I just have to figure out how to get my pics from my computer to the slideshow without bypassing other websites.  Arggghhh!!!

Well, there you have it... My half-hearted commitment to this blog.  As an extravert, I welcome your input.

Planting Seeds for Sanity

Well HELLLOOOOOO Blogosphere! My name is Cherie and I am a 41 year old mom of two, a wife, a former psychotherapist, and a home gardener: thus my blog name. The Funny Farm is a not-so-politically correct reference to a psychiatric hospital.  Catch the humor?  Anywho...  This morning I was researching some gardening information and found some wonderful blogs out there - Kudos! It's really cool to see people willing to share their ideas, pics, thoughts, and struggles - both personally and botanically. Then I thought - Hey! I want to do that too!

Growing up in Maine, I had a lot of gardening responsibilities. My Dad (you'll hear more Funny Farmish references in the future when it comes to my family of origin!) worked full time at various jobs and kept two large vegetable gardens at home. Back then gardening was a chore that interrupted my play time. In my 20's I did a LOT of playing, studied Psychology, was an occasional client, and did virtually no gardening.  While apartment dwelling in my 30's, I worked at a Community Mental Health agency for 6 years, had a private practice for 6 years (I know, I know, my math isn't exactly accurate), was one again a client, and did some co-op gardening with my fellow apartment mates. I started to find that gardening and fun need not be mutually exclusive.

Now in my early 40's and finally a homeowner just 6 years ago (I'm starting to see a theme here...), I now have my own little piece of earth for perennials and more serious veggie gardening. I left the mental health field as a practitioner (still a client), and now find that gardening is a huge part of keeping my own sanity.  My baby boy just turned six, my baby girl turns 2 this weekend, and now I am thinking that my dad probably would have been even crazier had he not worked his land. 

Spring time is perfect for planting seeds - both literally and figuratively. Perhaps it's the six year thing?  I am virtually unemployed as is my husband, in weekly therapy, and my kids and seedlings are thriving.  I have put compost into my four 4x8 raised beds and just "rented" a 25x25 co op space.  I have tiny tomatoes, peppers, husk cherries, broccoli, and various flowers in my windowsill.  There are MANY more seeds packets awaiting germination.  And for today's latest venture....  I am now a blogger.  Here's to springtime and new beginnings!  Welcome to my blog, my garden, my family, and the bats in my belfry.!