Irritability

Irritability -- in psychological terms, being oversensitive to the little (and not so little) annoyances of life.  Letting stuff get to you.  Crying, as it were, over spilled milk.  Irritability was big reason I went on the Zoloft, and I tell you, it was like lubrication, letting things slide off my back.  I was much more patient with the kids, seldom even raising my voice. It worked so well it was even worth the hit to my libido.

Don't know what's different now, but the Vitamin Z is not working its magic today.  I find myself despondent that the boy refuses to read the books that school assigns him because they are "boring" and "stupid" and that he's "lazy."  We both know that's bull.  He has amazing verbal skills but he also has a learning disability that makes it really hard for him to see "the big picture" instead of a bag of details.  He just refuses to read, so he gets no practice at it either. This is like a knife to the gut of his English-major, book-inhaling mother.

I wonder sometimes, am I like the dad who was a football hero, and is aggravated when his son rejects sports?  I don't think so.  After all, sports are great, but not really that necessary when it comes to education and employment.  However, it is quite hard to get through high school (much less college) without successful reading (though my son is determined to try).

Sometimes I think, let's get him tutors, let's find him a good LD program, etc.  But the fact is that he doesn't want help, and actively uses his amazing powers of avoid/evade to reject it.  As you can imagine, it makes me want to scream.

Yesterday, I did -- alone and at him.  Irritability rears its ugly head, folks.  Then, this thing with the Girl Scouts starts up and I'm infuriated by it.  Long story short, I took the initiative to train to run one of those Real Beauty workshops for the girls and their moms, and my micro-managing control freak co-leader made me reschedule it for one person who was going to be out of town.  Now only two people have agreed to come and the one we rescheduled for?  Well, she might come, but only if her daughter doesn't have too much homework.

So this is all getting to me and making me teary, so I increased my Zoloft dosage back to 25mg. Hope it helps.  I know there are real serious problems out in the world and mine are rather petty, but it feels like everything sucks right now.