So, I stopped taking those ADD meds and still haven't been back to the doctor. I know that's not a good thing. One of my worst impulsive/compulsive behaviors is shopping. I. Love. To. Shop. I shop when I'm happy. I shop when I'm depressed. I shop all the time, and specifically, I love to shop for clothes.

Before I had children, back when I was a young, slender thing, I loved to shop for clothes for myself. I would get a $200 paycheck and immediately head down the mall to Gap, where I would spend $40-$80 on stuff from the sale rack. I loved to shop even as a kid, and my mom taught me how to shop the sales, mostly out of necessity. I have always loved fashion, and developed my own offbeat sense of style quite early on. When I was a little girl, I refused to wear pants or shorts, preferring blouses with skirts or dresses with belts and collars. In middle school I discovered the allure of vintage clothing and became a thrift store addict. So when I got pregnant, of course, the first thing I wanted to do was go shopping.

I had begun collecting clothes for some future baby long before I got pregnant - back when I still worked at JCPenney, right across from the children's department. Those tiny ruffled dresses and sweet little sleepers were just too cute to resist, especially when they were marked down to $4.99. But the real attraction, I believe, was the possibility that those tiny outfits represented: the possibility of a future full of family, love, and new life. Now, my kids are much cuter (and easier to fit) than I am, and they look so cute in everything. I love to shop for them.

I have been mulling over the meaning of my shopping addiction for a few weeks now (well, I've been mulling it over for years, but I'm talking weeks of intense mulling here). I've identified several stages of the shopping experience that make clothes shopping so enticing and fulfilling, or pseudo-fulfilling....

1. The Plan. When I was a girl, I used to cut pictures out of the JCPenney catalog and glue them to construction paper to put together outfits. Today, with inventions like Polyvore and good old Microsoft Paint, it is much easier to create potential outfits. Planning a "look" opens up a world of possibilities.

When I shop online, I like to cut and paste pictures of each piece into Paint, moving them around until I've crafted the cutest possible outfit. Then I cut and add accessories. In a real store, the experience is that much more intense, because I can actually touch the items as I shop. But I don't just think about cute outfits; rather, I think about my child wearing them. I imagine my son's smiling, freckled face as I hand him his new monster t-shirt. I can see him in my mind, running and playing in the yard in sneakers with flames on the side. As I create an outfit on my computer screen, I imagine where we will go and what we will do when my daughter is wearing it. How will she wear her hair? Will this be an outfit for the park? The mall? A family party? I envision her big, dark, soft eyes beaming with pride as a stranger stops us to tell us how pretty she is. (Incidentally, no one ever told me I was pretty as a child except my mom, whom I obviously never believed. I'm sure there are some issues at work there.)

Once I have made a layout and imagined my child in those outfits, I feel a strong emotional connection to the idea of those clothes. Sometimes, I am able to pick and choose just a few outfits; occasionally, I am able to close the website and walk away. I try my hardest to let my daughter pick her favorite, then I pick my favorite, but the possibility of the mix-and-match can make it hard for me to stop. I think this is why I love brands like Gymboree and Naartjie so much. Their clothes are sold in collections of many matching or coordinating pieces, so four pieces can become four outfits. And if four pieces can make four different outfits, imagine how many outfits ten pieces can make!! I am also a very indecisive person, so often, when I have one top and two pairs of pants that I can't decide between, I will add another top instead of removing one of the bottoms. I know it sounds irrational. It is. And it's even worse when I'm shopping in an actual store, because I have less time to mull over the purchase and perfect the plan.

Once I have planned everything just perfectly, I can move on to step two....

2. The Purchase. This is a different experience, depending on whether I am shopping online or in real life. In a store, I tend to flip through my handful of clothes several times on the way to the register to make sure I have made good ("good") decisions. Does everything have a matching piece, or will it match something we already have? Can I afford ("afford") it? Do I need it? If not, how badly do I want it? It can feel agonizing sometimes, and the longer the line, the more likely I am to reconsider or put something back. Once I've gotten to the register, I feel happy, and relieved. The stuff is mine!!

Online purchases, for me, tend to fall into one of two categories. The rushed purchase is one in which there is a very short-term sale, or a longed-for item has been replenished but is in low stock. There is not much time to think during these purchases: you add it to your cart, and you pull the trigger. These are the purchases that give me more of an initial "high" - "I'm so excited I got that deal!" - but often lead to buyer's remorse: "Why the hell did I buy that?" The prolonged purchase, on the other hand, is marked by an excessively long planning stage, days, weeks, or even months of deliberation over whether or not to make the purchase, perhaps looking at the website, Paint mock-up, or shopping cart every day, and a feeling of relief (rather than excitement) when I finally do. These purchases tend to be more rewarding over the long term, obviously, because they are usually things that I actually do want or need.

Following the purchase, we move into stage 3...

3. Anticipation. Anticipation can be as short as the ride home from Wal-Mart or as long as it takes for a package to arrive. If I am riding home with a girlfriend from a good store, like Gap or Gymboree, I will want to touch all my loot right away. I'll need to fondle it a bit in the bag, maybe take out a special piece or outfit and hold them up again, but I quickly fold and replace them because I know that it's not time yet. During anticipation with an online order, I might visit the website again, look at my order status. I might look at the pictures in the shopping cart or track my package. I might check to make sure that none of the prices have gone down since I ordered. This will continue until the package arrives, at which time I may leave it unopened for as long as a day just to prolong the delicious torture of the waiting. The kids tend to get very excited about packages, though, so if they are home when the package arrives it usually gets opened then and there. And once the package is opened, or I'm home with the shopping bags, we have...

4. The Layout. It's all here - time to revel!! This is basically the Paint layout I used to put the outfit together, but in real life. I take everything out of the package (or bag.) I lay it out in outfits. I smooth it out. I smell it. (No, seriously - I love the smell of new clothes, and clothes stores. And new shoes, too.) I switch the tops back and forth. I switch the headbands back and forth. I am thinking, again, about the possibilities. If the child is up for it, we may try on and do a fashion show with pictures for my online friends. If not, I may fold everything back up and put it back in the bag until we are ready to do a fashion show, or until I want to relive the layout again. I might do the layout three or four times before I actually fold or hang the clothes up. This is because once they are put away, they are not really possibilities. Now they are clothes, and they wait for...

5. The Wearing. How cute is s/he going to look in this?! We get it out of the closet. And.... I take the tags off. It is no longer new. Pretty soon, there will be food slopped on it, so we might take pictures before we leave the house in our new duds. I get to experience the cuteness that I imagined would occur when clothes met kid. It feels, somehow, rewarding, as if I've made a useful decision to benefit my family by choosing a product. I know that this is not really so. I know I'm "wasting" money. I know that consuming is not the same thing as being a good person, or being a good parent. But I feel, in some small way, that I've contributed to my child having a positive self-concept by purchasing clothing they enjoy, clothing that reflects their personality and tastes, clothing that says something about who we are as a family and who I am as a mom. I feel.... powerful. As if I am full of possibilities.

Yesterday I started taking ADD meds for the first time ever. I can give some background to that later on, but for now I just want to journal how I feel each day so that I can see whether things are improving. Right now, I have a headache and I feel terrible. But first, let's talk about yesterday.

I woke up really late - 3 pm, to be exact (sadly not unusual for me) - so I hesitated to take what is essentially speed, since I already have insomnia issues. Still, there's no time like the present, so I took my 50 mg of Vyvanse in addition to my newly-increased 20 mg dose of Lexapro. Two months ago at this time I was suicidal every day. 10 mg of Lexapro has helped with that, but with few other aspects of my mental health: lethargy, amotivation, forgetfulness, disorganization, distraction, anxiety, insmonia (and then subsequent over-over-oversleeping)... I'm sure you get the picture. I had suspected I may have ADD for a long time, but was always afraid to ask a doctor for fear of looking like a pill-seeker. But when my new practitioner mentioned it to me, I was happy to talk.

So day one. Yesterday. I had already been experiencing some weakness, nausea, and lack of appetite (possibly from the Lexapro, possibly from the antibiotics I'm on for a respiratory infection), and I would say that this times ten pretty much characterizes my first day of Vyvanse. I didn't really feel it kick in, but soon began to feel a little high, and my brain felt really active, as if I couldn't NOT be looking at something, touching something, etc. I forgot to bring a book in the car so I started reading the return policy on my Old Navy invoice. Then I talked Mr. Crazy's ear off. These effects continued until about 9:30, when I felt a sudden crash. It's so hard to explain - it's how I feel now - desperately tired, but impelled, somehow. On the brink. Not exactly nervous - my mind feels calm - but my body feels ready to burst. I didn't do much, in the way that ADD meds are supposed to make you able to focus and concentrate, except go shopping (and that was characterized by my usual scattershod impulsivity.) I came home, and could. not. sleep. I felt really tired and even went to bed at 2 am, way earlier than usual, but I soon had to get up and didn't go back until after 5. Unfortunately, I also didn't do anything useful while I was up - just sat online, of course. I spent the hours of 5 to 11 am in a kind of not-quite-sleep, drifting in and out of alertness, always feeling awake but realizing that I must have been asleep at some point.

This morning I got out of bed at 11 - much earlier than usual - and didn't feel tired! Amazing. However, I also didn't feel particularly energetic. I drank a cup of General Foods International Coffee (Hazelnut, natch) and took my current cocktail, which includes my crazy meds plus my antibiotic and a Vitamin D supplement. I began to feel incredibly weak and tired around 1:30 pm, and realized I hadn't eaten. I had an apple instead of laying down or throwing up, and felt better right away. But not normal better, just better than I was. Today is reminding me why I went off all my SSRIs in the first place. I feel different. Bad different. Anyway, I sat around most of the day, and then when my kids got home from their grandparents' I actually played a game with them. I usually don't have the patience for such things. Around 6:30 or 7, I realized I needed to put my daughter's new summer clothes away. This rapidly turned into me cleaning out and organizing her entire closet (hey, I do have a consignment sale coming up, it needed to be done!), which eventually ended with me, grouchy, sweaty, overheated, irritable, and starving, yelling at the kids to please please leave me alone so I could finish. Mr. C had to put the kids to bed while I scarfed down some light fare. I haven't been eating much at all. I am also thirsty all the time and incredibly sensitive to temperature. I have always had a tendency to overheat very quickly, but this is worse.

So once the crash came tonight, I realized I was feeling sad. Very sad. Very down. Suicidal, almost. This is not good at all. I hope this med does not bring my depression back because that is the absolute worst thing that could happen. I am calling the doctor tomorrow.