About Progeny. Sort Of.

I don't have kids. Don't want them. Never have.

Early on, say, during my formative years, I just never thought about motherhood; I was more into lizards and snails than sugar and spice. Later on, after the second onset of depression, my apathy regarding rugrats coalecsed into a protective sort of theory; by avoiding procreation I was protecting theoretical spawn from inheriting my defective mental genes and any other depression related fallout.

Because I don't have kids, I am, to my shame, highly intolerant of them. Now if I wander into a child-infested playground full of audible, physical chaos, I consider any resultant apoplectic rage my fault. However in certain locations, say, my neighborhood coffee joint, I expect a measure of control. Talking and laughing with accompanying hand gestures? Yes. Screaming children flinging display objects about? Absolutely not.

I started this in a Caribou Coffee somewhere in the wilds of Rockville...deserted except for a couple with their object flinging baby. Said couple only intervened when the baby tipped over...ignoring the several cards and two teddy bears the child pulled to the floor. I am now in an airport, accompanied by a large number of small children, all of whom alternate screaming, crying and whining. Sometimes in unison.

What exactly does this have to do with depression? Well according to some intelligent people, depression is anger turned inwards...an implosion of rage. Watching parents ignore their kids who are very obviously misbehaving, or reasoning with a screaming child who is incapable of adult thought... much less reason sends me to the very edge of the brink; I find myself with a stranglehold on the impulse to remind the parent that they are just that: a parent, and a helpless fury at the screaming toddler that can only be stuffed into a boiling simmering mass that lodges itself somewhere in the pit of my brain. I can only wonder if reducing my exposure to tired, cranky children...the ones that seem to be the most subceptible to auditory outbursts...would augment the pharmaceutical and holistic treatment regimen I am currently undertaking.

Now that I've had a few days to think about it, PTSD could be implicated in the screaming, whining children-->boiling impacted rage link. Without letting too many worms out of the proverbial can, I spent quite a bit of my childhood caring for needy adults. Any sort of neediness across my radar, which a small screaming child is the epitome of, turns on the burner under my mental-emotional state. Yet another item to add to my ongoing investigations.

More when I am back in safe territory, aka at Starbucks, with a large Zen and the knowledge of my dog and husband at home.