I Felt Relatively Calm. Until 9:00.
I am still taking my amino acid, as recommended by The Mood Cure. It’s been quite awhile now, and I take it every day. After Dylan’s continued success, I don’t want to take any chances.
Except one particular weekend, I forgot. I forgot to eat breakfast, so I also forgot to take my daily supplements – which I usually take with breakfast.
During the first day, I had no idea whether or not I’d forgotten to take it. I simply couldn’t remember if, before leaving the house, I had taken 30 seconds to get some water and take the caplet. And I didn’t want to take too many (although I can take up to four a day) so I just didn’t take one.
I mean, I think I didn’t. I didn’t feel much different that day, so who knows? Maybe I did take it.
Or maybe not.
Anyway, the next day, I went out to a really fun mall – nearly an hour’s drive away. I was planning a big day of shopping. (I don’t go to the mall very often, so when I go, it may as well be an all-day event.)
Halfway to the mall, I realized – for sure – that I’d forgotten to take my amino acid. I thought, If I really did forget yesterday, that’s two days without it! I am in trouble if THAT’s true!
But then I went shopping and forgot all about it.
The first time I took it, the difference was so glaringly obvious. I felt normal in less than 20 minutes. I didn’t feel so sad, or angry, or frustrated. I just felt a little more calm than I usually do.
But in spite of how I can’t feel it anymore, I have noticed something spectacular: I no longer bite off the heads of people close to me when I’m frustrated. I don’t scream at the other drivers. I don’t blow up at incredibly small things. Even when I’m really frustrated, I rarely show my frustration by raging at those who don’t deserve it.
(Well, no one ever deserves my rage, probably.)
And so I went a whole weekend without it, and I didn’t feel that much different. I felt relatively calm.
Until around 9:00 at night, when suddenly, I blew up. I directed all of my rage right at my husband, and I don’t even know what I was upset about. And in the back of my brain, I could hear that ever-familiar little voice saying, Stop it! Stop yelling! What’s wrong with you? While the front of my face was still blabbering like an idiot.
This is an occurrence that used to happen quite regularly – often directed at my kids, because they were there. I remembered it all very well.
The next morning I woke up, and went directly downstairs to take my amino acid. I surely hope I don’t forget again.