My battle continued

Sorry to keep you hang'n like that, but "Blogging for Dummies" told me that readers preferred shorter posts so I thought you might need a break. If you are just tuning in, please scroll down to the previous post and begin there.

Where was I, oh yes... Never did I imagine that my casual viewing of The Donna Reed show would have such life long implications. You see, sometime between 1985 and 1994 I was exposed to Donna Reed Syndrome or DRS. DRS, in short, is a fictitious disease that makes women believe they can, and should, live up to the Donna Reed standard of womanhood, which of course is impossible to do. In most cases, as was true in my case, the symptoms lay dormant for years until the day the woman says the fateful words "I do" at which time the disease attacks the woman with a vengeance.

At first I did not recognize I had the syndrome, I just thought it was fun to put on my apron to tidy up the house (apron was short lived, and proud to say my disease has yet to progress to the heels and pearls) and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to time our evening meals to hit the table right when my husband walked in the door from a hard day at work. But as the newness of our marriage wore off, I slowly began to relax in my chores and dinners became less elaborate. I was entering my first remission period since the disease turned into full fledged DRS and I was unprepared for the ugly side effects of coming off a Donna High.

You see, the most dangerous side effect of DRS is that the unsuspecting and often clueless husband of the DRS sufferer begins to think this "Donnaesk" lifestyle is the norm, and therefore feels blindsided the first time a cold sandwich is placed before him for dinner. He then will proceed to make an innocent comment about the meal or the stack of laundry piling up in the bathroom. Now most healthy women can handle a little criticism from their husbands and move on, but for the woman with DRS even the slightest hint of criticism will send her into a deep depression and feelings of failure and guilt. Unfortunately, for this reason, most remission periods are short lived. And sadly enough the disease often attacks harder with the next bout because the woman convinces herself she can fix what went wrong last time with just a little more planning and organization. So sad, huh... To be continued.