Anxiety

I may have mentioned, a time or two, that I have anxiety issues.

In fact, I think a couple of my tags deal specifically with anxiety (hoarding, work, nameless faceless ones) and anxiety-related minutiae (stress, awkwardness, freaking out).

I don't know where my assorted anxieties sprang from, nor when they will strike. Sometimes, they are logical (anything related to the Crane & Sheep Festival, for instance), but most of the time they come out of nowhere and blindside me.

Today was a perfect example. Brittany's family is leaving town, and they were having a get together. It started in the afternoon and carried on into the evening.

I couldn't go.

Every time I thought about putting on a clean shirt and walking over there, I started to panic. I tried breathing exercises. I burned incense. I reminded myself over and over that I am friendly with Brittany and Chris, that Matt and Kara were over there, that I hadn't been invited for the sole purpose of people making fun of me or reading my secret diary* or poking me with hatpins. It just wasn't helping.

Finally, I rallied my strength around 8:00, and started the walk over to their house. With every step, the anxiety grew. When I finally got to their house, I kept walking. I walked into the golf course, into a thicket of trees, and stood there, almost in tears. I stood there for almost ten minutes, just listening to the trees and focusing on breathing.

I did eventually make it into the house. I sat on a chair and listened to the conversations going on around me. I initially turned down the offer of a drink, because I was afraid I would start shaking or knock it over. I think I was there half an hour before I accepted a glass of water. I didn't eat anything (which is a shame, because some of the dessert-type-things looked amazing).

No one poked me with hatpins. My diary remains unread. Maybe they made fun of me after I went home, although I seriously doubt that.

There's a note scrawled on my refrigerator - I wrote it back in 2009, after a conversation I had with my sister Hezz, long before I came here. It says, "I'm always surprised by how quickly a conversation about how I'm not comfortable in social settings can degenerate into, 'Maybe you need to see a psychiatrist.' So quickly!"

I don't know, maybe I do need to see a psychiatrist. Until then, I guess I'll just keep trying to slay the demons on my own.


*Yes, I have a secret diary. No, I'm not telling you what's in it.

Back to School

So, I'm heading out to Whitehorse in a couple of hours. I'm wavering between excitement and anxiety. (That is an almost daily waver, by the way.)

I'm taking a course on Financial Management in Cultural Organizations, which is supposed to help me with the parts of my job that are related to the Interpretive Centre. All I know is, there are a bunch of readings to be read, and some prepatory assignments to be handed in, and I need to get them finished before I leave town so I can print them out when I stop at the office. (Again. I swear, by the time I go I will have spent just as much time in the office this weekend as I did on Friday.)

So, exciting, right? Yeah, totally...except for my feelings of panic re: all the other stuff I need to be doing at the moment, which I won't be doing when I'm in WH. Or worse, that I'll be trying to do while I'm in WH, while simulatneously trying to pass my course.

In the middle of all this anxcitement (excienty? there isn't a really good mashup word yet), there had better be some shrimp sushi, is all I'm saying.

In Which Our Heroine Lets Down the Internet

Hello, Internet.

It's been a while. I know, I know, I haven't exactly been keeping up my end of our bargain - namely, that you provide me with trivia about background extras on TV shows, information about funding services, and M*A*S*H quotes, and in return I give you more than a crummy little update saying that I'm not frozen. Sorry, Internet.

It's just that I don't think you want to hear about my struggle with the cycle of dirty/clean dishes (How do I create so many dishes when Kara cooks dinner for me 5 nights a week?), why I let my laundry pile up until I am wearing heavy wool socks with a tweed skirt, or how I haven't had anyone in to fix the upstairs toilet even though I've been in my current house since September. I want to be interesting, Internet. I know you understand.

Be honest, Internet - would you still respect me if I told you that I watched 2.5 seasons of NCIS in one weekend while quilting? That the only times I got off the couch were to feed the woodstove or get another cup of tea? Because I've done that. (Sometimes the DVDs are different, but you get the drift.)

I did do one interesting thing in the last little while, though. I did an interview for Sharing Travel Experiences. Poor Andy - he sent me the questions in December, and it took me just short of forever to get them back to him. You know how I get, with the need for everything to be just so. The questions were easily answered, but I got hung up on the photos, and the longer I debated about the photos, the more embarrassed I was at how long it was taking. It was like a shame spiral.

But it's done, it's up, and I've had a number of people tell me they liked it, so I'm happy. And I was ordered by someone who is in the office frequently to get busy and update my blog, so this one's for you, Harold ^_^

Try to tamp it down

The anxiety, that is.

I'm a naturally anxious person. I worry about stuff that I have no control over, and I worry even more about things I have even the slightest amount of control over. I worry about things that didn't happen but might have happened (example - the time I nearly got hit in the face with a taiko drumstick while the PE teacher was pounding out the accompaniment to the Nen-cho class's Sports Day display - I still wake up in a cold sweat about that).

It's hard to let go of anxiety when it feels like it's the reason you exist. This job doesn't help that. The job itself is great, but all the uncertainty surrounding it makes it very difficult to know what I am doing from moment to moment. And, naturally, my already high anxiety-levels skyrocket.

I'm having breakouts. My hair is falling out again. I eat stuff I know I shouldn't. And it just builds on itself.

But there are nice things, too. Yesterday, Bernice made me a BLT and Caesar salad for lunch, and Kara had me over for moose stir-fry. (Kara also let me use some of her photos for a new sekrit project which I hope will bring in some tourists - yay Kara!) I had a delicious peach for breakfast.

I guess I just need something around that reminds me not to let anxiety get the best of me. Perhaps it's time for some new tattoos ^_^


EDIT - And then I read this entry from Celia McBride, and I remember to notice the sun shining on the mountains.

Rarrrr!

Look out, world! Today I am wearing my fiercest red sandals, and I am feeling stompy.

Where do emotions come from? Why am I suddenly filled with rage? I don't know. Nothing happened in the past five minutes to make me angry. But I want to stomp on things. I want to throw mugs at walls and shout rude, cryptic insults at passers-by.

Is this what insanity feels like?

In non-crazy news, I have less than 4 days to get my home prepared for the coming of the Parental Units (figuring in time spent driving to WH [twice], at a council meeting, and at work). I am both excited and exhausted, and they aren't even here yet.

Tonight I have to take my recycling to the Bottle Depot. I may have enough money coming to buy myself more booze. That would be both a blessing and a curse. It's hard to clean when one is stumbling around like a schmo.

Blaming the Sky

So much of my life seems to centre around stress lately.

There is work-stress, which is the most predominant. Even when I'm not in the office, I am almost always thinking about it. I have a hard time sleeping because I start to think about what is going on in the office, and my brain whirls and whirls until I'm exhausted but unable to shut down.

There is money-stress, which I brought on myself by being hasty about moving out and by my rampant internet spending.

Then there's the unnamed stress that wells up inside my chest and cuts off my breathing. I worry about Collapsing Colony Disorder and what we will do if all the bees disappear. I worry about developing cancer. I worry that I am going to lose my sight and my teeth will fall out.

Worry, worry, worry.

This morning, as I walked to work, the valley was full of fog. The temperature dropped last night, and all the grasses at the side of the road looked as though they had been dipped in liquid nitrogen and returned to their original spots. I felt like if I were to wander on to the Golf Course, I would be swallowed up in the mist and wouldn't have to deal with all the hoo-ha waiting for me in the office.

I'm almost wishing the week would end now so I could start over again on Monday. Surely things will be easier next week.