The Stress Monster Is An Ugly Beast

Ever since I was in high school, I have known that I do not deal well with stress. And you would think that would make my life easier- knowing that I have to do certain things to calm myself down when stress comes at me. If I don't do some yoga or deep breathing or listen to some quiet music or read or whatever it is I need to do, a chain of events occurs, and the further into that chain I get the harder it is to come back around to balance.

1. If I get stressed I do not fall asleep. Obviously, this creates more stress, trying to function with 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night.
2. If I don't get enough sleep I start hitting the caffeine. I talk about this like it is a drug- it is.
3. If I have too much caffeine, not enough sleep, and throw in some low-quality food, my IBS starts acting up and I seriously want to die from pain (for a relatively brief period of time).
4. Any combination of stress, lack of sleep, and lack of balance brings on some serious panic attacks. Which causes my stomach to churn, my heart to pound, brings on a feeling of disassociation, and ultimately I start shaking uncontrollably. The last time this happened was in September. I'm lucky- in college I got to a point where I had 2+ hour panic attacks 3 or 4 nights a week before I started going to therapy.

Behavioral therapy helped a lot, and I feel very lucky that I got through that time without the help of medication. Don't get me wrong, if there is anyone out there who needs medication to get through a disorder like this, I completely understand (and I sure as heck won't rule it out for the future). But I felt very strongly that I had to try to understand what was going on before I started with chemical treatments. For me, just understanding that there is an adrenaline cycle associated with panic disorders was an enormous help. Eventually I got healthier, and started sleeping better.

Why am I writing about this? As a reminder really. Work is not good right now. I love my job but it has been extremely difficult this week. At the end of the day I come home drained. I'm exhausted and all I want to do is sleep, but sleep is not coming. I'm not sure what to do. I do yoga, I get regular exercise. But I'm not sure how long I can deal with the mounting internal pressure.

I need to remember that this stress is controllable because I choose to let it affect me. Like everything else, I am realizing that life has many more choices than I thought it did. I went grocery shopping today and got really good healthy food, this afternoon I walked. I reminded myself throughout the day that I am a human being from the planet earth. (Isn't that great? that's my "meditation" from The Birthday Book, and it makes me snicker every time I think about it, but at the same time it is so true.) If I can't get all of the work done today, it will get done tomorrow, and if it doesn't get done tomorrow there is always Monday. So I can stop being a perfectionist because I give myself permission to.

So I guess that's the bottom line- I give myself permission to be stressed. And I can just as easily give myself permission to NOT be stressed. I guess I need to hang on to that for the next couple of months.

BSG

This may be the nerdiest post I've ever written. But the time has come for me to rant about Battlestar Galactica, and how disjointed the show has become this season. I wish that they would go back to the main characters that I cared anything about, instead of fracturing the story with all of these supporting characters and sub-plots. Not only does it get confusing, but I lose focus and then I just don't care. Why the filler episode last night? Do they really have nothing to say before building up to a cliff-hanger of a season finale? I want to see small stories concluded, and I'd like to see pacing pick up more. My main points:

• Bring back not only Six stuck in Baltar's head, but Baltar stuck in Six's head. And not for 2 minutes. That was one of the most entertaining reversals on the show.
• Starbuck is way stronger and better than she's allowed to be this season. First she starts as some Cylon's prisoner, and I think she lost her spark. She does best drunk and/or angry and/or flying. She's a great pilot. Don't get her bogged down in romance or affairs.
• Dualla- again, way too strong to stand by and let Lee act like an idiot.
• Gaeta? What's the deal with him? When will this be revealed? He nearly killed Baltar, and I want to know what went down on New Caprica.
• What the heck happened to the Eye of Jupiter/Temple stuff? Are they ever getting any closer to finding earth?
  
• I do not care much about Sharon and Helo, or Cally and Cheif Tyrol. These characters get in the way of the real story.
• Personally I think that the whole New Caprica plotline on BSG might have messed up the entire series. There was a huge jump, a lot of the relationships changed, and I'm not feeling entertained anymore. I'm feeling cheated.

There, nerd-rant over.

Mexico

I went on a business trip to the middle of Mexico last week, and here were the good things:

1. Mexican food- namely beans, cheese, more cheese, and fantastic steak. ("So good you'd slap your grandma. Twice!")
2. El Christo de las Noas. Waaaay up in the mountains where John Wayne movies were filmed. It is a very peaceful place. They're still building a lot of it.
3. The people. Mexicans are some of the friendliest people I've ever met.
4. Catching a mistake that would potentially have cost my company over $60,000.
5. The beautiful weather. 80 degrees of dry desert heat. In February. Awesome.

The bad things:

1. The smell of Mexico in the early mornings could knock you clear off your feet. I heard rumors of a sewage treatment plant "issue".
2. The traffic. Insanity! It really puts offensive driving skills to the test. I couldn't drive down there (visitors aren't insured for company cars), but you just give me a chance and I would be great at it.
3. I was on doctor-ordered antibiotics the whole time. Ick.
4. I missed my sweetie.
5. The poverty. Even a few of the people who work in our factories live in cardboard houses, and when managers tell me the wages are "really good for Mexico" I wonder what that means exactly. The drive up to El Christo was through a neighborhood that started out okay, but progressively got worse until there was no electricity or doors on the houses, just curtains. And the houses were piles of stones that were so haphazard I wasn't sure it WAS a house until someone walked out of it.

The Dream

The other night I had a dream. Sam and I were in my parent's old house. About the minute the contractions started, we realized I was pregnant. There was no time for a doctor, there was no time for a hospital, Sam was on his own. I passed out from pain and exhaustion halfway through. When I woke up, there was this little shining baby girl wrapped in blankets and looking at me in that totally unfocused newborn baby way. I was overcome with this feeling of total awe and emotion. We had made this person together.

Of course, we then realized that we were in no way prepared for this totally unexpected baby and we had to go to Walmart and find essentials like diapers and bottles and clothes and a crib and blankets and a car seat and all of these things that were really, you know, necessary. And we got back home to this baby (who was sleeping safely in a dishpan seeing as there wasn't a crib or anything), and I was so worried but so excited.

I know exactly where this dream came from. Ms. Hormonal Pregnant woman at work just had her baby on Monday, and she (the baby) is so cute. I don't think I'm having a biological clock meltdown or anything. I'm not ready for all that. One day I will be. But pregnancy scares the hell out of me.

Ah HA!

It seems the snow gods smiled on me after all! I woke up this morning, glanced at the funny light coming through the window and thought, "Surely not?!" But yes, it snowed over 2 inches last night! Hurray for pancakes and cocoa and pjs and fuzzy slippers!

I will smack my meteorologist

The predictions last night were dire: 2 inches of snow covered with ice overnight, with 2 more inches today. People raced to the store for bread and milk. The news did major coverage of the road crews laying salt solution on every overpass they could find. I know that in most parts of the country this is not a big deal, but in this fair southern city you might as well shut everything down when there is 4 inches of snow on the ground. We're simply not equipped to handle that, both in machinery to move it, and experience to drive in it.

So this morning I wake up, and stretch. Visions of pancakes and hot cocoa dance through my head as I imagine a leisurely breakfast before the roads cleared and I drove in to work. I bounded to the window in my pajamas, open the blind, and... nothing. Not one speck of anything even resembling frozen precipitation.

No leisurely breakfast in my bathrobe watching The Today Show.
No quiet day at the office with half the staff unable to get out of their subdivisions.
No pretty glistening fairy-land trees covered in ice.
I didn't even have to scrape my car. What a letdown!