I suffer from chronic stress how about you?
admin October 19th, 2008
Well, I discovered tonight that there are four different types of stress and I believe that I have suffered most from chronic stress. In my lifetime I’ve seemed to maintain a good level of continuous stress with having older parents and caring for them as time went on. Seeing my the death of both of my parents one quickly one very painfully slow. Having a daughter with social anxiety and dealing with my own anxiety. My life can be encapsulated as one big ball of stress, a train ride if you will that I have had little success getting off. So I wonder why I’m feeling tired, have a thyroid problem, suffer from panic attacks and lack drive (in many areas). If you read the article about how stress affects our health http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/stresshealth.htm the amount of stress that most of us endure in our daily lives is not all that good for us and is quite taxing on our bodies.
Hmm…so the fact that it’s 10:30 p.m. and I just finished sending out an email to Sydney’s teacher in order to get our week established doesn’t seem that stressful. Well, in some ways it isn’t..I mean how hard is it to send email and it’s not uncommon for people to send out emails at ungodly hours but there is a difference when it’s a one off email and when it’s part of everyday life; that being “on” all the time and always having to be one step ahead. Well, that’s what life is like for me. We decided (the BAT team and I) last week that we should start easing Sydney into the idea of staying for lunch instead of coming home. So as of this week on Tuesday we were supposed to start implementing her staying at school by me going into to the classroom to be a classroom monitor. There physically but not intentionally for just her. I would be staying for the whole duration of lunch for the first four days and then moving 5 minutes back each 4-5 days.
Well, I was just sitting in bed writing out my to do list (because if I don’t I miss things that I really shouldn’t) and discovered that this week on Wednesday was picture day. Oh glorious picture day. For some, picture day is all about neat clothes, perfect hair and smiles that are bright. In our house picture day for Sydney usually develops as a proof of three different crying positions. Some with hands on face, some with side profile of hands on lap and hair in front of face and last years pose was head tilted down, hair in the face and tears streaming down. For Sydney this day is absolutely traumatic. I’m hoping that this year since we’ve had such a more positive experience that perhaps at least the group picture will have Sydney standing beside the teacher looking ahead. In the grand scheme of things there are lots of other photo opportunities and this doesn’t faze me a bit, I just hope that the photographer just shoots when she sits down and ends it quickly for her. Kind of like taking off a band-aid, the quicker the better.
So here it is nearly 10:30 and in reviewing the week the thought occurs to me that she’ll be just a day into the transition of staying for lunch which involves staying for first recess (yet another terrifying thing for her) and then she has the dreaded picture day. Yikes! I immediately emailed the teacher and told her about the failures of previous years and explained what might work better and then proceeded to explain my reasoning for pushing the lunch thing until Thursday. What difference is two days going to make really? I have faith that like everything else this year we have met eye to eye on everything and the understanding of Sydney’s fears and anxiety is tremendous so I’m sure we together will work it all out.
But back to the idea of how stress directly affects our health. I suppose I could leave the “thinking” stress alone and not be so anticipatory of things to come it the future but it’s just better for all of us if we think things through. That’s the most difficult thing I think for me these days is that I always feel “on”, planning, preparing, anticipating. I suppose that’s why late at night when my husband and I have a couple minutes to ourselves when the kids have gone to bed I want the sounds of either the TV, or music or even us talking to be quiet because by the end of the day I’m feeling very tired of everyone wanting a piece of me..of my brain for remembering, of my hands for healing cuts and scrapes, of my arms for holding and picking up things. I don’t think I’m at the chronic stress point anymore as it states in the article but stress, that runs a plenty in our house for me.I’m sure it does for most parents. It states some key points on how to eleviate that stress and thankfully for me between seeing my naturopath (of whom I absolutely could not live without) and working on this blog I find a couple minutes peace in my day. Now to encorporate some YOGA…hhmmm where in the world should that go?
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