Stressed? NO!.. Maybe

Ready, Set, Done

Our weekly free-write is back: take ten minutes — no pauses! — to write about anything, unfiltered and unedited. You can then publish the post as-is, or edit a bit first — your call.

How do you know if you are stressed if you don’t feel particularly stressed? 

Given everything in the last month I am craving my bed day. A day in which the most I do is change TV channels and order a take away to be delivered. I miss my bed day, I haven’t had one for so long. It’s something I like to do at least once a week, I think it’s very important for me to have a day every week where I do nothing, speak to no one and concentrate on what’s going on in my head.

My best friend said to me not long ago that I’m probably really stressed but I don’t realise it because I’m just used to it. She may be right. I have in the last few years gone through several ‘stressful’ events/situations from losing jobs and relationships to losing people. I’m only realising stress maybe hiding away deep inside of myself because I’m noticing it in my mother.

My Mother: Without question the strongest woman I have ever met. She has now lost both parents and had to organise and reorganise the life’s of everyone left behind. She is the reason the family doesn’t just melt down with tears after a death, she is the reason that people around her are strong because she radiates strength. A lot of who I am comes from her, whether it’s in the genes or I have just grown up admiring and copying. But after the strength and sheer power she has shown, especially in the last month with Gran passing away, I now think it’s time for me to step up and be there for her.

Today I should have been getting a van to empty Grans bungalow. I have been let down by a friend getting the van, which has really kind of pi**ed me off, but my mother really didn’t mind. “It’s OK we can do it next week” she said calmly. But I then realised. I realised that she had been going to that bungalow for the last ten years and after Granddad died three years ago she would make daily visits. The last two months she’d been going up there two, sometimes three, times a day. It’s just short of a month that my Gran passed but still she’s been going up almost everyday.

Now she needs me to help her let it go because no one else will and she will never admit she needs help.

But in realising that this Superwoman needs help with something I realised that maybe I should just admit that I do too. The last month I have exhausted myself and I admit now that it’s having an effect. But it’s on my health. I don’t want to go into it in great detail but flaring IBS and flacking skin are the warning signs. My hair started falling out years ago but I’m sure my beard has more white in it than it used to.

I was reading up this morning on signs and symptoms of stress. Yeah I have a few signs but this is the problem with internet self diagnosis. I’m fairly sure somebody somewhere has convinced themselves they have elephantiasis due to internet self diagnosis. I read about Iceberg Stress. My internet search question was ‘can I be stressed without knowing it’. The answer it would seem is yes.

Mentally I am fine. I don’t feel stressed, I still laugh, I still smile, I still look at a rainbow and find beauty. But maybe I will run in to my Kryptonite one day. And that’s a day I want to be prepared for. I am quite self aware and I know my own mind but what if my brain throws me a curve ball. I don’t want to lose it.

This is why I want a bed day soon. A whole day sitting in bed, doing nothing but sorting through the files of my brain and placing them in the correct cabinets. My mind palace would be my bedroom and I would be surrounded by filing cabinets containing every thought I’d ever had filed away in the correct drawer.

Maybe I should remember the lessons I learn from Doctor Who…