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Filed under 'still a problem': I have no way to adequately convey when I've hit the wall, or I'm cracking under stress.
I crack a joke, because stress, but cracking a joke makes it sound not-serious so nobody takes me seriously, or I try to discuss it seriously, but it sounds like I'm being melodramatic or, worse, planning on harming myself, which starts that whole, "No, I'm not going to kill myself, I don't need hugs, I just--I'm fine, okay? I'm fine! Nevermind!" reaction.
Sometimes the emotional brain just disengages and refuses to deal with shit anymore, leaving the absent-minded professor brain to man the phones, and since he's terrible at the vague, up-to-interpretation stuff like stress, he tries to explain what's going on in logic, with strange phrases like 'leaving the absent-minded professor brain to man the phones'.
Sometimes the professor brain disappears into a back room for a while, presumably to escape the endless interruptions, leaving emotional brain to jabber at the phones, except he's terrible at making sense of the emotional stuff like stress, so he throws out strange phrases like, "I'm two minutes from crawling under the desk and eating paper until I can build a Tooms cocoon."
Part of the problem seems to be that I don't realize I'm overstressed until I'm crawling under the desk, or until the stress affects my physical health and I'm flattened by a simple cold.
Since most of my stress at the moment is work-related, I need to learn to speak up and say, "Sorry, I can't take this task right now/with the attached deadline. Let me finish what's on my plate and I'll get back to you."
I also need to re-establish my schedule. I used to end my work-day early enough to wind down and sleep before dawn, so I woke with time to enjoy some daylight but still get to work on and finish overnight tasks before Asia woke up. Staying up late to work, past dawn some days, and then waking up to an inbox full of overnight tasks, is essentially working a double-shift all the time, and it's forcing me to choose between sleeping and everything-not-work. Worse, the more 'doubles' I work lately, the longer it takes me to complete even simple tasks, because stress and frazzling cut my productivity in half.
Reclaiming some environmental control would help, too. When life gets messy, so does the apartment; when work takes over my whole day, the apartment starts to become a cage. Eking a little personal time back out of the schedule, turning home back into home, and escaping it a bit more often, should be helpful.
So is a little non-work writing and editing. For some reason, when I can't string another sentence together for a client, it helps to take a moment, step aside, and write something of my own. It's like unclogging a pipe--or clearing out a cave-in at the word mines, maybe.
I also need a drink. No, I'm not escaping into or making a crutch of liquor and creating a worse problem for myself. It's just Friday.
I crack a joke, because stress, but cracking a joke makes it sound not-serious so nobody takes me seriously, or I try to discuss it seriously, but it sounds like I'm being melodramatic or, worse, planning on harming myself, which starts that whole, "No, I'm not going to kill myself, I don't need hugs, I just--I'm fine, okay? I'm fine! Nevermind!" reaction.
Sometimes the emotional brain just disengages and refuses to deal with shit anymore, leaving the absent-minded professor brain to man the phones, and since he's terrible at the vague, up-to-interpretation stuff like stress, he tries to explain what's going on in logic, with strange phrases like 'leaving the absent-minded professor brain to man the phones'.
Sometimes the professor brain disappears into a back room for a while, presumably to escape the endless interruptions, leaving emotional brain to jabber at the phones, except he's terrible at making sense of the emotional stuff like stress, so he throws out strange phrases like, "I'm two minutes from crawling under the desk and eating paper until I can build a Tooms cocoon."
Part of the problem seems to be that I don't realize I'm overstressed until I'm crawling under the desk, or until the stress affects my physical health and I'm flattened by a simple cold.
Since most of my stress at the moment is work-related, I need to learn to speak up and say, "Sorry, I can't take this task right now/with the attached deadline. Let me finish what's on my plate and I'll get back to you."
I also need to re-establish my schedule. I used to end my work-day early enough to wind down and sleep before dawn, so I woke with time to enjoy some daylight but still get to work on and finish overnight tasks before Asia woke up. Staying up late to work, past dawn some days, and then waking up to an inbox full of overnight tasks, is essentially working a double-shift all the time, and it's forcing me to choose between sleeping and everything-not-work. Worse, the more 'doubles' I work lately, the longer it takes me to complete even simple tasks, because stress and frazzling cut my productivity in half.
Reclaiming some environmental control would help, too. When life gets messy, so does the apartment; when work takes over my whole day, the apartment starts to become a cage. Eking a little personal time back out of the schedule, turning home back into home, and escaping it a bit more often, should be helpful.
So is a little non-work writing and editing. For some reason, when I can't string another sentence together for a client, it helps to take a moment, step aside, and write something of my own. It's like unclogging a pipe--or clearing out a cave-in at the word mines, maybe.
I also need a drink. No, I'm not escaping into or making a crutch of liquor and creating a worse problem for myself. It's just Friday.
