be honest with myself and others

I’m stressed, and anxious. There, I said it, publically, no less. People who know me have, of course, known this all along. But you didn’t hear it from me, until now, at least. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been going around telling everyone I’m just fine, saying things like “the changes are really hard on my family,” and “my SO and kids are not coping very well with the prospect of moving, or this, or that.” I told my SO this weekend that I am perfectly calm and at peace with the decisions we are making right now. That all will be as it should be (which I happen to firmly believe). I’ve been saying “shhh” and “calm down,” kissing foreheads and giving hugs, keenly tuned to the psyches of those around me. But the truth is, I’ve been focusing on the issues and well-being of friends and family as a means of avoiding my own. In the meantime, I have been sleeping less and less, writing less and less, and eating more and more. At best I have been frenetic. At worst, scattered. I have found myself forcing down a continuous stream of generalized worry. I have had a stomach ache for two days now. All the while I have refused to admit that my life is raising my anxiety level, and have thus denied myself healthy outlets for my stress.

The thing is, I know myself. This is nothing unmanageable, with the right coping skills in place. Not at all. But by not admitting it, I have let my stress build up into something that is taking a toll. Like eleven years of packratting in our home, I have stowed away anxiety, let it build up, until it seeps out the edges, takes on a life of its own.

So now I am admitting it. I am saying to you all, not for sympathy or empathy or any recognition, I’m stressed out. Plain and simple. I’m saying this for myself, so that I can get on with the business of dealing with it.

Opportunities for self-honesty present themselves in the most unexpected of places. Recently I have been faced with opportunities to unpack my own reactions to things. I do not take these opportunities for granted. I find that in life it is easy to form personal reactions that fit readily within the window of expectation and normative thinking, and I do it often, automatically in fact, without truly understanding my reactions, let alone unpacking them. I am not by nature a reactionary person, so the intellectual response, weighing various outside constraints, comes easily to me. The visceral, passionate response is there, and strong, but does not get pulled out very often in the day-to-day. Like our dancing shoes (or thigh-high stilettos) in the midst of a busy work week, that response is not always functional, or appropriate, or not practical, at least. The problem is, the large-thinking intellectual approach rarely leads to honesty, certainly not honesty with one’s self.

Recently I have been blessed with opportunities to delve into my reactions, either out of necessity, due to the lack of an applicable normative benchmark, or due to the implied or exemplified charge by key others to move outside those first reactions. What I have found has been enlightening and energizing, and so very, very valuable.