Stress, That Bitch

   It is a strange and annoying phenomenon how every stressful requirement comes due all at once.  The need to deal with such things as appointments with government departments such as EDD or the DMV, work and/or school projects, cleaning the house and other important tasks and errands, all come and weigh on us at the same time.  Is it a psychological reaction to stress itself,  "I need to get this one very important thing done."-  leads to thinking and stressing about everything that needs to get done? Or is it that everything really does just so happen to rain down all at once?

   The feeling of utter relief and a sense of accomplishment sets in almost immediately when we realize we were able to get everything done.  This doesn't always happen though; sometimes we can't get it all done or something goes wrong that complicates and ruins all our hard work. Or maybe it just doesn't seem to ever end.  Once we make a little headway in our long list of get-it-done-nows, another task or two gets added to the list.  The desire to just give up, it will never get done so why even try, is a strong one.  Most of us persevere despite our depression and sense of dread and overwhelming exhaustion.  We all have our reasons for not giving up: pride, family that relies on us, the fear of the consequences for not fulfilling our duties...

  Some people thrive on stress while others crumble under the weight of it.  There is always that one person we all love to hate who seems to holler "Stress?  Oh yeah, baby, pile it on some more! I can handle it!"  God, we'd just love to deck that overachieving try-hard...mostly because we envy their ability to actually handle the stress and get it all done.  Most of us fall into the other category. We silently suffer and scream to ourselves, "Please, God, just make it all go away!  I need a break!"  No matter which of these categories we might fall into there is still one more category that both the handle-it-wells and the sufferers hate even more than each other, the "Stress?  what stress?  I have never experienced this thing called stress." kind of person.  They seem to have never had to try or be responsible for anything in their lives.  Everything good just falls into their lap and God forbid anything unfortunate should come their way.  I think we all agree, those people need to die in a fire.

   There are a million different quirky coping mechanisms that people use to deal with their feelings of stress.  Smoking, fits of rage, drinking, exercise, drugs, nail-biting, nervous talking, crying, hot baths, sex, pacing, twitches, music, gaming, gambling, eating and/or cooking, cleaning, cutting...well there are just way too many to list.   It is interesting to sit back and watch people in public places, you can so easily pick out the different quirks that manifest when they are under a lot of stress.  Try it sometime.

   The reality is that stress will always be in our lives, there is no ignoring it.  There is no escaping it. In the end all we can do is sit back and take a deep breath.  Take it one day at a time, the stress we feel today, the problems we face right this moment honestly, probably, most likely, may not last forever.