I have several emotional modes:

• "Relax, everything's going to be OK."
• "Hey, let's do something so fun and silly that everyone else think we're idiots."
• "I'm going to tell you my opinion because I like to think I know what I'm talking about."
• "I'm off to do something everyone says I can't do, and I'll quit (not fail) if it starts to disinterest me."
• "I think I'll stock up on canned goods and get prepared for nuclear winter."
• "It's snuggle time. Kisses and hugs for everyone."
• "Let's learn how to create our own universe and a wicker chair. Turn on some educational television, fire up the Internet, and get your coat on because we're heading to the nerd section of the book store."
• "I'm a failure; I should be ashamed of myself; and everyone hates me."

It's the last one that has been troubling me lately. It troubled me every day when I was growing up, but with lots of therapy, self-help books, and setting and achieving goal after goal, I've learned to pull myself out of the "I'm not worthy" mindset. It only comes back once in awhile, usually when there are stressful situations to deal with. And right now it's back. I know why it's there, and I'm working on fixing the events that invited it back into my life, but in the meantime, it has some nasty side-effects.

The stress builds up until I start feeling constant anxiety. Then that either turns into OCD flare-ups or panic attacks. My OCD has been driving me nuts lately.

I checked the door lock three times in a row before I left the house today.

Last night, I had to check that the burglar alarm was set correctly three times in a row, right after my husband already set it, and he's very capable of setting the alarm.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my kids to a playgroup, and the thoughts about germs everywhere were giving me chest pains and making me dizzy. Then my kids started playing on this giant climbing play structure, and all that kept going through my head was visions of my children falling off of the thing and breaking their necks. So I couldn't exactly enjoy chit-chatting with the other moms.

The day before that, I tried to go for a walk in the woods, but I was so freaked out by the idea of stepping on any slugs or worms that I had to try to avoid stepping on leaves (which is impossible during autumn in the woods). I gave up and went home.

So to reduce my stress, I decided to confine myself to my computer. My computer relaxes me. Everything on it is organized the way I want it, and I can just keep reorganizing everything until it's all just perfect. Not to mention, the kids can't get sick or hurt from it, and I won't accidentally kill anything with it. Plus, I can make a couple of dollars with it, so it makes me feel productive.

But there's still a problem. I can't just sit around on my computer all day because it's a safe happy place. I've got stuff to do, writing projects to finish, a family to interact with, and a house to manage, etc.

So it's time for me to try to go back to normal life, back to cooking dinner, cleaning up, finishing paperwork, and scribbling down some outlines for some writing projects.

Labels: My Life