My husband has been gently letting me know that I'm not acting like my normal self lately.

Intellectually, I realize that I can handle whatever life throws at me. I know that I'm surrounded by supportive people who love me. I know I'm smart. And I'm aware of all the accomplishments I've done. Nevertheless, I constantly have this feeling of stress and anxiety. It's exhausting.

I have insomnia that keeps me from getting more than 4 hours of sleep. I lay in bed replaying events from my past, like hurtful things that happened to me and hurtful things that I did to others or myself. It wears on me and makes me feel like I'm destined to be unworthy of anything good and incapable of succeeding at anything. I have a tremendous amount of anger, sadness, and guilt.

When I do fall asleep, I have nightmares. Most of them are either about somebody doing something cruel to me for no reason. Some of them are about some huge failure on my part causing something horrible to happen.

I had a panic attack the other day, but as soon as I figured out what it was, it stopped.

My OCD is getting extremely frustrating. I'm so tired of having to check things and clean things and check things again and put everything in the right place. Sometimes I just say, "I'm not going to do it," and I try to do something else instead, but I can't really focus on anything else. I have to wait for the anxiety to pass or until I'm sure that everything is OK. I'm trying very hard to not let things get worse.

My emotions have been extremely close to the surface, that I have a hard time holding them back. I saw a little girl crying the other day because she was scared to go to gymnastics class, and her dad was telling here that she was making a big deal out of nothing, and that made me break down right there.

The OCD and panic attacks get worse when there are issues that I'm not dealing with, usually issues that involve anger, guilt, and doubting my own abilities to do things right. So now I'm trying to deal with those issues.

It's just so exhausting.

See kids, even therapists, life coaches, counselors, teachers, doctors, and other "here's how to improve your life" gurus have issues. (The ones who don't are just pretending they don't.)

Labels: My Life

OK, so I'm still browsing through the CBN website. (I'm procrastinating. I'm supposed to be cleaning toilets right now.)

Let's talk about their article: "Ten Biblical Rules for a Happy Marriage"

My problem with the article isn't actually what they say. (My husband and I already do many of the things they suggest, and we have a great marriage.) But they suggest that everybody, regardless of circumstances, should follow their Biblical rules, no matter what, and I know quite a few couples who absolutely shouldn't take their advice.

Here's what annoys me:

"Never bring up mistakes of the past."

Yeah, like when you caught him with that hooker last night. It's in the past. Forget about it.

"Neglect the whole world rather than each other."

Don't talk to your friends. Don't take care of your kids. Don't go to work. Don't have a life of your own. Just sit around staring at each other all day.

"Never go to sleep with an argument unsettled."

So if your husband is beating you, make sure you apologize to him for being angry about it before you go to sleep.

"At least once a day, try to say something complimentary to your spouse."

Ummm, if you have to "try" to say something complimentary to your spouse, then you've got bigger issues to deal with. Especially if you can't think of anything complimentary or you have a disability that makes it impossible for you to communicate.

"Never meet without an affectionate welcome."

Wow, so if your spouse storms in the door, yelling and screaming, and demanding his dinner because, dammit, it's 6pm, then you should drop everything, run over to him, and give him a giant kiss. Forget about your dignity.

"'For richer or poorer' -rejoice in every moment that God has given you together."

Especially when you find out that your husband is actually a con artist who stole all your money, defrauded your employer, and cheated lots of poor people out of their last pennies. It's just money, right?

"If you have a choice between making yourself or your mate look good, choose your mate."

I swear officer, he never hits me. I just like beating myself with a baseball bat.

"If they're breathing, your mate will eventually offend you. Learn to forgive."

The Biblical passage they use to support this statement says that no matter how many times somebody rebukes you, you should forgive them and continue the relationship. Ummmm, no. I'm afraid I have too much self-respect for that.

"Don't use faith, the Bible, or God as a hammer."

I agree with that. A Bible makes a terrible hammer, and God is way too busy. Faith alone is useless, but have faith in an actual hammer, and it'll get the job done.

"Let love be your guidepost."

So you should let love guide you. But if you realize that you don't love your spouse anymore or your love turns toward somebody else... well then, of course, that's when you would ignore love because divorce is bad, and adultery is even worse, so don't even think about being with anybody else ever again.

Labels: Things that Annoy Me

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

The Imperial system (also known as the English system) is the most illogical system. Why do we still use it?

The Imperial / English System

Volume

3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon

2 tablespoons = 1 fluid ounce

8 fluid ounces = 1 cup

2 cups = 1 pint

2 pints = 1 quart

4 quarts = 1 gallon

Weight

16 ounces = 1 pound

14 pounds = 1 Stone

2 Stone = 1 Quarter

4 Quarter = 1 Hundredweight

20 Hundredweight = 1 Ton

Length

12 inches = 1 foot

3 feet = 1 yard

22 yards = 1 chain

10 chains = 1 furlong

8 furlongs = 1 mile

Area

1 acre = 1 furlong x 1 chain

Now, wasn't all of that just obvious? Why would we ever want to convert to the metric system, in which everything is based on 10? Moving a decimal to the left or right would just be too complicated.

Labels: Things that Annoy Me