We’re back with another installment of emotifeelings and me. Sure, today was the first day at the new job, but I’m not ready to break that down for you yet. I’d like to chat with Nora first and hear how the things sound coming out of my mouth. For now, though, let’s delve into the next symptom of alexithymia…
“poor coping skills when it comes to dealing with stress“
I’m not sure how much I can break this one down. It seems to me I have an on/off switch when it comes to stress. There is a lot of life that I really don’t see as affecting me in terms of stress, but then something like getting a bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs with no green might send me into a spiral. I’m joking a bit about the eggs.
What it seems to come down to is that if there is something that causes stress in my mind, I completely fall apart and can’t think logically about it at all. I obsess about finding an answer to whatever the problem is, but not productively. Let’s say the issue is that I have to make five desserts for an event, and I need to go to three different stores to get ingredients. I get to the first store that is supposed to have the demerara brown sugar I need and can’t find it. I’ll ask food store associate #1 for help, but they can’t find it either. I ask food store associate #2, same issue. #’s 3,4,5 are all unable to help. Soon I have the whole store looking, and while they are looking I venture off on my own looking because you just don;t know where it might be. Meanwhile, the heavy whipping cream I grabbed is starting to curdle, and the fresh fruits are rotting. Not to mention I haven’t even mapped out how to get to the next store. Pretty soon it’s time for the store to close, I still don;t have my brown sugar. I ask if we can keep looking, but they kick me out. I go home and look up on the internet where the brown sugar is located inside the store. The next morning I head back to the store to start looking in the same spots over and over. I never find the sugar, nor do I ever move on so I can accomplish everything else. I can’t even conceive of putting energy somewhere else because it seems irresponsible not to put all my effort towards this one part of the greater whole.
So, yeah, it’s not a great strategy there.
How do you manage stress?