Coming Out of Hiding

I disappeared again. Sorry about that.

When things get stressful, I have two ways of dealing with it depending on the level of stress. I either cry more frequently and easily, which means I'm processing it and dealing with it, or I crawl inside of myself and shut down. The second one is the dangerous one. That's where I don't vent and share my concerns, and it leads to dark places. Spring Break couldn't have come at a better time - it's giving me the time and space to extract myself from my protective shell. It's helping, but the fear and stress is still there - every morning I wake up thinking "Oh GOD, I only have X amount of days until I have to go back..." I seriously have a week left, and I'm feeling like it's too short. THAT'S how bad work has become. *sigh*

The other bad part of the crawling inward is that it shuts down all urges to self-care. When I'm in shut-down mode, all I want to do is come home, stuff my face with crap food to stuff down my emotions, then go to sleep and hope I don't wake up. (Told you I get DARK!) So this break from work is also a BREAK from being inside that dark place. I've been hanging out with friends and family every day this week. I've made sure to do some chores every day, and I've home-cooked dinner the last few nights too - it feels so good to WANT to take care of our home, and it's oddly relaxing as well. I was actually dreading being on break, too, because it reminds me too much of being unemployed; considering I'm facing the job hunt again now, it's especially not fun to feel unemployment again. When I'm unemployed, I go to that shut-down place because I hate sitting around doing nothing, when the only thing I HAVE to do is "chores" I feel worthless. It helps that this week I've had a reason to leave the house every day; when I come home or before I leave, I'm willing to do some housework and cook dinner. Maybe THAT'S the secret for my next bout of unemployment: Find a reason to get out of the house every day. I don't do well as a hermit.

The point of this post is to state that I'm improving. I'm not ok yet, but I feel like I'm getting there. I'm trying to figure out how to keep my sanity as I finish up these last few months at the job so that I don't start the summer drowning in misery. That's my goal - it might require some outside help, and that's ok. I'm going to look into it.

Let's end this post on a beautiful note: Friday, the last day of work before the break, some more BS happened. Rather than go home and go into shut down mode, I went to my favorite grocery store and treated myself to a $4 bouquet of flowers - it's bloomed more since and is just GORGEOUS. Best $4 I've spent lately.