Category: Mental

…but stress sure does make for some vivid and bizarre dreams!

I exercised today. Just some situps and pushups. That’s a start. Exercise fights depression. Mother Nature has thrown a gloomy, cold, gray, rainy day my way. None-the-less, I feel motivated to get back on the track.

Stress is high right now. So high I can feel the blood coursing through my veins. I am not having dizzy spells but if I do not get this under control, I could see them happening in the not to distant future.

What has me stressed? Two factors. Primarily a coding project to which I have volunteered my services. My piece is now mission critical. The other is that always present thing which some people mistakenly think can not buy you happiness…money. I should have control over both of these but this morning they have control over me. It’s a simple trick of the mind. I’m thinking about these things so much that I’m not accomplishing anything.

There are dreamers that dream
And dreamers that do.

[Source unknown..I always thought that was Ogden Nash but maybe it was me :)]

So I need to do more and think less. As I type this, it occurs to me that neither the project nor money is the problem. I am simply addicted to brain crack (language warning).

This video contains words that begin with the letter F.

Update: Coffee must have kicked in. I’m on fire now!

Stress will make my life shorter.

I woke this morning feeling hung over but I didn’t have anything to drink. For that matter, I had a decent amount of sleep, slept like a rock, and had ultra vivid dreams. I know getting a handle on my stress is essential. The side effects of stress that I’m experiencing are increased absentmindedness, memory loss (rather recall issues..I believe the memories are there but the ability to draw them out is hindered by stress), sore muscles, headache, blurred vision, and exhaustion.

I want to live a long stress-free life. Time to get back to Quad II.

Today my muscles are sore for no reason other than being stressed. How can a mental state make muscles ache?

I just flipped back in my journal to four years ago.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. –Albert Einstein

I’m certifiable.

This weekend’s mental weather was bad. It was a very important weekend to me and couldn’t have gone more wrong. However, it was a productive weekend and in that rewarding. The weekend had a bizarre dichotomy of suffering and pleasure.

Today’s forecast: mental collapse with occasional screams of agony and afternoon showers of salty tears.

Tomorrow’s forecast: stroke.

I don’t know when the panic attacks began. I did not have them in my single digits. Up until 10 years old, I was a relatively happy go-lucky kid. I don’t remember panic attacks or anxiety in my early teens either even around 14 years old when I thought my parents were heading for divorce. But that’s a different a story. When I was 14, 15 and 16 I lived in New Jersey and my dad’s driving or perhaps the other people’s driving or perhaps just those crazy traffic circles scared the living daylights out of me but that wasn’t panic, that was fear. I had become very aware of my own mortality. But that’s a different story. Late teens, college years, first career, no panic attacks. There was stress but not irrational anxiety or panic.

Ah, I do know when the panic attacks began. They began in 2000 when the life I had known collapsed around me. Two years prior I had been laid off from a great job with a predictable decent salary and an aggressive debt reduction plan including a cute little graph that showed the day I would throw a huge party to celebrate not owing money to anyone. My first wife left me. Routine and structure were gone. All my dreams vanished. There was no more money. And when I would wake up enough to try to visualize a solution to all the problems, anxiety would set in and all I could do is hide in bed and try to sort it out, a full blown panic attack.

I am sure panic attacks are different for different people. Even for me a panic attack could vary from a clouded head just wanting to hide from my problems to a brainstorming problem solving session. Usually it was the brainstorming problem solving sessions that got me. My mind would rush through different scenarios trying to solve all the problems. If I did A, B then C certainly D, E and F would happen but what if B didn’t go as planned then instead of C I might end up at L and I certainly cannot get to D from L so lets plan for the L, M, N, O scenario but what if B did go as planned and it was C that didn’t work I still wouldn’t get to D because I would be on the T, U, V, W plan. That’s similar to trying to play the whole game of chess out in your head before making your opening move. That’s what my mind used to do a lot and still occasionally does. The problem with this extreme forward thinking is that nothing happens because instead of making move A you are laying in bed thinking about it instead of doing. And lack of action exacerbates the problems.

For the most part, I don’t have panic attacks anymore. I have had several interesting life developments as well as some great teachers and guides help free me of the habits I used to imprison myself. However, this morning I did wake in a panic attack. It was more of an irrational fear than a planning session. Panic attacks leave you feeling stressed, tired, and a bit hollow inside. It was a reminder that I really don’t want to slip back into my old ways.