The Stress Monster

As I seem quite capable of keeping the Depression Beast at bay for the time being, its little sister the Stress Monster has crept in.

I am currently entering my busy time of the year, as we have a lot of projects going to the printers for the summer/fall in-store dates. All of the series and titles wind up being on me to finalize or pick up (if they are reprints), and send out. At the same time, I also am the only one to exclusively work on Foreign Editions, which are our usual kits in various different languages, depending on the company's country of origin (in fact, recently we've had one company decide to use 6 different languages in 4 of our kits). On top of all of that, I also am the one who organizes and initiates all the printing projects we are doing as soon as a sales order comes in. On top of all of that, I also have to review printer proofs, first digital, then preproduction samples, then advanced samples, for any problems. On top of all of that still, I have to keep in my mind all changes that need to be made from previous printings due to testing errors on previous printings. Then, when I have time to breathe, I also archive and clean out all the projects' folders and keep those organized. If I ever get a moment of time, then I can work on actually designing things, which I don't get to do much of these days.

This is a typical thing. What made this week particularly rough was the people I am working with. Every two minutes I was getting phone calls or people visiting me telling me to "do this, to do that, this needs to be done now, you need to do this" requests. I was getting so frazzled, about an hour before the end of the day on Wednesday, I went to the bathroom for a second, and could feel actual tears forming. I breathed a few deep breaths, pulled myself together, and got back to the craziness. All this was just last Wednesday. I felt so stressed out I just wanted to cry. I didn't though.

Near the end of April I had decided I would try to go a month without eating out at lunch, due to my realization from the last entry that I was spending too much money on that, and not eating healthy to boot. I wanted to see if I could last a month. As that crazy hectic Wednesday ended, I felt compelled to eat out at Tim's on Thursday. I was anticipating that day would be just as bad if not worse than Wednesday was, and felt if there was a day I needed this sort of thing, that would be that day. I had the usual order I always get at Tim's.

Now the day actually wasn't as bad as I was anticipating it to be. In fact, I wasn't as bothered by people as much as I was on Wednesday and was finally able to get on top of the mountain of things to do that by the end of the day I felt I was finally all caught up. However, lately we've been having problems with people not being able to download the links I send them to download our printer files. I don't know why. That also causes me great stress.

I find it kind of sad that the second I feel stressed out, I reach for food. Food is my drug. It is so self-sabotaging. I don't know why I do it. I need sugar or cheese smothered things at that time. The sad thing is the grilled cheese panini, Boston cream doughnut, and bottle of Pepsi did not make me feel better at all. I felt horrible. I wanted to go the month without eating out at lunch, and here I couldn't even make it last a week. I know I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I also can't keep this up for much longer. There is type 2 diabetes in both sides of my family as well as high blood pressure/heart issues. It also doesn't do a damned thing to get rid of the stress (or emotion) I am feeling.

Even though I had the one setback, there were other areas that were very good for me. I did make my own lunch for four days this week, all healthy foods to boot. I need to definitely celebrate my victories, but definitely need to find a better, less sabotaging method of dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, etc.

I have an idea that might just be crazy enough to work. Maybe instead of reaching for the food, I should be reaching for the Osho Zen Tarot cards. I know I have written about this deck before, but I found it quite helpful back in college when my friend introduced it to me, and it helped to transform myself from being a negative, self-downer, to thinking "hey, it might actually be a good thing!" thinker.

Sometimes I go long periods without using the deck. I must not avoid them anymore. They really do help me; if anything it makes me feel better and helps me connect to a spiritual world of some kind. I have never been a religious person, as I don't really believe in Gods, but through Osho (not just the Tarot, but some of his books as well) has helped me sort of find a connection to spirituality. He isn't religious either; in fact, has written material on what he feels is wrong with religion. I always find his words of wisdom to be very helpful.

Perhaps the secret for me to handle my stress is to keep the deck on me at all times, and when I find myself feeling overwhelmed, take it out and do a quick reading, even if it is just a single card draw. I'm going to try to give it a shot, anyways.

Thanks for reading, to those who do.

Mell