Here's a thought.....

Speaking of thinking.... I came to a bit of a realization yesterday. I noticed that as soon as the stress came off from that costuming job I had to turn back a couple of weeks ago that I recovered from the broken place I was in over night. I woke the next day feeling 'normal' and then began almost immediately to second guess the decision that I couldn't do the work. I regretted not just pulling back part way... asking for help rather than quitting it all. I know that by the time I finally started looking and asking for help I was too far gone. No help was enough by then to pull me out of my dispair. This flip flopping of mood/emotion swings has had me thinking about it a lot lately.

I had a wonderful outing yesterday with an old high school buddy. We met for lunch and spend a couple of hours catching up. It was like old times.... the sense of comfort and familiarity was relaxing and easy. We talked some about the journey I've been on of late. She asked me if I cried. She was suggesting it as a release. Something good to do sometimes. I told her that I do cry a lot but not that kind of crying. Mine is in uncontrolable response when I am feeling over stressed. Opening my mouth to say hello can cause tears and sobbing if I'm already feeling stressed. The additional pressure of saying hello or answering a simple question can be just the last drop of energy that overflows the bucket and causes the tears to flow. Anxiety induced tears and blubbering is what I've come to label it. Before I left my last job it had become a real problem. I'd be in a meeting and when it was my turn to talk I'd be restricted because of the spontaneous crying. The subject need not be intense or difficult. It could in fact be very pleasant. Didn't matter the topic. If I was in a state of 'holding on' then just engaging in a conversation would be too much added pressure. Reduce or elliminate the pressure, the anxiety, the stress and I'm as normal as the next guy. Until the next time the bucket over flows from a simple additional stressor of one kind or another.

It always comes back to that. Being controlled by stress. I think I reached some maximum level and now the needle has dropped so low that answering the phone can set off the alarms. Too much and I'm over the top with my emotions and incapable of performing the simplest tasks. Too little and I'm bored and feel liked I'm wasting my life away. How do I find the balance? What does it look like.... feel like.... Some days I think I'm getting there little by little yet other days I think I'm trapped in the extremes.

Another trigger for me is when I've put myself into the position of being 'the one' who can do the job. The 'one' responsible. The 'one' and only person taking care of 'it'. I used to set things up to be the one in charge. I built great teams in my day but looking back I’ve come to see that I never functioned very well as a ‘member’ of the team. I always had to be the leader, the coach or at least the captain of any team I worked with. That's a new realization for me. One I'm giving some thought to right now. I don't ask for help or delegate to others well at all and it means I carry the weight and pressure of everything I do plus everything a team of mine is charged with doing. Where does this attitude and work ethic come from?

Growing up we were taught to do our own jobs. We were judged by our work and I always had to be the best. I always wanted my dad’s good attention. His bad attention could be brutal. Not so much physically but emotionally. He was a bit of a screamer. He’d rip bad work apart and make the worker feel pretty useless. Asking for help was a weakness. Delegating was okay but you were still responsible for the work. My sister’s work was often poor and I paid the price. My brother’s contributions were nil so I had to make up and do his work too so that I didn't get shit when things weren't done on time or the right way... my dad’s way.

So put that into current day and it's no wonder I don't trust anyone to pull any weight. That costuming job could have been managed if I could have trusted others to carry a load. I had a few helpers lined up but I wouldn’t trust them and I knew I couldn't do it alone. I didn't trust them because I don't trust. They were totally trustworthy.... I wasn't trusting. The stress of trusting was sending me over the top. The stress of knowing I couldn’t do it alone put me over the edge. In the end I had to show my true colours.... non functioning.

Growing up nobody accommodated me when I was in a 'bad' mood or when I was feeling sad. “Go to your room if you are going to pout. Take that attitude somewhere else. Quit crying. Cheer up right this minute or......” I'd be sent away, rejected when I wasn't in a happy productive mood. I'd win them back when I'd return with a good performance. They loved my manic type temperament and the stories from childhood about me are usually about times when I was behaving manic of sorts. At my best... Making people laugh.... The life of any gathering or party. And if not for my entertainment value then my skills, my quick thinking and analytical mind. The wise one. The creative one. The clever one. The brave one... The 'most likely to succeed'.

Anyone who knew me growing up or even in later years in social or work situations, they have nothing but wonderful reasons to think I've always had it all. I’m still the one old colleagues call to detangle complex problems in the work place. I’m still the one in the family that people come to for advise and help with their problems. They just ignore the rumours that I’ve had a ‘break down’ and challenge any one who tells stories of me ‘loosing it’ cuz they prefer to believe the façade rather than my reality. They don’t want to hear about me struggling. They still come and they ask for my help and they show me their love and appreciation and for them I’m the same as always. The girl who can do anything you ask her to do. "She's very clever that one."

I've come to realize that I learned very young to strive always to be the best. To work the hardest and to be noticed for my effort and rewarded for the results. My dad's praises or another job promotion. I learned to do the jobs myself so that I could control the outcome and hog the praises. Of course I always played the humble team leader and showered lots of praises back onto my helpers. Many whom would stand in wonder of what it was they did cuz I would always have taken over their work at one point or another. At the end of the day I was giving others credit for my work just to look like a good team player.

My need to be in control of everything transferred into being in charge of every aspect of my life and the lives of everyone around me. No one could do anything for me without me feeling weakened by the suggestion that I needed help. My ex took a 6 month paternity leave when our son was born. Me... I went back to work within 3 weeks of delivery. Waited that long because it was Christmas break and the school was closed. I went right back to work the first possible day because I was indispensable and the place couldn’t run with out me. I’d set it up that way no doubt. Everyday I took my baby with me. I’d set up a nursery next to my office and I picked up a sitter on the way to work. My ex was home this whole time. He’d offered, pleaded and even tried to insist on keeping the baby home with him but I didn’t trust him to care for the baby as well as I could and I didn’t want to burden him with a job I could and should do myself.

That’s just one of a zillion examples of people trying to be a helper and me refusing the help. It was always a question of me showing weakness if I couldn’t do the job myself. Whatever the job might be. Power polishing a car when I was 8 months pregnant just to ensure I pulled my equal weight with chores. Cleaning the house while others played or rested. Building a garden too big for one person to manage but doing it all just the same. The list of big and small examples of me ‘doing it all’ is endless. They are all rooted in my warped sense of obligation to do it all without needing or asking for help. To need no one was a sign of strength and independance.

I’m working on a project right now that has me stalled. It could be resolved with one quick phone call. I resist because the question I need to ask is one I should already know the answer to. Rather than pick up the phone and admit I need help I continue to try to figure it out by myself. The pressure of trying to solve it alone is less than the pressure of the humiliation I would feel admitting I didn’t know.

As it happens this kind of programmed and self imposed pressure is what turns to unmanageable stress overload. What flips the switch on my thought processes. What flips the switch on my emotional responses. It’s what triggered and continues to trigger the collapsing of my physical, emotional and mental abilities. How do I turn this around? How do I convince myself that it is okay to say no to a request of my time or energy or wisdom... how do I convince myself that it is okay to ask for help or accept help when it is offered? The only way out of these pressure spots in the past had been to collapse under the pressure and become totally dysfunctional. It wouldn't be voluntary or contrived but a response to my self imposed over loading. To pull away from the rest of the world and prevent myself from being engaged and thereby committed to doing or behaving appropriately on behalf of someone or some cause outside of myself. To totally disengage in life so that I didn't have any pressures to perform placed upon me. No expectations. Until I’m rejuvenated and ready to impose the pressures back onto myself again.

Except this last time.... I haven’t been able to bounce back this last time. I’m still trapped by my limitations. I’ve hit the wall it would seem. The stress monitor.... the one that tells me I’m in danger zone is just above my head these days. Always lurking... always ready to take me into the downward cycle of hopelessness and despair.

When the stress is off and I’m just doing repetitious tasks with no time pressure then I’m good to go and no one is the wiser about the fragile state of my emotions. Put a timeline on the task and add a few additional elements and I could in the wink of an eye start to shake, panic and cry until my brain is mush and I don’t even remember what the job was that I said I could or would do.

This past week I put off the project with the unanswered question looming. Even though I’m late with that project and it should be my priority I put it aside to do a freebie for a client I thought I’d lost because of my habit of procrastinating. I was so happy when she called for a quote on a new project that I dropped everything, offered the job for free and put all my energy into doing it. I did the job in record time and everyone was happy with the results. So why was it easy for me to do that job while I struggle with others? Why do I have a reserve of energy when it comes to winning someone over, impressing some one but yet I will avoid those who are patiently waiting for me to do what I say I’m going to do? Just like love. I always chase the guy who doesn't want me and when I win him over I wonder what it was I wanted. Always chasing the prize but never satisfied... either with the prize or my qualifying to win. Either the prize is worthless or I'm worthless for winning a worthless prize. On to the next challenge. Hoping that the reward and me will be worthy of the time and effort.

I don’t have the answers to these questions. Not yet anyways. It may or may not be useful to have determined the root of my behaviours. Not sure. I think I’ve observed this before. Knowing why one behaves a certain way can be useful if it can translate into a different consciousness and more functional behaviours. That is yet to be seen. Can I change some of the ways I think about and respond to things enough to balance out my life? Can I function without having to be the best and deliver the best solution all the time at any cost to my physical and mental wellbeing? Can I give up control of something? Anything? Can I learn to ask for help and accept help when it is offered? How does one learn these things when they are 50 something and it’s the only way they know how to think or act? Will I always collapse into nothingness and stay there or can I relearn how to function in the world as one among many rather than one performing for many. It’s a complete turn around that is required here. Sounds vulnerable. Sounds weak and needy. Sounds second class. Sounds risky..... Must quiet that kind of response. It can't be the only way to look at these things..... Somehow I've got to turn the thinking around.... It’s good to need people. People like to help others. It's fun to be a team player..... Yea.... go try those line on some other fool.... I’m still not biting.

Eeks... back to the drawing board. I know.... I think too much.....