My morning started too early. The air compressor in my Traveling Partner’s shop “went off” in the wee hours (it hadn’t been shut off the night before, after the work day was completed). Well, shit. I was awake, wasn’t I? He wasn’t, though. I got up quietly, dressed, grabbed my laptop and workday shit, and quietly slipped out of the house, hoping he would be able to sleep in.
I woke feeling a complex stew of crappy emotions. Frustration, sorrow, fragility, the threat of imminent tears without cause or point, anxiety – stress – filling my morning like this Americano fills the cup on my desk. All the way to the fucking top. It’s not a helpful addition to the pain I also woke up in. I’m cranky from being awakened by an unpleasant noise first thing in the morning, too early, on the heels of a bad dream. I’m cross because… I don’t know, just because. I mostly just want to put my head down on this deck in this co-work space and cry for awhile. This coffee isn’t going down very well, and my stomach is sour over it. What a rough morning.
I know, I know, “begin again”… but… it’s easier when it’s easy, you know? Right now, it’s not so easy, and I’m feeling fussy like a toddler with an attitude problem. My “inner adult” knows better, and some of my stress sources in the conflict between that worldly experienced woman with a job to do, and the frustrated fussy little kid that lingers within me.
This lives in my saved images for mornings like this…
I’d like today to be easy. Relaxed. Productive. I’d like to “kick ass” on the job today. I’d like to “win big” at life today. I’d like to be my best self, every moment. In this moment, I don’t know what that looks like. My poorly managed physical pain on top of my poorly managed background anxiety have combined to make me a fairly shit human being right now, hard to be around, cross, irritable, unpleasant, with a seriously dark sense of “humor” that isn’t funny. Looks like a long work day ahead, too – not because I’ve got so much to do, more because I sense that I’m not someone my partner is going to want to be around, in the shape I’m in. May as well spend that time working.
I sit here seething. Sipping coffee. Feeling the tears pooled just at the edge of my eye lids, not falling, not going away. Therapy tomorrow… I can do this, right? I can stretch one day to the breaking point, collapse into a deep sleep, and drag myself back to the office, and then on to my appointment…? That works, right?
Fucking hell. Some days being human just fucking sucks all the god-damned dicks. Well. I guess I’ll do my best – whatever that is today, and then try again tomorrow. The clock keeps ticking on this mortal lifetime… It’s not easy, but…
It’s early evening. Or… late afternoon. I guess it depends on how you count the hours, and when you dine – or end the day. This once, let’s agree it is early evening, though the twilight before nightfall is quite a way off still. I am sipping a glass of ice water after a leisurely soak in the hot tub, and some yoga to ease tense muscles. I am thirsty, and almost peculiarly I am not completely worn out beyond usefulness, which is a nice change of pace for this time of day. It’s been a pleasantly productive day of work, and I’ve managed to be genial, relaxed, and content all day. I have not burdened myself with the additional stress of self-imposed ridiculous deadlines or “production goals”, nor worn myself thin with too many “yes” answers and not enough “no” answers. I have enough left in me to write, and likely even to prepare a meal later. What did I do differently…?
Let me count the ways I did things differently today, and the things I tried:
I gave myself a lovely few minutes before ever beginning work to reflect quietly on the day ahead, and give some thought to what I hoped to get done – and to realistically plan ahead the things I probably would not get to, without giving myself any shit over it, or making any excuses.
I focused on, and completed, the few specific tasks I had committed to, and having left myself some room to do so, I was able to pick up a handful of other helpful things and get those done without any pressure to do so, nor any sense of failure if I did not.
I took real breaks, and made a point to walk away from work – the way I often recommend to other people, and often fail to do for myself.
I had real conversations with real humans, and during those conversations I focused on that human I was speaking with, and really listened to what they were saying. (Doing this, and getting it right, was the most difficult thing I did today!!)
I took care of myself when I got home from work… yoga, a hot shower, a soak in the hot tub, and this quiet time spent writing, all fill that requirement.
I did some site maintenance on my blog that I’d been putting off and feeling crappy about.
I updated my to-do list without rushing to do any of it just yet.
Each time I experienced a moment of anxiety, I gave that feeling a minute of my attention, and some self-compassion. I paused long enough to practice self-soothing, and to consider what might really be driving that moment of anxiety, without judgment or shame. I even learned some things by doing so.
Not bad. In fact… (I feel) pretty good. I’m pleased by this feeling of being settled and centered, at the end of a work day. It’s a good feeling. Comfortable.
“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011
…My anxiety surges as if on cue. I’m okay. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. I look it in the face – “why now?” Probably simply that success (on this issue) is a little scary, itself. I’ve struggled with anxiety for so long, it is a little… weird… to contemplate who I am without it. That seems very human, and acknowledging both the emotions/sensations and the humanity of it, I feel myself relax again. Less anxious. Good deal.
Perspective matters.
“Emotion and Reason” acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow 2012
I see my therapist Wednesday. Our first in-person appointment since before the pandemic. Wow. Milestone.
My Traveling Partner sticks his head in for a moment. “How’s your writing?” he asks, pleasantly. No stress between us. This also feels very good. My anxiety fucks both of us up. lol I gesture vaguely at the screen, “I’m writing about anxiety, things I’m doing differently to handle it, stuff we were talking about…” He nods looking serious and hopeful, “That’s promising…” he says (or words very like that – I may already have forgotten precisely what he said).
…It’s time to begin again.
Staying on the path is a choice, and there are verbs involved.
Coffee #2 going down easily after dropping a couple ice cubes in it. I didn’t really want iced coffee, but I also didn’t feel at all like waiting for it to cool to “drinking temperature” – or burning my mouth. So. Ice. Easy solution.
It’d be super handy if more shit were that easy to resolve. I’m just saying, from the small painfully tedious bullshit we’ve each got to overcome, master, or endure, to the globally-scaled huge threats to humanity’s survival (or quality of life), there often seem damned few things that fall into the set of “things that are easy to resolve”. It’s annoying. I’m sitting here sipping my very drinkable coffee feeling annoyed by a seeming plague of petty b.s. aggravations that lack easy resolution. I am very skillful at feeling annoyed, unfortunately, and less skilled at letting shit go.
I got some gardening done. Planted fall bulbs. Thinned some seedlings I hope to winter over. Watered. I’m in the middle of doing laundry, too. It’s a task that easily “stacks” with other things that need to get done. I look over my garden notes, still hoping to make my way to a less annoyed state of mind.
Just keeping it real, all these years of practices and progress (and there has been tremendous progress) don’t amount to a “cure” for an anxiety disorder (cPTSD) on top of a brain injury, and I still deal with my “issues” rather a lot. I don’t despair often, but when I do it can seem just as hard to claw my way out. I don’t feel mired in sorrow or a sense of futility or learned helplessness much these days, but when I am, it’s still brutally difficult to pull myself out of that spiral. My lack of skill with my anxiety, frustration, or anger can too easily result in an unexpected explosive temper tantrum – and trust me when I say there are no good outcomes from that sort of thing, it’s just messy and unpleasant all around. The lingering cognitive challenges of surviving head trauma (and a handful of transient ischemic attacks over the years) can wreck my ability to communicate well – and that is worsened when I’m under stress, or fatigued, or swamped by emotion.
Not one fucking thing I’ve learned, practiced, or changed, has amounted to a “cure” for cPTSD, or wholly resolved the consequences of my head injury. No one ever promised that they would, but damn I had sure hoped for a very long time that they might.
I’ve tried a lot of things to keep my background anxiety managed and to reduce the risk of panic attacks, or “funhouse mirror effects” on my perception of an experience. Some of them have worked, most haven’t – or only for a short while. Each incremental improvement is a pretty big deal, but they still don’t yet add up to “enough”. I put constant pressure on myself (that I simultaneously manage to resent) to take any steps available to minimize the impact on other people; I don’t honestly believe 100% relief is even possible for me, myself. Not gonna lie; it’s a fairly bleak perspective some days. I kinda figure I’m “stuck this way” – improvements are possible, nonetheless, and I keep at it. Every improvement matters. A lot.
It’s been a very long while since I was willing to rely on Rx relief of anxiety symptoms. I didn’t have a great experience of prescription anxiolytics. I experienced exceedingly uncomfortable side effects that while not life-threatening, were uncomfortable to the point of me being unwilling to continue down that path. I’ve tried using Benadryl for my anxiety; it worked very well for me, but the effect doesn’t last indefinitely. I’ve tried very low doses of nicotine, too (we’re talking single puffs from a 1mg concentration of “vape juice”, not whole 24mg cigarettes here). That worked too, but again, the effectiveness quickly diminished over time, and the side effects (on my voice mostly) were unwelcome. I gave that up, too. Herbal tea? Valerian was good… but not reliably effective. Same thing was true of lemon balm, although just cup-of-tea-wise I enjoy that one very much. Cannabis? Sort of helps. Sometimes doesn’t. Reliably leaves me feeling somewhat stalled and stupid, and because of that I’ve given it up as a mood stabilizer; the trade-off cognitively and intellectually isn’t worth it. Meditation helps, reliably, but… not enough, and not always when I need it most. I can’t fucking sit on a cushion all damned day. Controlled breathing? Super helpful if I’m having a panic attack, but with my brain injury being what it is, now I’ve backed myself into a corner where I am prone to inadvertently slowing my breathing when I just relax to a point that I start depriving myself of adequate oxygen (verifiable on a pulse oximeter). Fucking hell. Not one god-damned thing is easy about this shit. I’m annoyed by that, too. Buuuut, anxiety being the monster she is, I’m faced with returning to therapy to work on it, and bracing myself even to request Rx support (if only short-term). I’m frustrated by that.
…I am also angry, but my anger is a story for another time, perhaps…
I think I’m just putting words around this annoying observation that I still struggle. I’ve got a lot more “tools in my toolkit” for dealing with my anxiety than I ever have before. I’ve still got to deal with anxiety. It fucking sucks giant unwashed balls. I’m not feeling any despair over it, presently, though I sometimes do. Today I’m just annoyed. Lovely sunny day. I’m annoyed. It blows. I feel almost as if I “need something to be properly angry about” in order to release this energy, but that’s a shitty approach to doing so; it puts other people’s joy at risk and that’s really not okay. So, I focus on my to-do list and get a few things done. Try to focus on the positives as I experience each moment. I keep taking a new breath, exhaling that, and letting go of my irritation. I know it’ll likely be an all day sort of thing I’ve got to do, but facing it for the day is a whole lot less irritating than facing it for (the also likely) lifetime of work that may be ahead. One bite at a time.
The sunshine on the leaves of the pear tree beyond the window remind me that this is a lovely lazy Sunday. My list of housekeeping I’d like to get done keeps the day framed with productive tasks and wholesome distractions. I hear my Traveling Partner in the shop doing his thing and staying as far from my bullshit as he can easily do. I’m grateful he has that to turn to. I hope it’s enough to satisfy his needs. I keep working on me.
I’m an artist. A painter, primarily. I have a regular “day job” as an analyst, and have for many years – it’s just easier to support my lifestyle and my creative endeavors with a bit of steady employment, versus attempting to use my creative endeavors to support my lifestyle (for me – your results may vary). I sat down with my coffee this morning, after a lovely “camera walk” at a new (nearby) location and a coffee with my Traveling Partner, and I began scrolling through the past year’s pictures taken hither and thither with the purpose of updating my “all the art” photo album, and the “new art since 2010” album. Google Photos politely and helpfully took me to the last items that were updated to each album as a starting point to the scrolling.
…That was more than a year ago…
I scrolled… and kept on scrolling. I scrolled through pictures of flowers in my wee garden, and pictures of garden efforts that were varying degrees of success. I scrolled through seemingly endless pages of pictures from camera walks over the course of the year. I scrolled through pictures from multiple business trips and a trade conference. I scrolled through pictures of weather, and pictures of “why not?”. I scrolled through pictures snapped in retails spaces of items to share with my Traveling Partner for inspiration, or to gauge interest. I scrolled through holiday pictures, camping pictures, lunches, brunches, and coffees with friends. I scrolled through pictures of birds, squirrels, racoons, cats, dogs, snakes, and deer. I scrolled through pictures of beach trips, birthdays, and miscellaneous adventures here or there. I scrolled through pictures of my partners shop as it developed over time, and pictures of projects he completed there. I scrolled through a handful of selfies, and numerous pictures taken in order to confirm “is this the one you want?” while I was running errands. You know what I mostly did not scroll through? Pictures of new paintings. There just weren’t many. Two? Four?
I look over my shoulder at work in progress, and the most recent completed work… minimal. 7 pieces? 9? Not even 1 per month for the 14 months of pictures I scrolled through, and most incomplete or not photographed. Damn. It’s no wonder I’ve been feeling (for quite a while) this certain specific feeling of being “crowded” or “imposed upon” by the day-to-day demands of living a full life. I’ve failed to nurture this part of myself, and that’s honestly a massive self-care failure. I could do better. Time to reflect on the experience of painting so much less for the entire time I’ve had a dedicated studio (in any living space in which that has been the case, frankly)! It makes no fucking sense. I created the space to work in… why am I not working in it?
…Is it a lack of inspiration? That seems unlikely given the number of hastily dashed off notes to myself about things I want to paint, and the number of pictures I’ve taken specifically with compositions on canvas in mind.
…Is it lack of time? That’s an easy out; life is busy, work takes time out of my day, and there’s certainly plenty of work to be done to maintain our quality of life…but…do I really lack the time? I suspect not – but I’m sure not using the time I have to paint (or, let’s be real, to write on the regular).
Is it lack of will, interest, or materials? All pretty practical, but no. I’ve got the materials, the space, and the time available… My interest hasn’t waned. I can’t dismiss “lack of will” entirely; if I had sufficient will-to-act, I’d be in the fucking studio painting, would I not? I find myself wondering what’s up with that?
Being true to the artist I am, I see the effort, the will, and the self-care time going more to walking with my camera, out on some trail, breathing the fresh air, getting some exercise – and these are good things. I can’t complain that I’m treating myself badly. Those walks definitely nurture my creative side – and a camera is far more compact to travel with than paint boxes and an easel. It is a very different sort of work, though. For me, painting (note: I’m primarily an abstract impressionist, more or less…) is a way of communicating things I don’t have words for (and that’s really saying something considering “all the words”). When I stop painting, I start trying to force emotions into words I don’t have. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this eventually tends to result in mindless nonsensical chattering of streams of consciousness that are distracting, confusing, or meaningless for whoever happens to be stuck listening to me babble. (Do I sound as if I’m being hard on myself? Consider the burden on someone who lives with that, though… how tough would this be on my Traveling Partner, a very reality-bound engineer-sort?)
…Perhaps that’s the key. This partnership. This amazing love I share with my partner. I am reluctant to yield moments I could stand near my partner just breathing the air he exists in for something so self-centered as painting. That’s not fair to either of us – surely I would resent that over time, and that could undermine this profound love I feel for this singular human being. We both want to hang out together approximately every minute of every day – realistically we both also recognize that won’t actually work. It’s also not particularly emotionally healthy. So. There’s that.
I guess I’m just saying, I really noticed that I’ve “failed myself” a bit on this detail. There are paintings and ideas for paintings in my head, living in a space that has become crowded with them, distracting me and making it tough to properly communicate whatever else is going on (most especially related to any of those notions/thoughts/ideas).
“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011
The other day, in response to a moment of stress and heightened background anxiety, I retreated to the emotional comfort of my studio… and got to work on a new piece. Fuck that felt good!! “She discovered the answer was within her all along…” Omg. So trite. So… ridiculous. I think on the number of years I painted on the floor…or in some corner…or on a kitchen counter or dining table, any space I could use that had enough room to work. I could do better for myself. I felt so much less anxious just getting some color on canvas… something to think about.
Meta Luna, 12″ x 12″ acrylic on canvas w/glow & glitter, 2022
So… new job, new habits. It’s a new beginning and I’m not wasting it. I made a point to start getting my hands manicured again – and I’ve stopped tearing at my cuticles (again) or biting my nails (again). Nice. I’m keeping an eye on work hours and setting health boundaries with my time. I’m putting my errands and to-do items at the top of my list each day and refusing to allow myself to push myself further down among my priorities. Feels good.
…This is perhaps a lot of words to say “it’s time to begin again”… 🙂
“Lazy” Sunday morning sipping coffee, feeling the lift of recent inspiration, and contemplating a recent discussion with my Traveling Partner on the topic of “second hand stress”. It’s a thing, Google it. (I got 462 million hits on that search term, with the first page of links mostly being pretty useful and informative – at least as of October of 2022). Here’s one article. My partner shared this one with me. I found it decently informative, with some useful suggestions for observing and managing second hand stress. Cures? lol. No. There is no “cure” for stress, if by “cure” you mean “some reliable means to wholly and permanently eliminate the subjective experience of stress”. That’s not a thing. Stress, in general, is something we experience for reasons. It has a purpose. There is no “make it go away” approach that suits every need in every moment, there just isn’t. I definitely recommend letting go of that notion. It’s not helpful.
“Anxiety” 2011
Learning to differentiate between stress (and anxiety) that rises to the level of becoming disordered, from the useful experiences of stress or anxiety that could prompt us to make a change, follow through on circumstances, or move away from danger, is an important bit of growth and personal development. For those of us with already-identified anxiety disorders of one sort or another, it becomes doubly critical to be able to distinguish between needed, useful, “positive” stress, and the chronic disordered sort that creates so much chaos and unpleasantness. Saying so doesn’t make it easier. (Keep practicing.) It’s fucking hard.
Learning to skillfully practice non-attachment and to avoid becoming fused with the emotional states of those around us is another incredibly useful (necessary?) skill for managing stress and anxiety. This is definitely an area that I personally need improvement on (for real). The very same love that draws me to my Traveling Partner and fills me with such delight and warmth and affectionate regard also (sometimes) sucks me into the trap of becoming fused with his emotional state – and when that emotional state happens to be one of frustration, annoyance, anger, sadness, or other “negative” emotional experiences, it can result in my becoming mired in despair and sorrow, or fear, or feelings of inadequacy (when I find myself unable to “fix it” for him). That is the sort of thing that can quickly build a mood-wrecking spiral of emotions in our relationship, as we trigger each other, back and forth, our individual experiences of anxiety and stress feeding on each other and just making things so much worse. Becoming skilled at emotional non-attachment without having to “run away” from an uncomfortable experience has the added result of making us that much more able to support one another.
…I gotta work on that…
Listening deeply is a skill that can be helpful for sorting out whether an experience of stress and anxiety is entirely my own… or a mix of my own and my partner’s emotional experience, or actually just nothing to do with me at all. Sometimes it is hard to listen to someone (particularly my partner) tell me that I’m causing their unpleasant emotional experience – but that doesn’t take away from the truth of it. Sometimes that’s just real, and saying so has nothing to do with intention or blame-laying. On the other hand, it’s their emotional experience, and regardless of cause that’s theirs to manage.
Because love matters more.
“Emotion and Reason” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details and glow 2012
We’re each having our own experience. We each have our own “emotional climate” and “emotional weather”. We each live our own life, alongside those we love. We are not the being others see us as; we’re who we are. Individual travelers on life’s sometimes-shared journey. The perceptions of others don’t necessarily align with our perceptions of our self. Similarly, those people so dear to us, that we love so much..? They aren’t who we think they are, or even who we see them as; they are their own unique self, independent of our impressions, experiences, assumptions, thoughts, or recollections. Funny how often we think we “know” someone “better than they know themselves” and funnier still how rarely that is actually true. Worth thinking about.
The tl;dr? “Second hand stress” is a real thing. Our partners deal with it. We deal with it. Our colleagues deal with it. We deal with it. Every one of us. All the time. Our results vary. Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Let it go.
Well. I guess I’ll do my best – whatever that is today, and then try again tomorrow. The clock keeps ticking on this mortal lifetime… It’s not easy, but…
Evening Light 