daniwithtea | here we are at friday.

What was a short week in theory was a very long one. I worked a lot, too hard, and I lost it on Mer last night. I'm so fucking stressed over so much shit, and I was an ass and let it build up until I was a shaky, bawling mess. I'm better now, I guess, but there's still a part of me that wonders if I'm going to make it through the next few months with my sanity intact. I need to set limits for myself, boundaries in therapy speak, and remember that sometimes I just have to stop. I'm not built to work like a psycho, physically or mentally. I have to take care of myself. And reread this twenty times a day.

Memeage, snatched from

cadhla:What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list and post it to your journal. Let the world see what calms you down!
1. Since we're talking anxiety, Buspar. A wonderful drug. I keep extra in my desk at work.
2. Food, to eat: SpaghettiOs. My dad's mac & cheese recipe. Ham and beans - the Pennsylvania Dutch kind, not that weird orange paste that everyone else around here calls ham and beans.
3. Food, for other people: I love feeding people. Cooking things, especially things they wouldn't normally cook for themselves.
4. Calm-Me-The-Fuck-Down-Now Tea. Most people call it Tension Tamer.
5. Smoking. Say about it what you will; I know the risks. There's a drug I'm on for mood stability, that causes weight gain (which exacerbates my fibro problems) and could zoink my liver, but it keeps me stable and therefore alive. I look at smoking the same way.
6. Cross-Stitch and embroidery. My mom could never understand how I found the patience to do it, much less enjoyed it, but I do.
7. Puzzles. Not the bunch-of-pieces-in-a-box kind, although i do enjoy those, I'm talking about crosswords, anagrams, logic puzzles, etc.
8. Being away. There are very few places/times when I am not running around, when my Blackberry's not going off, when I'm not feeling like I should be doing _something_. Mer's parent's trailer down the shore appears to be someplace I can do that. We were there last weekend, and I did nothing. I had no Blackberry signal. I was completely out of touch. It was amazing.
9. Pilates. Deep stretching, deep breathing, peace, and quiet.
10. Spending time with my fabulous friends.
11. A nice heavy beating. I wish my body could handle that more than it currently can. I can't get more "away" than that.
12. Sex. Sometimes. More and more, this is impacting my self-esteem in a negative way. I hurt, and I'm tired, all the time. And I worry that having sex, and the insane spastic movements that orgasm induces in me (if you think I'm exaggerating, ask

fuzzybutchkins) will make the pain and the exhaustion worse. Not only that, but the muscle weakness problems mean that I sometimes can't, er, do unto others as I would have done unto me....or something. I can start, and can't finish. And I hate that. And it eats away at me. So when I can get over all that, get out of my head for just one minute and let myself say "fuck it", sex is good. It's wonderful. It calms me down. But when I can't, which is almost all the time? It kills me. Fuck, I'm so screwed up right now I can't write a calming list without upsetting myself.

For tonight, fuck work. Fuck the NoLose presentation. Fuck the bills. Fuck the housework. Fuck the laundry.
I have ice cream, and two new Neopets Happy Meal toys, and a bunch of things on that list. And, most importantly, a kick-ass, patient girlfriend who sits next to me and listens to me rant and rave, holds me when I cry, and reads me to sleep when it needs doing.