Frazzled

I ended up staying home today. Rough night trying to sleep turned into morning far too quickly. So I dropped the munchkin off at school and headed back home to bed. Seven straight hours of sleep. And yet, I woke up just as tired, just as weary.

The reality is, it’s not lack of sleep that’s causing the problem. It’s what seems to be an increasing difficulty in shutting down the stress monster. You’ve met the stress monster, haven’t you? He’s the guy that keeps your head running at eight bazillion miles per hour when you’re trying to sleep, making you think about how you’re going to pay the bills, what you’re going to do about daycare for the kid during the summer, how you are going to stretch the groceries and gas money this week. That stress monster.

Over the past few months, the stress monster has seemed to have developed an increased grip on me, including inducing the occasional panic attack. First time it hit, I thought I was having a heart attack. I couldn’t breathe, my chest was heaving, my heart going at an insane pace, feeling like it was trying to leap out of my chest. Took about two hours to come down from that. They haven’t come too often, but more than once is bad enough. Now, it’s about once every two weeks or so. Which is also how often I get paid. Coincidence? Probably not.

So I’m frazzled.

I’ve been working on other projects, other outlets to give me a little mental release. Blogging and photography, working on a non-profit project, trying to help our pet rescues. These all get scheduled into those few hours a day when I’m not being a dad.

I’ve had friends tell me that I don’t need to schedule things for every hour of the day, that it’s ok to not be doing something all the time. What they don’t understand is that those things are what offer me a modicum of sanity. Without them, the panic attacks, the lack of sleep, the worry would just pile up. I don’t have a lack of sleep because I’m busy. I have a lack of sleep because I try to shut down and the stress monster attacks when my guard is down.

My latest attempt is to try to schedule all the different activities, so that when I get to tick one off of the list, I get a sense of completion, of accomplishment. And if I do, I might be able to sleep, having at least gotten something to completion. So far, mixed results.

In the meantime, I’ll keep plugging away.

So – what do you do when the stress monster grabs hold of you?