I need a holiday.
My body today has hit probably near the final stress point that I can handle without having a full-on panic attack. For anyone who has had a panic attack in the past, they know how that feels and would understand why I am very keen to avoid it if I can.
For those of you who don’t know… it is a very irrational but nonetheless scary event to go through. Your mind goes quite strange. If you pay attention, you find your respiration and heart rate speed up, and your breathing also gets shallower (thus the need for breathing at a faster pace). You feel quite light-headed, and the more you respond negatively to the symptoms, the worse they get.
The stresses at work — trying to get this spa therapies course written, getting the new space downstairs completed, trying to make sure Jacqui and I keep our expenses right down as we understand the financial pressures the school is going through at the moment to make this expansion happen — coupled with the stresses in my personal life — Noel’s mother Molly slowly going mad and repeating herself every five seconds (which, in turn, drives me mad), looking after Jamie and dealing with an additional person in the house (including the financial side that goes with that), bills and so on and so forth — have not really helped. I’ve given up drinking wine every night (which, I think, acted like a natural stress reliever) to help deal with the stress because it wasn’t help me lose weight.
So all these stresses have hit home finally on Wednesday. Noel was talking about the school and how the expansion was costing a bit and I could feel the panic attack coming on. Noel wanted another glass of wine so I poured myself one too (a rather big one) and, after finishing that one off (not quickly, I should add), I got another glass which finally calmed me down. And today hasn’t helped either… trying to arrange the May Expo, writing the spa therapies course (and hitting brick walls again and again with research), looking for additional ways to bring revenue into the school, finding out what in the world is going on with our applications to government, and adding to that not trying to stress Don out because he has enough stress as is (supposedly… personally, I think he’s becoming a bit of a hypochondriac!) even though sometimes he’s responsible for some of the big bills at school.
Jamie missed passing his learner’s license by 1 point, which means probably shelling out another whatever-it-cost to have him resit it, bringing to the forefront the lesson that study is extremely important in everything you do to ensure you are adequately prepared. That led to a discussion with Jacqui to say I think I’m at the end of my rope there with Jamie as well because I am too tired and stressed to keep asking him if he has any homework (which he never seems to have, and to which the school never really seems to have an answer for other than he is taking 1 class that probably gives homework and he has a study period in which he probably can finish that homework) and at a loss to know what the hell to do to get him to study something to make sure he passes his high school year this year. In addition, his personal problem is compounding and stressing me and Noel both out, and, even though it is underlying (i.e. like an undercurrent or rip tide), it is something that he needs to look at seriously and make plans for. For some reason deep in my gut, I get the sinking feeling he just thinks it will disappear all by itself or that life will be rosy and not a problem, but those of us who know better know you need to take the rose-tinted glasses off and get in and work hard. And that hard work usually doesn’t stop… it keeps going.
I’m trying not to stress Jamie out because his mother is having massive problems at the moment, which, even though he doesn’t say anything about it, probably adds to what already must be a pretty stressful situation (i.e. not doing terribly well at school last year, his personal problem, et cetera). On the other hand, maybe I shouldn’t try to shield him so much from the big bad world. You only learn things about it by getting burnt once in a while, but, maybe, as we get older, we want to shield the people we care about and love from these problems so they can learn through us, not through experience. (It is a flawed argument.)
So all these stresses are compounding and I just think I need a break!
Thank God we are going on a cruise in less than two weeks… and hopefully I can unwind and not worry about everything just for a little while to let my body recuperate!
Beam Me Up, Scotty 