Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
How Do You Manage Your Stress?
lighter:
I'm kind of glad Easter's over.
Lighter
Hopalong:
(((((Lighter))))).
I get it.
hug,
Hops
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on April 16, 2017, 11:24:46 AM ---I understand why it got to you and stirred things up, Tupp. Still think you've managed to ride it through really well. Got a couple mouthfuls of saltwater and knocked off your surfboard by a dolphin who wasn't paying attention, but you climbed back on. You're still riding. So impressed by you.
I had a little wave to figure out too. First half of yesterday was just wonderful. Weather's ridiculously gorgeous and for a change, I woke well rested, functioned a LOT for me (getting things done), had a great walk and friend meet, etc. Later in the day I found myself obsessively reading about loss, drinking one drink more than I'd intended, and actually signed up for Twitter and for the first time in oh, about 6-8 months, looked again at my D's Twitter (to find I'm blocked). Haven't looked for AGES and have been feeling very healthy about that.
Then, duh, made the connection more consciously. Easter was a happy, lovely special Sunday when she was little. I did Easter baskets, we ate with her grandparents, she looked adorable, she cuddled up to me in the pew, the music is glorious, etc. It was just a time full of love and warmth and light. One time she came back to our little house on Easter Sunday afternoon (she'd spent the weekend at her Dad's) and as she came up the walk she was complaining about how they didn't really do much for Easter at his house, and I put my arm around her and expressed sympathy: Kind of a bummer, huh? No basket or egg hunt or anything? She wandered mournfully into the house and into her room and just screamed in joy, MOOOOOOOOOM! at the top of her lungs.
While she'd been away I had spent days: sanding and hand-painting an adorable new bed with vines, flowers, baby bunnies and squirrels with her initials on the headboard, building/assembling her a gorgeous new desk with a big shelving system on top of it, and I'd put a big Easter basket, card, and fat vase of daffodils on the desk. (She'd chosen daffodil-yellow for her room's walls, too, so the whole thing was a bit blinding! :lol:)
That was such a happy day for me as a mother, bringing her that surprise and seeing her joy.
So once I made the full connection, I realized why I overate and overdrank yesterday, forgave myself. And now I'm fine again. Well, still minus my child, but also...I am well. Sending her silent love and blessing, but unhooked from expecting it will be different.
I can have hope in a philosophical way, but not in a personal way. No expectations keeps me sane.
And I am well.
Hope you are today also, Tupp. And will find happiness in this day regardless of biofamily triggers. I remember that old Stephen Stills song: If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with.
Pooch and friends will be my family today. I'm going to a potluck that a single woman with a big friend-family holds every year. Making carrot-leek-kerfir-cilantro soup. Better hustle!
Love to you,
Hops
--- End quote ---
Oh Hops your girl's bedroom! I was so jealous of other kids' bedrooms when I was a child. I can't imagine how excited I would have been to come home and find my room transformed like that. Making your child happy is the best feeling in the world. It sounds so lovely (and such a labour of love). And being allowed to choose the paint! Even though you'd need shades to walk in there ;) I hope one day that those lovely memories you have have kind of take precedence in her mind and supersede whatever else it is that is going on there these days. She was very lucky to have you, even if she doesn't realise that herself at the moment. And yes, I can completely understand the overeating/over drinking, I've done it all weekend. It's partly just there being chocolate around but some of it is also wanting to block things out. I've always found routine really helpful and these public holidays disrupt that for me, and that makes me struggle a bit, too, not massively, but it means I always have a long to do list on the first day back because I've had three or four days of not being able to get things done. I will feel a lot more like myself again by midday tomorrow, I think. I like the analogy of being knocked off a surfboard by a dolphin! In fact I think I'd quite like that to happen in real life! Lol, not that I can surf, but it's a nice picture in my mind. The soup sounds lovely as well, did it turn out okay?
In other news, we went to a friend's this morning for coffee and I mentioned we were going out tomorrow to buy a lawnmower for our new, very big garden, and she had just bought a new one so she gave us her old one! Fab, has saved me some money and means I have no reason not to cut the grass now. I've arranged to see another friend tomorrow (I've been a bit neglectful of friends since we moved because I'm so much happier in this place I've been quite content to stay at home and get things done). I'm hoping to get the rest of the paint for the flat this week so decorating will be the order of day for a while, I think. And yes, I'm pretty glad Easter is over too :)
Twoapenny:
I woke up this morning thinking about the Easter weekend and I realised that there is still a part of me that wants to be 'rescued' over the holidays and included in other people's plans, or just to have people that you automatically spend time with when you have time off.
That got me thinking about what I can do to enjoy the holiday instead of enduring it and hanging on until it's over. I think I need to almost plan a little holiday at home and prepare for it in the same way that I would if I were going away somewhere or having people over. And I think perhaps I need to do that at the weekends as well, so instead of them merging into the week and not feeling any different (apart from feeling like everyone else is out having a nice time!) I think I need to plan some enjoyable activities we can do at home and make an effort to make some special food. I also think I should do some baking and instead of falling into the over eating/ over drinking thing actually plan some treats so that I get the comfort without feeling like I've fallen off the wagon. And maybe I should make the effort to dress up and do my hair, even if we're not going anywhere, so that it just feels a bit special and not like an enforced curfew or something.
Now I've been thinking about food I've made myself feel hungry lol x
Hopalong:
The carrot soup was good! Too spicy for one of the ladies but she's...particular. The rest devoured it.
I doubled the recipe and my kitchen looked like a orange-spewing howitzer had been through.
Had to chop 5 pounds of carrots since I'd mistakenly thought my VitaMix (ancient but powerful blender) could do that...oops. Also 4 enormous leeks you could playe baseball with. And a lot of spices--garlic, cumin, cayenne, etc. Tiny bit of agave. Swirled some of my home-grown kefir on top of each bowl, sprinkled with cilantro and grated lime rind. Epicurious website is where I found the recipe.
Grated a knuckle too.
Felt triumphant. (Always want to hold a press conference when I cook. Alert the media!) It's that rare.
Came home with enough energy to clean up the kitchen and went to bed feeling proud. I actually LIKE domestic stuff but just haven't done much of it since I got the house and moved. Job and D and all that just derailed some of the simplest pleasures in life -- or triggered me to stop enjoying those pleasures. This year, though I worry about my back, I'm planning to garden a LITTLE. (Keeping it small and realistic has always been a challenge, so it winds up a weed-fest.) Bought a used mini-tiller for my landscaper, who's going to pay me back. Or, I won't pay him for a couple visits. Made me happy.
Tonight I go to a b-day dinner (casual restaurant meet) for my longest-term friend over in the valley. Our parents were friends in the '40s in DC after the war so we always joke that we've known each other since conception. Will be a lovely drive over the mountains, about 45 minutes. I'm taking her a jug of the soup and a silly dog-themed card. She's more obsessed with dogs than I am; we can talk about them for hours.
I may have talked about her here. (Can you tell I've taken my ADD med? Leads to loooooooong stories.)
She's a lawyer whose life nearly collapsed under the stress of caregiving. Her Dad had a severe stroke, totally paralysed. The ghastly part was that her Mom was distressed at the thought of "Johnny being hungry" and my friend was in shock so didn't push back over the insertion of a feeding tube. A disastrous decision. Because although you CAN choose to refuse a feeding tube; once it's in, removing it would legally be murder. This man was so physically powerful (and bomber pilot during the war) that he then lived seven years, completely paralysed and speechless and immobile (which he would have loathed) in a hospital bed at home. Her job was here in my town so for all that time she drove back every night (oh, she also had a mentally disabled brother there) to coordinate everything and be night-caregiver. [I did that when I lived in another city four hours away for six months at the end of my Dad's life, which nearly killed me. So I can't fathom how she did this for so many YEARS. I often worried she'd die before her parents did.]
Her mother (I know I told this tale here before...y'all should tell me to quit being senile!) developed dementia. Still at home. Caregiver circus. So...the day Johnny died, they didn't immediately tell Frankie that Johnny was gone. (Yes, real names. Unbelievable.) The next afternoon Frankie went down for her usual nap in her part of the house and never woke up. In the interim, friend had called me to tell me about her Dad, and when his service would be the following weekend. Two days later she had to call back and say, "It's going to be a double service." It was devastating for her. All those years of stress and losing them both at once. Then she continued to live with and care for the Very Difficult brother until he died a few years back.
She's both a dear friend and my hero, in a lot of ways. She's recovered. In the stress of those years she had to give up her law practice, and now works as a legal editor (still in my town). But she enjoys the commute over the mountain for its sheer gorgeousness. And has a new little rescue pooch.
My employer-gent just called me to explain he had diarrhea at 2 a.m. so I must go buy him pills and bananas. TMI? I always have to look up how to spell it.
:lol:
love,
Hops
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