Tuesday 5 September 2017

Yesterday I couldn't. Today I can.

Such is life.

Yesterday I could not face my Daily Pages, my blog, nothing like that. So I didn't. Didn't force myself, didn't guilt myself. Turns out that Effy was doing a Live on Facebook at the same time (in her time zone) about falling off the blogging wagon. The synchronicity pleases me.

As for why? Probably brain weasels. The feeling that if you look in the closet for the monster you might come face to face with it, and it might be even scarier than you imagine. Or if you start crying you might never stop.

That got me thinking about fight and flight response. The nudge for Day 4 was

4) What really stresses you out, and how to do take care of yourself when you're in the midst of *waves at all that*. 

Which is, again, amusingly synchronous. You see, I usually take the third option. I freeze. It should be "Fight, Flight or Freeze". A little bit of stress is OK, I get my head down, get on with shit, panic after the fact. A lot of stress in a big lump all at once and it triggers my freeze response. I can't make decisions. People ask if I want tea or coffee, and I can't choose. I nap. I may or may not be tired, but I yawn like there isn't enough oxygen in the room. Between the anxiety and depression if there's an extra stressor added, I can sleep 40+ hours over a weekend. That was special circumstances.

So that's what happened yesterday. And you can't look at things like that when you are in them. At least, I can't. I just hunker down, stay very still and outlast them. Then I can look at them after. From a safer distance. But in the moment, it all comes down to survival.


4 comments:

  1. Sometimes survival is all you can do, and THAT'S OK, but I'm pretty sure you know that.

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  2. "Yesterday I couldn't, and today I can" is how half of what I do gets done. <3 I feel you!

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  3. Take a day off! Thats why I love doing classes with Effy. She gives us breaks to decompress. Sometimes we need that! Sometimes the right thing comes after we listen to our inside. We have to do whats best for us. Even if that means having an off day!

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  4. Caroline, I like that you can give yourself permission the space and time to be you. I'm sure that helps a lot with the 'unfreezing' :-)

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