What's the best way...

[EagleFan]

To handle stress? I let too much get to me and it leads to major insomnia (I have been awake now since about 1:30 and this is not a rare occurance. My sleep pattern is so screwed up that I sometimes sleep in the evening just because I am exhausted but then wake up late evenign and can't get back to sleep. I end up going over everything in my head and things that stress me out tend to piss me off to where I can't relax to be able to sleep.

I have tried sleeping pills but they only seem to work for the first couple times I take them and if I don't fall asleep within the first hour of taking them they don't work at all.

Basically I am stressing over (not in actual order, though number one may be the biggest cause of my stress):

1) work (being on a project in which my only current role seems to be scape goat, complete change of management that seems to have no long term plans for our office, being asked to work basically 7 days a week and getting hammered for not doing so)

2) home (house is in bad shape and the condo association is giving us a major run around-- though it has been caused by them and their "repairs", wife is possibly going through depression and has seemed to have lost all motivation to maintain the house or deal with the kids--she flies off the handle with them at the drop of a hat, my occasional lack of patience with the kids-- I have to be very deliberate when dealign with them sometimes as they come at me with things as soon as I get home from a stressful day and it's not always easy to make sure my reaction is appropriately based on what they have done)

3) friend (now I am worried about a friend who I have discovered is having an affair, he has a young child and I believe is only doing this because of the "excitement" of it as I have never seen him with someone that compliments him as well as his wife does, they seem meant to be together and have something that is rare, the ability to be best friends, I don't want to see him ruin his life by thinking with his "other head")

4) family (just found out from my sister that my mother has cancer again, for some reason my mother didn't tell me)

5) health (I have Marfan Syndrome which affects the connective tissue in the body, the major problem can be the aorta where it connects with the heart, it can disect or rupture which means a very bad result for me, I now have to go to Philly to a specialist and have now discovered that I have a valve problem, which wasn't there before so my biggest concern is that it means something has changed for the worse or is still changing)

5b) Eyes (tied into the Marfan Syndrome I have bad eyes and that has led to intense headaches, working with and loving computers has not helped and possibly made it worse)

6) Finance (we have just finished paying off our bankruptcy trustee but have not yet had a chance to begin to reover as things keep going wrong around the house which eat up our extra money, I hate feeling like I am living on the edge all the time and don't want to eat into the retirement fund, which still isn't what I would like it to be)



Sorry about the long winded whining post. I am just at my wits end and had to get it off my chest somehow. This isn't actually for "help" as I know it would be a stupid place to actually seek help but more to get it off my chest, though suggestions are welcomed.

[stevew]

I've been dealing with quite a bit of 2) lately, and I feel your pain. I can only suggest that you make her go to the doctor or something. I know how it is to work a shit job that you hate, that barely pays enough, and then come home, the house ain't like it should be, and the wife is fucking nutso. Not good times

[Groundhog]

I suffer from stress quite badly at times. The best way I found to deal with it was to exercise. I used to go running every night for an hour or so and wear myself out, then when I got home I slept like a baby, and felt much more relaxed the enxt day. With your health problems though, I'm not sure if this would be the right move.

Also, I found that caffeine really affected me in a bad way when I'm stressed out, so I avoid it completely when I'm feeling stressed, and have far less of it now even when I'm not.

[Ksyrup]

I'm one of the easiest going, low stress people I know, so low-stress that even when I'm stressed, I don't know it. Previously, I've had acid reflux-like symptoms associated with stressful events that I didn't even know were triggering it. It was only after I put 2 + 2 together between the symptoms and the events around them - marriage, baby, new job - that I realized my body was dealing physically with the stress I didn't know I had, that I even knew there was an issue.

But mainly, to deal with stress, I used to eat. Now, I've replaced that with exercise, lots of music, and doing things (like playing with the kids) that take my mind off whatever it is.

[albionmoonlight]

Making lists can help. Lists of things that you can do to improve things in your life over which you have control, and lists of things that you can't help.

Lists help me realize what are the things about which I worry over which I have no real control. Realizing that--and seeing it in black and white--keeps me from worrying about those things so much.

[lordscarlet]

I really don't know how to tell you what to do. I've pretty much learned to not let things out of my control bother me. So my brain tumor, cheating ex-fiance, etc don't really get to me. However I drink Mountain Dew like a fiend when I have a tight deadline at work.

[Izulde]

I smoke, read, watch movies and play Crusader Kings.

[JPhillips]

Find a therapist. A good one will really help you deal with these problems.

[st.cronin]

I think you need to have a plan for what to do when things go wrong. I don't mean a plan like "when the sink breaks, I call the plumber," I mean a plan like "when something bad happens, I perform the following ritual: Walk around the block; do 20 pushups; sit in a quiet room for 10 minutes contemplating the infinite."

What the actual plan is, is something you'll have to come up with on your own. Speaking for myself, I do NOT handle adversity well, so I have a very ritualized way of dealing with it, which is a strategy for dealing with my personal limitation.

[MikeVic]

I get easily stressed too, and have sleeping problems that started almost a year ago.

Making lists of things that need to be done helps me deal with remembering everything, but not really with the stress itself. To ease the stress a bit, I'll go for a walk around the office or close my eyes. At home, I try to exercise or just sit down and watch some TV that I really enjoy. Let your mind wander to something else.

Hope your situation improves!

[Desnudo]

Making lists can help. Lists of things that you can do to improve things in your life over which you have control, and lists of things that you can't help.

Lists help me realize what are the things about which I worry over which I have no real control. Realizing that--and seeing it in black and white--keeps me from worrying about those things so much.

I agree. Even if you don't have a perfect solution to every problem, listing them out with ways to mitigate their impact can help you feel like you're controlling the situation as best you can.

[Eaglesfan27]

Sleeping pills are almost uniformly addictive and only work in the short term before tolerance builds up. Since you have Marfan's, I would be particularly worried about some of the potential SE's from building up tolerance and addiction to them.

There are some good suggestions in here, but I would suggest seeking out a therapist for a relatively "short course" of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A good therapist should teach you relaxation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation among others, help you identify all of the causes of the stress and help you modify your preception of the stress and thereby reduce its impact on you. Of course, this won't eliminate all of the problems you are facing, but I believe it could be quite beneficial to you in multiple ways.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[EagleFan]

Thanks to all for your responses. Still haven't figured out how I am going to deal with it, exact route anyway. At this point just wanting the chest pains to go away this morning (nothing too bad and I've been through them before and turned up nothing every time so I just kind of live with them until they eventually go away).

Wow it was a slow day yesterday, last post at just after noon in this thread and it's still easily on the front page. :)

[Greyroofoo]

I just remember the fact that 25,000 kids die of starvation each day, then suddenly my life doesn't look so bad.

[B & B]

You're a Siamese twin.


Your brother is attached at your shoulder.


He is gay and you are not.


You only have the one asshole.

[timmae]

copious amounts of sex... (preferrably with your wife otherwise you'll end up with another #3).

In all honesty, having someone to talk to may help. Maybe a therapist but also just a person to "bounce" things off of. Someone that you can be completely honest with (coworker, family member, neighbor, etc.). Less of a burden to carry type stuff..

[sabotai]

I smoke, read, watch movies and play Crusader Kings.

" (replace Crusader Kings with, currently, NWN2 - and heavy on the smoking)

[cthomer5000]

Making lists can help. Lists of things that you can do to improve things in your life over which you have control, and lists of things that you can't help.

Lists help me realize what are the things about which I worry over which I have no real control. Realizing that--and seeing it in black and white--keeps me from worrying about those things so much.

Along these lines I believe talking and reallythinking about the situations constructively can help. Hopefully you've got someone with a willing ear you can use, but if not, think it through logically. Like albion I guess I deal very well with splitting things (in my case mentally) into realms of "things I can control" and "things I can't." Maybe it's easier said than done, but I find the "things I can't control" stress drops about 90% after realizing it's out of my hands.

[EagleFan]

You're a Siamese twin.


Your brother is attached at your shoulder.


He is gay and you are not.


You only have the one asshole.

lol, thank you I needed a good laugh. :)


On another note, I got to release some stress today (read: blow up). When I got home from work there was a sticker on our door from the condo association saying our car would be towed because we haven't paid our dues in over two months. We are up to date and the payment for this month was made on Saturday, granted that was 4 days late but still within the allowed range.

I called to ask what the deal was and got she bitch from hell. She did not listen to anything that I said and just kept repeating that our name was on the list. She did not even want to look into the situation to see what happened (something similar happened a couple years back and it was discovered that they credited our payment to the wrong account).

She then hung up on me when I asked to speak to the building manager so I stormed out and to the office. When I came in she left her desk and went into the back and I had to wait until an unsuspecting other person came up to the window to see if she could help me. I explained the situation and she called someone on the phone (which turned out to be she bitch) and got an immediate response that we were on eht list and needed to pay to not be towed.

Finally I just snapped and said they need to get that bitch out here now because I am not about to get screwed by this place because of a mistake and the fact that she is too damn lazy to look into it. It tuend ugly and I was accused of being a racist because I called her a lazy bitch (not sure how that is racial, I would say the lazy bitch term came from her not wanting to look into a potential problem). Eventually the person who handles the towing came out to see what the problem was (I think he came out as more of the enforcer as he is a bouncer type).

I went outside with him and discussed the situation. Calmly because he was listening to me and not just repeating the same line over and over without even looking into something. Just then the person who took our payment Saturday came by and I mentioned something to her. She remembered us and backed up that we paid this week and there was no record of us being behind.

He went in and checked it out and it turns out that our payment was credited fine, the list just had a wrong number copied to it. This whole thing could have been avoided if she just looked at our account instead of just the list, one easy step.

I again went off on her (this is not the first time she has screwed us, she took a cash deposit from us for the use of the club house several years ago and somehow lost all account of it when we came back to get the deposit back as there was no additional cleanup required when we finished).

I have to admit that it felt good after I walked away from the situation, at least to get a little out of my system. :D

[sabotai]

Sounds like someone who deserved it and more.

[Izulde]

There's always a deep satisfaction in being right and able to get the situation worked out to your advantage.

Smart move at calming down when the enforcer guy started listening to you :) I'm not sure I could've done the same as you did if I was that mad.

[adubroff]

I'm a chronic insomniac, for many of the same reasons as you state. I have similar lack of success with sleeping pills, and have generally avoided them except in "emergency situations", where if I don't sleep I'm probably going to have job impact (I've learned I can still do a good job on limited sleep, but there are always days a "more than good job" is needed.). This way the pills are more likely to work for me. If they can complicate your health situation, then you obviously shouldn't take them, or should do so only with the consent of a doctor.

Anyway, the one thing I would suggest is to not let the lack of sleep become part of your stress. If you can't sleep then you can't sleep. Don't beat yourself up over it, it will just add stress, and then you get in a downward spiral. So, try to do something productive or something relaxing. Read a book, watch a movie, clean the house, whatever. Try to make it so your either enjoying not sleeping (as best you can) or you're being productive. At least in this way, if you're dragging the next day, there should be some feeling of something positive coming back from it. It's the old lemons and lemonade thing.....

[EagleFan]

There's always a deep satisfaction in being right and able to get the situation worked out to your advantage.

Smart move at calming down when the enforcer guy started listening to you :) I'm not sure I could've done the same as you did if I was that mad.

I'm 6'2", 190 but he could have crushed me like a bug. ;)

Plus the reason I was pissed is because I wasn't being listened to. He was the first person to actually seem to want to take care of the problem. What got me worked up the most is when the she bitch answered I immediately played out how I was afraid the call would go in my mind and it ended up being almost exact.

My favorite part is when she tried to make it racial. There were others who were also black in there that I was talking fine with and not screaming at, including the person who took the payment Saturday. Yet she can't seem to think that she is the reason someone may have a problem with her and not some outside cause. I found out in the past aht she is ther ebecause she had some big racial suit against the association when they tried to get rid of her once. Sadly she partly had a case due to how one person handled the situation but the actual reasons she was going to be let go were legit (such as today's incident). I have heard of several complaints against her but they all seem to fall into a void and never get addressed.

I guess I learned that lazy bitch is somehow a racial term now. Now don't I feel stupid, I have used that term to describe a white woman at our office. ;)

[EagleFan]

I'm a chronic insomniac, for many of the same reasons as you state. I have similar lack of success with sleeping pills, and have generally avoided them except in "emergency situations", where if I don't sleep I'm probably going to have job impact (I've learned I can still do a good job on limited sleep, but there are always days a "more than good job" is needed.). This way the pills are more likely to work for me. If they can complicate your health situation, then you obviously shouldn't take them, or should do so only with the consent of a doctor.

Anyway, the one thing I would suggest is to not let the lack of sleep become part of your stress. If you can't sleep then you can't sleep. Don't beat yourself up over it, it will just add stress, and then you get in a downward spiral. So, try to do something productive or something relaxing. Read a book, watch a movie, clean the house, whatever. Try to make it so your either enjoying not sleeping (as best you can) or you're being productive. At least in this way, if you're dragging the next day, there should be some feeling of something positive coming back from it. It's the old lemons and lemonade thing.....

I have more recently attempted to do the "make th ebest of it thing", especially since I can connect and work from home with my current job. My boss seems generally okay with it but his boss doesn;t seem to see the time spent when not in the office as actual work. That leads to problems where I can actually fall asleep for limited time at other hours of the day if given the chance but that can't happen if I still have to do the full time (plus the extra expected) at the office which means I get home for a late dinner and then after letting it settle down it's time for the insomnia problem.

I used to have a large snowball affect with the insomnia as you mention, espercially when I was in a position where I could do nothing from home. Stress would keep me from sleeping, then I realize what time it is and suddenly that become stress as I see the time tick closer to when I need to wake up. Next thing I know the alarm is going off and I am a wreck all day.

I used to do better when there was a time that I was allowed to work over night to be available for the India office. The work time would be less stressful as there wouldn't be the other influences at work pulling on me with other things to do so I could concentrate on what I am doing and I also like working when no-one is around as it feels like I can get into what I am doing much easier.

Hopefully I'll be able to get to sleep by around 2 tonight so I can get 4-5 hours of sleep (but it has been quite a while since I got that much continuous sleep). Even last night when I went to sleep at 1 I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.

I agree that I need to probably talk to someone about it but I have a problem opening up to people in person, especially about something like this because I feel stupid when I start talkng about it. Probably because my dad never let any emotions show at all and my mom would always make you feel like whatever problem you had was your fault (being sick, getting hurt, having a problem at school). It's amazing how much parents can screw up their kids (I just hope I am not doing the same to my kids-- I make extra effort to take care of them if they are not feeling well even the slightest bit just because I don;t want them feeling like they have to hide things from me). Don't get me wrong, my parents were great in their own way but it all stems from how they were raised.


Again I am sorry for dumping everything here. I guess this is a little peak into why I can be an asshole at times. ;)

[Toddzilla]

I found that in times of great stress when I'm feeling particularly angry that lots of exercise really helps me get rid of the tension and relax a lot. I'll occasionally need a sleeping pill to get some good rest at night, but I make sure to only do that for 3-4 days at a time, then stop taking the pills to see if my sleep is any better.

Also, writing about being stressed out and pissed off helps, too. Keep dumping it out here on the board - if it helps you, don't stop. We'll be here to help pick you up when you need it.

I've got a nephew with Marfan's - he's only 15 and he's already 6'6", 115 lbs. - so I'm kindf of familiar with the health risks. I'm glad you're getting the tests and stuff you need.

Todd
VPI&SU
Class of 1992