Stress: Friend or Foe?

I've always been someone who got stressed out, and quite easily at that. I used to be able to handle it pretty well. It usually gave me the little extra push, energy, bump that I needed to get some all important thing done. I'm a fairly organized person, so stress just highlighted my strength and I would go full-tilt to get something done and done NOW.

I used to think stress, while not always fun, was a friend. When I had stress, I could get vast amounts of work done fairly quickly and I always got good results. Now...well, I'm not so convinced.

According to this website I googled, stress is defined as: an internal process that occurs when a person is faced with a demand that is perceived to exceed the resources available to effectively respond to it, and where failure to effectively deal with the demand has important undesirable consequences. In other words, stress is experienced when there is an awareness of a substantial imbalance between demand and capability, under conditions where failure to meet demand is perceived to have unwanted consequences.

Ya, that pretty much sums up my life the past few years. It's just stress city and almost every attempt I've made to make live less stressful, demanding and just plain difficult, have had minor, limited success. I'm stressed all the time. All.of.the.time. Everyone just assumes I'm fine because I just take all of it on and "go!go!go!" I feel like I'm on a carousel that just keeps spinning faster and faster and the carnie won't or can't hear me screaming for him to slow the thing down and STOP already!

Anytime I start to crack, I get flak from everyone. I get told how unreasonable I am. I get told that I'm not speaking to others "properly" (whatever the heck that means!). Do I get anyone who "gets it"? Nope. No one. No one gets what the hell is on my plate and how damn hard I'm trying to hang onto the horse on the carousel so I don't fall off. Every so often, I lose my grip and slam into something. Yet, right back on the damn horse I go because it's the only thing that I can hold onto without getting thrown right off the ride and slam into something more dangerous.

I hate how I am when I am stressed out. Hate it. I'm sure the people around me aren't so thrilled with it either. It would be nice, though, if my nearest and dearest actually realized how.damn.much.I.have.on.my.plate. AND STOP the damn carousel. I wish they would just LISTEN to me. Help me enjoy the ride instead of screaming my head off in fear, anxiety and pain.

Today has not been a good day.