I know my posting schedule has been, well, not as predictable lately, and there’s good cause. You see, in my day-to-day life, I work for an e-commerce company. In the gifting industry. Some of our best selling products each year are stockings and ornaments. Needless to say, work has been just a little busy lately. As in, I was at the office for about 11 hours today, and I had a couple of nearly 12 hour days the week before last. I worked on Black Friday, and my boss and I are splitting weekend days for being on-call.
It would be so easy to just succumb to the stress, or to get lost in the busy-ness, feeling like I’m drowning in the stress, overwhelm, and endless to-do’s. In fact, the past 2 Christmas seasons have, well, to say they’ve been a struggle is putting it mildly. I’ve survived, to varying degrees of success.
Last week, I realized that the added 2nd antidepressant has really started to take effect. My sleep has come more easily. My mind has felt clearer. Not only do I “have moods,” like I mentioned in my last post, but I’m actually able to follow through more on some of my “should do” things, like going for a walk during the day at work, or painting my nails. Honestly, the timing couldn’t have been better if I had planned it. Right as work was about to go from “busy” to just about non-stop, I was able to really start seeing some of the effects of the double meds. My first instinct was to say that it was like a switch had been flipped, but that’s not quite accurate. It was more like the gradual lightening of the sky at dawn. It starts with a dark, starlit night sky, and, as the sun slowly approaches the horizon, as the light waves travel about 8.5 minutes from the sun to Earth, the sky lightens almost imperceptibly. Your eyes barely notice the change from moment to moment, until the first rays of sun peek over the horizon, painting the sky shades of gold. Before you know it, the blinding sun is over the horizon, and the dark sky is nothing but a memory.
To over-simplify, I’m starting to feel better, clearer, more like “myself,” whatever that means. I’m also making progress in my sessions with my therapist. We’re using EMDR to work through some painful memories, currently with relation to my ex-husband and the train wreck that was our relationship. Two sessions in, and, while there’s still a long way to go, I’m surprised at some of the connections that have come up, and some of the paths we/I’ve gone down as I go through the process. I’m thinking of maybe trying to describe my experience of EMDR in a future session, because it’s a truly unique experience, and I don’t really have a good description in mind for it yet.
Because life is so very busy lately, and because I don’t want to let myself skip posts (because it would be too easy for the habit of blogging to fall to the wayside if it’s not prioritized), my posts may be shorter, and maybe even a little less cohesive over the next couple of weeks, simply because I don’t have as much time or mental bandwidth to let my inner editor go to town trying to perfect everything I post. Sometimes, done is better than perfect.
In what ways are you being gentle with yourself this week, or as we approach the holidays?
Writing Out My Storms 