Stress, Procrastination, Paralysis

I’ve been completely stressed out lately.  Stressed to the point of being overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed to the point of near-paralysis.

I spent a rather eye-opening hour with the shrink last night who pointed out how connected my home-related stress is to my work-related stress is and how it all is just merging with my Winter-related depression and weighing me down to the point where I’m allowing myself to live up or down to whatever expectations certain people have of me.

I don’t know if I can explain this.  It all seems so circular.

So, at work, my top thought is always that I’m going to lose my job, though that’s not necessarily the case.  That, of course, is the result of my last job and looking back now, the jobs before that where the threat was always made present by the higher-ups as a form of possible punishment.  So, the more negativity that MJ and FW present toward me, the more MJ hovers and tells me that I’m not doing my job correctly, the more FW unprofessionally berates me in public and tells me that he and MJ are worried they are going to have to finish my work, the more anxious it makes me — especially since I am currently already highly anxious due to a very high-anxiety-producing deadline looming.  I just want some sort of validation that my job is not at risk.

On top of that I just bought a house, right?

A house that appears to have some “issues”.  The beadboard in the kitchen appears to be drying out from what little heat I’m using.  The paint is bubbling and splitting.  It looks horrible.  Cracks are forming between the ceiling and the slanted part of the wall in the rooms upstairs and the hall.  The paint between the wall and the linen closet in the bathroom has split.  The wall where the wood and the drywall meet beneath the stairs has distinctly separated.  I’m starting to see where seams and boards are in the walls and ceiling.  Oh, and there’s two small cracks in the paint in the bathroom over the shower/tub, which I suspect is hiding an army of mold spores beneath it’s plastic sheath.

My father wants me to talk to the people I bought the house from and make them come fix it, though I doubt I they are liable.  And someone told me some houses resettle every Winter.

However, I’m so miserable because I worry that there’s something wrong with the walls that I don’t want to do anything like finish unpacking or hang pictures or window treatments because that would be a waste of time because I’d just have to undo that stuff.  If I hang stuff, it’ll have to be unhung when the walls have to be fixed after all.

But my mother has decided to come for my surgery next month, which means I need to get the house in some sort of order or she’ll be disappointed, but there’s just so much to do and I just don’t know where to start.  I need to hang the shelves I bought for the office to finish unpacking, but the curio cabinet I bought and haven’t put together is in the way.  The curio cabinet is in like 1000 pieces and it just looks too hard.  I don’t want to do it alone but I don’t have anyone to help but I don’t want it still sitting there when my mom comes.

And on and on it goes…

And part of the house comes back to work…why unpack and finish the house if I’m going to lose my job and have to move.  Traditionally I take years to finish unpacking and hang every thing up and then it’s time to move.  Everyone who knows me knows this.  Which is why my mother keeps asking if I’ve hung stuff on the walls, I’m sure.

And some of the stuff I keep putting off saying I’ll do it when it gets warmer.  I have a ton of boxes from the move.  They’re all broken down and against the wall in my garage.  I want to put them in the rafters of my garage, but it’s friggin’ cold outside.  Who wants to spend that long outside?  I’m waiting for a warmer day.

Anyway, my job isn’t at risk.  I still have an immobile deadline.  MJ and FW are just unprofessional, nasty people; I think no matter where you go, there’s always one or two of those.  My boss is entirely understanding, if conflict avoiding.  I hung some curtains up last night and even unpacked a box.  I’ll have to see how I feel about my Susy Homemaker list when I get home tonight, but I’m o.k. with the stress I feel for work.  It’s just regular deadline anxiety and not “I’m going to lose my job if I don’t meet this deadline” anxiety and that’s o.k.

Maybe I’ll be able to crawl out of the overwhelmedness and depression and stressful paralysis and start posting again.

Tags: work, anxiety, job loss, depression, overwhelmed, stress, paralysis