Therapy
I’m starting to think that everything I do is turning into an effort to keep myself from losing my mind. I wrote earlier this week about the fight or flight response that ‘all the things’ is triggering in me, so I won’t rehash all of that here, but suffice it to say that I had the following conversation with my department chair this morning:
Department Chair: Look, I know you don’t want to do this, but the Superintendent wants us to, so you need to get it done.
Me: They pardoned Eric Adams! Nothing means anything anymore! Why am I out here following the rules like a sucker!
So, I’m not feeling great. I spend the entire day looking for strategies to try to keep myself on stable ground. Here’s a list of everything I do that I now think of entirely in mental health terms:
Run
Spend time with my kids
Spend time with my wife
Solve NY Times crossword puzzles
Build a jigsaw puzzle
Post on social media
Listen to music (instead of listening to podcasts)
Listen to audiobooks (instead of listening to podcasts)
Box breathing (4 count in, hold for 4, 4 count out)
Take medication
Write this blog
Publicize my charitable fundraising project (I’m raising money for the National Diaper Bank Network, you can read all about it on this website, maybe donate a buck or two!)
Tell myself not to post inflamatory things about the news on social media
Tell myself not to send inflamatory text messages to people I disagree with politically
Work hard at my job
Stop taking my job so seriously
Work on my summer plans (I’m going to run 5 half marathons in 4 weeks across 5 states. You can learn more about it on the website!)
Focus on living in the moment
Those are all things I used to do just because I enjoyed them. But now, they all feel like an effort to distract myself from what my brain wants me to think about all the time (threats to global security, threats to the constitution, threats to my career, threats to my kids’ futures, etc). Every time I do any of the things on that list, I do so with the conscious, intentional hope that doing this will make me feel better for a little while, that this is a healthy way to manage my stress, etc. I don’t do anything just because it seems like a good idea. I’m not convinced this is sustainable, and I don’t know what to do about it. Let me know in the comments if you’ve got any ideas.
