How Do You Handle Acute Stress? Me, I Break Out In Boils. [Plus: 5 weird ways stress affects your body]

funny-pinatas

“Wanna see my rash??” is definitely on the top ten list of things you should probably never say at the gym. Not that that stopped me. “Don’t worry, it’s not contagious,” I assured the Gym Buddies as I pushed my sock down and stuck my (post-workout) foot in their faces. It’s a testament to our friendship that nobody pushed me over and ran for safety. They ooh’ed and aah’ed and eew’ed over the shiny red blisters on my hands and feet and even offered me the appropriate sympathy as whined about how much they hurt and itched. Finally one of them asked me what it was and how I got it.

And here’s the sad part: Like many painful things in my life, I totally brought this one on myself.

After consulting with Dr. Google and her trusty nurse Image Search, I decided that I have pompholyx – a type of eczema where the skin on your hands and feet bubbles up with itchy, painful bumps. Possible causes include allergies to something either in your food or your environment and while I don’t rule those out, the number one potential impetus for my plague is… stress.

Not going to lie: the past couple of weeks are going to go down in history as some of the most stressful of my life and frankly I’m surprised that so far the only way my body has mutinied is to give me boils. Don’t worry, nothing bad per se is happening, just stressful stuff. My husband and I decided to sell our house due to a number of factors including a rebounding housing market, winter cabin fever and the fact that all three of our growing boys are crammed into one tiny bedroom. This seemed like a good idea at the time (famous last words). Until our Realtor gave us a 4-page list of things that needed to be fixed/cleaned/painted, my husband suddenly had to go out of town and all my kids ended up home on spring break.

With house showings looming, I painted the entire house from top to bottom (during which I decided that my kids apparently took Harold and the Purple Crayon as an instructional manual rather than a whimsical children’s story), cleaned, fixed, packed up 75% of our things, got the carpets shampooed and a myriad of other time-consuming things. The kids were as good as they could be in such a situation (true story: The first day of spring break I gave them an entire bag of Dum Dum suckers, turned on the TV, stuck them on the couch and told them to pretend it was an island surrounded by sharks. I painted like a madwoman for 10 straight hours with nothing to eat or drink, stopping only to ferry the kids to the kitchen or bathroom (while shrieking DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!). By the time I finally collapsed into bed I was shaking and sobbing into my pillow. Now repeat that (minus the couch – I did actually take my kids out to do stuff) for the next week.

First, I consider myself decently fit but doing that much physical labor every day wore me out. I have a whole new respect for construction workers are the like. (Also, I have a whole new respect for electricians – I tried to install a new light fixture and before I knew it I was standing in a shower of sparks and my heart was beating funny. Oops.) Second, the strain of of uncertainty was taking a mental toll on both me and the kids. (Where are we moving? Who knows! Not this girl.) The boys responded by turning into caged ferrets, fighting over something as small as a toe wiggle. Jelly Bean coped by deciding the umbilical cord was severed far too early and the place she really belonged was back in my skin. And I dealt by… pushing myself harder.

Which gets me to last Saturday and the eruption of the boils. I’d stayed up all night the night before, finishing house repairs (I would personally like to kill whichever sadist installed non-standard bi-fold doors in our house*) because we had a House Showing (dun, dun, dun) the next day. By dawn I was shaking like a horse run hard and put away wet (I’ve actually never seen a horse in that condition – it just paints such a vivid picture, no?). And I still had all day playing single mom to kids who were going to go back to school on Monday and tell their teachers that all they did for spring break was eat sugar and watch all four seasons of the most inane tween show ever. All without the benefit of a house to be in since the only way to keep the house in showing condition is to keep the kids (and the ticked-off cat) completely out of it.

I won’t detail all the fun that happened next (except to add that before we left, Jelly Bean projectile vomited all over the floor I’d just cleaned and the wall I’d just painted). Suffice it to say, I ended up sitting in a random parking garage and sobbing on the phone to my sister while all my kids panicked. This is the worst day ever!!! And thankfully, it was. Which is to say that things got better from there. My husband came home (although he’s leaving again in a couple of days). The house showing finished (official feedback from buyers: your house sucks). All the painting is done (complete with one Jelly Bean sized hand print on the wall which I still can’t believe I missed). I finally got some sleep.

All of which leads me to this point: I do not handle stress well. I remember when Shape asked me to write an article “This is Your Brain on Stress” showing all the deleterious effects to the body from too much stress. I replied to my editor and asked if I could just put a picture of my face under the headline and call it done. When I wrote it, I discovered some interesting things about the effects of stress:

1. Adrenal fatigue. While adrenal fatigue as a disorder is still under dispute in the medical community, most medical professionals will tell you that constantly stressing your adrenals—tiny little glands that sit atop your kidneys and produce cortisol, the stress hormone—leads to an imbalance that, left unchecked, can cause all kinds of problems from inflammation to depression.

2. Memory problems. Studies examining memory have found one major constant that affects what and how well we can remember things: stress. The more stressed out we are, the more our short-term and long-term memories are affected. Chronic stress has also been linked to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in the elderly.

3. Increased drug sensitivity. The blood to brain barrier—the thing that decides what passes from your blood into your brain—is remarkably fine tuned. It normally does a great job of letting the good stuff in and keeping the bad stuff out, but something about stress increases the permeability of this barrier, which means that drugs that normally would only affect you in one way may become a lot more potent when they cross into your brain.

4. Aging faster. Look at someone’s brain scan and you can’t tell their chronological age, but you can tell what age their body thinks it is. The more stress you are under, the “older” your brain looks and acts. All the wrinkle cream in the world can’t help you if you are a die-hard stress case.

5. Gender-specific response. Women react differently to stress than men. We veer towards a “tend and be-friend” response rather than the standard “fight-or-flight” reaction. This makes us slightly less vulnerable to stress (go ladies!), but it also means that we can’t blindly accept stress-reduction tips based on research done on men.

It’s been three days since my break down and so if all I have to show for it are some blisters I probably got off pretty easy. But it taught me some valuable lessons. First, I need to be better about asking for help. I generally feel like if I tell people enough about how stressed out I am and how much I need help then they will jump in and help me. It doesn’t work this way. (True story: My mom called my sister to ask, “Charlotte sounds so stressed out. Why isn’t she asking us to help??” I called my sister an hour later to complain, “Mom and Dad know how stressed out I am. Why aren’t they helping me?!”) Second, the type of stress I experienced is really normal life stress stuff. It wasn’t anything extraordinary and it will certainly happen again so I need to find a better way to deal than by making a martyr out of myself (and, by proxy, my kids). Third, if I don’t listen to my body, it has ways of making me listen. I’m guessing that boils are just the warning shot over the bow. Two weeks of negligence get me pain and itching. Who knows what more will bring? Shingles??

So what to do? All my life I’ve been this way. My response to difficult things has always been to clench my teeth and just work harder. But there are some things that this head-down-barrel-through mentality doesn’t help. And yet, it’s who I am. I’m not sure what else to do. Things like meditating and getting 8 hours of sleep and taking relaxing walks through nature feel like non-options when I’m in the middle of something like last week. Sure I could meditate for 20 minutes. But that ceiling that needs to be painted will still be there and now I’ll be up 20 minutes later doing it.

I know what it’s like to not feel stressed. Well, I should say that I’ve known exactly once what it feels like. Back in college I had to get a colonoscopy (part of that whole IBS drill) and they gave me a shot of Demerol, a narcotic. It gave me amnesia that lasted for a solid 24 hours after the procedure. And that was the best day of my life. Hands down. I’ve never felt so good. I could feel my brain trying to worry but it just couldn’t. I couldn’t find anything to worry about! And so I didn’t. It was bliss. Obviously narcotics are not a long-term strategy. (In truth I’ve never taken any since, not even for childbirth, because the effect – and how much I liked it – terrified me.  I’ve already got an addictive personality. Last thing I need is an actual addiction.)

So what is? I need to know, STAT. Because Son #3 just emerged from the basement holding a black Sharpie. (WHERE DO THEY KEEP FINDING THESE?!)

So now I’m asking you: What do you do when you’re in the midst of something really stressful**? How does your body manifest the stress – have you ever gotten a rash or lost your hair or whatever? Any tips for me on selling our house?? And: Are you the type of person, who if I asked “Wanna see my rash?”, would say “Heck yes!” or would you run the other way?

*Huge thanks to Gym Buddies Daria and Allison for wrangling my kids while I installed the doors from Hades. There were some serious curse words and not of the “little green apples” variety.

**And yeah, I get that mine are totally First World Problems. I know that there are plenty of people with way worse things to deal with. I am grateful for what I have. Even if I forget it sometimes:)

 

53 Comments

  1. I feel nothing but empathy for you. It’s hard enough to have periods of time where you have to be a single parent (I have total respect for those who do it all the time – I can barely last through a deployment on my husband’s part) but all of that house work added to the mix?! No wonder you are stressed!!! I hope that things slow down and smooth out soon. Good luck selling the house!!

  2. Ugh, I hate when things are busy like that. It just seems like you can’t get ahead but it seems like you’re making it through. When I’m stressed I shut down, I don’t want to talk about it or to anyone and I just let the stress eat me up inside. That normally leads to emotional eating. I’m working to get better at dealing with stress but I still pretty much suck at it

    • I think this: ” I don’t want to talk about it or to anyone and I just let the stress eat me up inside. That normally leads to emotional eating.” is so common! I’m generally a big talker (you’re shocked, I know) but even I will sometimes stew over things until they drive me nuts… and the bag of jelly beans is empty.

  3. Aw, I’m sorry Charlotte 🙁 This is so familiar right now so I feel your pain. I’m planning a wedding next month from 3,000 miles away, we’ve had a constant flow of house guests every night for literally a month, my fiance is also finishing grad school next month so he’s pretty much living on campus, student loans are looming, and he’s job hunting so I have absolutely no idea where we’ll be living in a few months. (Seriously. He’s flying to Alaska this month for an interview.) And I’m berating myself for feeling like I can’t lose the 5lbs I gained last month when I got horribly sick and had to get on steroids. Gee, I wonder why that weight is hanging around!

    It’s so easy to think about how you can feel better when you’re not stressed but so, so hard to put it into practice when you need it. My general response is to actually physically pull my hair out, feel horribly nauseous, and have a hysterical crying breakdown after days of feeling like I can barely breathe. So if you find an answer will you let me know? Asking for help is a great start for me but I always feel like I need something that will fix that internal response (that isn’t exercising because we know where that leads).

    Also, I’d totally check out your rash! I like to show people my response to North Carolina mosquito bites so reciprocating is only fair 🙂

    • Ah and weddings are SO stressful because you have the added onus of everything being immortalized for posterity with a million pictures, videos and facebook updates;) I’m with you on the hysterical crying. And yeah, exercise makes me feel better too – but I’m still sticking to my one hour per day limit. So 1/24 of my day is fine, lol.

  4. Not gonna lie, I felt stressed just reading this post, so I can’t imagine how stressed you would be! I hate moving with a passion. My apartment is a little one bedroom that I sort of hate, but I haven’t moved primarily because I hate moving more than I hate my apartment. And I only have one bedroom, and one person’s things, and no crayon on my wall.

    Though I am childfree, and not moving, I’ve dealt with my fair share of stress (16 hour workdays for a few months on end, including weekends was…illuminating?). My number one tip is breaking things down into manageable, discrete tasks, and lots of positive self-talk. Positive self-talk is possibly one of the more powerful things I do to motivate myself, I would highly recommend.

    • Hahah – I didn’t used to mind moving so much but now I’ve got all this STUFF. Children are natural born hoarders… I love your tip. I tend to just get overwhelmed and catastrophize everything so breaking it down would be really helpful.

  5. Loud music, babe. I recommend Metallica, but I know it doesn’t help everyone. Crank it, sing at the top of your lungs, dance like a fool, and keep that roller rolling on them walls all at the same time. It can be done.

    It’s how I’ve survived the past four years!

    (And yes, I’d totally look at your rash. And no, you don’t want shingles. Been there twice already. Seriously believe the plastic surgeon cut those nerve endings out when she worked on me ’cause this much stress should have caused another breakout. NOT complaining!)

    (btw, I need to paint and … I’m scared to. Too many years of being told I can’t do a good enough job. Which, of course, means I need a gallon of paint, a drop cloth, some loud Metallica, and a day to prove that demon WRONG.)

    • Hahah bring on the Metallica! It’s been a long time (and really I was more of a Queensryche girl at the time but they’re so morose). Dancing heals everything. And do it! Paint something a bright, awesome color:)

  6. Well when I get too stressed I get sick. Problem solved when you are flat out in bed with the plague. I just finished taking a week of vacation to get my spring cleaning done. I pulled a muscle in my back the first day with my deal with the worst job first attitude. On day 2 I hobbled around a little but ended up with strep throat by day 3 and that became a bad cold. I ended up being 3 days late coming back from vacation. I still need to do my spring cleaning!

    • Okay I shouldn’t laugh but I totally am! I’m so sorry about your “vacation” but that sounds exactly like something I would do. Glad you’re feeling better now!

  7. Heck yes 🙂
    I do that to myself too…I’m queen of not asking for help and being pissed off when people don’t help me, so I’m learning that too. In grad school I realized what I can do, and that when I overdo it the Crazy Lady comes to call…and she is no fun. I tend to just work harder and eat a lot. My husband hides in the dark and read comics. Not the most effective methods…
    I try and work out hard and then come back to my work with a fresh mind and sometimes that helps. That and just making a list and doing one thing at a time.

    • I need to make a list. I really do. I normally love lists but I’m feeling so overwhelmed… funny how stress makes you avoid the very things that could help you most!

  8. Hubby and I have been looking at homes (to buy) since last October, and I can tell you that I’m not impressed one whit with all the stuff that people do at the last minute to make their homes more “sellable”. The roll-out sod with fresh bark around the edges screams “desperation” to me. All we’re looking at is price, square footage, floor-plan, and location, location, location. I really don’t care if the floors are vacuumed or if underwear is piled up on the couch.

    As far as long-term strategy for stress: This might sound morbid to you, but here goes. When things seem over-whelming, I remind myself that in 100 years absolutely everyone that I know; family, friends, enemies, strangers; will be dead. All of the drama and tragedy and problems that we live with will be totally gone and forgotten. (Unless you happen to make it into the history books.)

    • I bought a place last fall, and all I would add to what Naomi said was that I did look somewhat at what work needed to be done in the house, but not so much whether things were updated, etc. this was right before everything started coming back though, and I think I looked at one place that wasn’t a forclosure or short sale, so I was looking at whether there were missing light fixtures, holes in the flooring, etc more than how new the appliances were or whether the walls needed to be painted (except one place where they’d been gouged by an animal.) basically, would it be truly livable until I could do anything I needed or wanted to-and if you’re living in it then its livable. (I don’t mean like the people on house hunters who say they just can’t live in a place without granite countertops-I mean truly livable.)

    • I don’t know if this house-selling info depresses me or makes me feel better, frankly. I’m glad you can see past all the frippery. Hopefully we’ll find a buyer than can too…

      And I like your long-term perspective. I don’t think it’s morbid it all! I think taking the long view is important.

  9. Twenty- four years ago, I was pregnant with my third child. I had a three and a half year old and a just two year old and was due in three weeks. And I was working. I started getting a sore throat, which progressed to a swollen ear, blisters on the left side of my tongue, blisters in the ear canal, vertigo, a killer headache, nausea and vomiting, and eventually paralysis on the left side of my face. After seeing my OB for the second time during this illness, I was finally diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a type of shingles that attacks the Eighth Cranial Nerve, the nerve that is responsible for hearing and balance. The stress of the pregnancy, two toddlers, and working was too much. I ended up with permanent hearing loss and balance issues. I have learned to be kinder to myself when I am stressed.

    • Eeek! Grace! I cannot imagine how awful that must have been for you. I’m glad you learned how to better take care of yourself but I’m sorry that you’re still affected by it. I’ve heard shingles are excruciating.

  10. While nowhere near as awful as permanent hearing loss, my stress manifest itself as allergy attacks — itchy, puffy eyes, non-stop sneezing, scratchy throat. It’s pretty miserable, and the only way to deal with it is to take a Benadryl and sleep it off.

  11. I learned something interesting a few years ago. I was on a program for anti-anxiety (it consisted of workbooks and CDs, and I did it in conjunction with therapy): The body doesn’t know the difference between types of stress. Whether we’re trying to paint an evil, evil door or facing down a hungry saber-toothed tiger, our bodies react in the same way. Even if it’s not a physical threat (see saber-toothed tiger) but an imagined one (lying awake at night imagining every possible Worst Case Scenario ever!), our bodies react the same way. So it doesn’t really matter if it’s “first world” or “third world” issues, we react similarly. And you, my love, have been under A TON of stress lately! Just ONE of the things you describe here is enough to send anyone’s blood pressure into the stratosphere. Dealing with all of them at once? Well, that makes you Superwoman’s non-flying cousin!
    My latest (and most effective, thus far) solution for stress is EFT. Tapping. It takes about 5 minutes, and it’s miraculous! There are a number of websites with instructions (and even scripts), all for free. I’ve only been at it for a couple of weeks, but I can feel the difference.

    And, yes, asking for help feels like the hardest thing in the world, but it’s so necessary!

    • I did try EFT for a month (for an experiment – it was quite a few years ago). I didn’t see much difference with it but maybe I was doing it wrong? I’m so glad it’s helping you!!

  12. I do not deal with stress well AT ALL. I am definitely the “flight” type and I have had to work really hard to change my focus from “how do I escape/avoid any and all stressful situations?” (which incidentally makes me more stressed because I am trying to control EVERYTHING) to “how can I better respond when I find myself starting to get stressed?”
    Pausing for a second to think about the worst case scenario can actually help me because I realize the likelihood of the bad things I fear is usually really slim. I also remind myself that the only thing I really can control is my response. Yes I have anxiety disorder but that doesn’t mean I have an excuse to go off the deep end emotionally without even trying to calm myself down and focus on one little thing at a time. Still a big work in process but I’m trying to remind myself that I control my reaction even though I can’t control my cicrumstance.

    • I love this: ” I also remind myself that the only thing I really can control is my response. Yes I have anxiety disorder but that doesn’t mean I have an excuse to go off the deep end emotionally without even trying to calm myself down and focus on one little thing at a time.” so much. Thank you for the reminder Meghan!

      • I was totally kicking myself for writing this yesterday because I had one of those days where I wanted to fall apart and have a meltdown, but I felt like I ought to try to calm down because I’d posted this! Haha. It actually helped, but I was kinda mad…I wanted to just cry and be wigged out.

  13. I’ve had co-workers comment that I never get stressed, which I find hilarious because I so totally do…Apparently I just hide it well (most of the time).

    My reactions tend to vary:
    – severe stomach pain (4th grade when I had a crazy teacher, first job out of college where I ended up working for crazy bosses)
    – constant nausea (big, life changing decisions)
    – facing something that I’m terrified of doing (normally a laid back person, I get really cranky and short tempered)

    And sometimes I eat too much, lay awake at night obsessing about whatever it is, etc. Honestly, I can’t say I’ve learned any good coping techniques.

    I am also really bad at asking for help, but I’m working on that one. Shortly after we got married my husband told me “this is not a one-man show.” I have tried to remember that.

  14. I used to have a head-down, barrel through personality, and when everything was over I’d just shake off the dust and be fine. Then I started having anxiety attacks and learned that I cannot do that anymore. The system that works for us (because when you’re married anxiety attacks are as much your husband’s problem as they are yours) is my “anxiety meter.” When I’m going through something stressful I periodically step back and try to feel my anxiety level (it actually feels like a physical thing, which is strange.) So it’s not uncommon, when the dogs are running wild and dinner is burning and we need to leave the house in five minutes, to hear me say, “It’s ok, I’m still at 50%” or (more likely) “Honey get over here, I’m at 90% and I’m ready to shoot one of these dogs!” I just had to figure out where my safe zone is (about 85% for me, but it may be different for you) and when I start getting higher than that I know that I MUST STOP NOW. I put away what I’m doing and take a breather, whether it’s 5 minutes on facebook or a walk (without the dogs :p) or curling up to watch a movie, I know that I have to do something to bring my levels back to the safe zone. This is really hard for me because my thinking tends toward the “This MUST get done RIGHT NOW because EVERYONE is depending on ME and I HAVE TO DO IT!” But I’ve learned that if I ignore that rising anxiety and just keep pushing through I may very well end up sitting in the second row of the chapel as Sacrament meeting starts having a full blown anxiety attack (I had to ditch my heels and basically ran, barefoot, from the chapel, my face full on sad-clown, with my husband running after me. Not my best day…)

    Good luck with moving!

    • I really like the anxiety meter idea! I might have to try that! Although the trick would be getting someone to care what my number is, lol. I can just me saying, “Okay my anxiety is at like 95 right now!!” and all my kids just staring blankly at me until one of them finally asks “So can we have cake for dinner?”

  15. For me, stress = migraines. Not very helpful to actually dealing with what is causing the stress but a great reminder of what I actually care about in life (for example, not being in terrible pain and repeatedly vomiting is important to me; the exam I might get a B on or the perfect job I might get, not so important). Along those lines, maybe it would be helpful to ask yourself some more detailed questions about what it means to “have to do” some of the things on your to-do list. My husband and I have been working on calling each other out on not over using that phase, which I honestly think people over use for a lot of reasons (to make themselves feel more important, because someone has told them they must do something and they don’t question it, etc, etc). The truth is that very few things in life are must do-s, the others are things that have a cost associated with not being done, and it is worth the time to stop and think if that’s a cost you’re willing to pay in this particular situation (ie, what would it really mean for the ceiling to not be painted?) Of course you frequently don’t know exactly what that cost is, but you can make an educated guess.
    Since you are also a person of faith, I’ll also mention something my pastor once told me when talking about a similar situation, and that is that many of the things we work for in life actually become idols in the sense that they become our goals in and of themselves and not a means to our ultimate goal of living life rightly. For me, one of my major idols is approval. I don’t understand how I’ve gotten to be almost 30 years old and am still so unable to handle a lack of approval from pretty much anyone (even people I don’t necessarily respect, which I understand is just stupid). The danger in this sort of idol is that it seems to work a little bit – if I do what someone tells me I should, I will get their approval in the short term. So I constantly tell myself if I just work a bit harder, I will figure this out! Everyone will like me, think I’m smart and approve of my fashion choices! It is only recently that I’ve really realized what I was working for in some aspects of my life, and thereby realizing I was working for an impossible goal. I can not satisfy both my mother who wants me to be a stay at home mom ( for one thing…I don’t have kids yet) and my boss who would like me to work every hour of every day. What I can do it be thankful that God does not require either of those things and live my life for his approval which is freely given. Or at least I can try to do so!!!! (I don’t usually leave religious comments on blogs, so I hope this isn’t crossing any lines, but honestly, this is how I’ve been trying to deal with stress lately. I think it is helping)
    Finally, and sorry for this crazy long comment, but this post really made me think a lot (obviously): perhaps I missed if you decided to stay off your meds or not? Just something to keep in mind if you as you analyze how you’re dealing with things. If you find you need medicine to correct a chemical imbalance for your brain function, I hope you’ll lovingly take care of yourself in that regard too. Best of luck with everything, Charlotte.

    • Ah, I”m so sorry to hear about your migraines! I’ve (knock on wood) never had one but I hear they are excruciating. And yes, my doctor’s appointment to talk about my meds, birth control and general craziness is on Tuesday! 5 days!! (Not that I’m counting.) (I’m totally counting.)

  16. I am constantly stressed due to severe PTSD, long-term anxiety and depression. Right now I’m waiting for school to start and I literally have nothing to do except take care of myself. But I’m still grinding my teeth, jumpy, exhausted, forgetful, irritable… I actually started lactating the other day, and I have NO kids!

    I’m trying to exercise every day, as well as meditate and eat right. They say the keys to health are good nutrition, enough sleep and regular exercise. That’s what I’m trying to give myself. And, with my doctors, I’m engaging in intensive therapy, involving lots of homework. My day is filled with things to do!

    I’m lucky in that sometimes, I’m able to step back and have compassion for myself- as well as realize that my horrible thoughts and fears are temporary and not based in reality. When school starts, I’ll be happy to have something to focus on.

    • I just had to ask where your name comes from. My sister in law is also named Zanna but no one seems to remember why her parents picked it and I’ve never heard of anyone else with that name. It’s so pretty!

      Also definitely keep up the daily exercise, I’ve found it has helped me so much in dealing with my anxiety!

      • It’s short for Susannah, although only people who don’t know me very well call me that. My older brothers shortened it as soon as I got home from the hospital.

        The exercise is definitely helpful, I find getting cuddles from friends and family is also really, really helpful. I spend most of my time alone and appropriate physical contact just eases my anxiety significantly.

        • That’s so cute! THat’s how my daughter got her nickname too. And I don’t think anyone’s called her by her real name since!

    • Ooh did you get your hormones measured? I once started lactating randomly – it was so freaky! And I love this: “I’m able to step back and have compassion for myself- as well as realize that my horrible thoughts and fears are temporary and not based in reality.”

  17. Oh, I feel for you, Charlotte! I’m getting ready to put my house on the market in early summer, so we’re doing some of the repairs now, too. Thank God my husband is a carpenter by trade, so he handles the manual labor and I just do the color choosing, and making sure he and the kiddo get fed!

    I’ll be keeping an eye on the comments for advice to make a house more fit for the market, but oddly enough Dave Ramsey (financial guru) says that making a house have good curb appeal is more important than the inside. Crazy, right?

    • I love Dave Ramsey! I’ll have to look it up and see if I can find more of his house advice!! And good luck with the house fixing up… seriously, good luck with that;)

  18. Weird, I JUST wrote about stress today myself. Wish I had a “cure all” answer for taming that mother. I wonder, have you ever tried not doing everything, just to see what would happen? Terrifying idea, right?

    • Um, yes, totally terrifying! Because if I don’t do it, who will?? I gotta go read your post now…

      • So, how’s this for stress. I thought, oh, great! Charlotte’s going to read my post, I’ll go back and read it again (for self-congratulatory purposes) and found like 50 typos. Yep…good times.

  19. I’m one of those “head-down-barrel-through-put-blinders-on-and-bitch” kind of people. Whoa be it to those that get in my way when I’m on such a tirade. But, like Irene, inevitably this will be followed by a migraine, which will be followed by 24-36 hours of dead-to-the-world-sleep.

    Then, I jump back in for some more “fun times”. Good luck to you!

  20. Adrenal fatigue is SO true and anyone who says differently can use me as a case study. When I went from a life of luxury and ski-bum living to graduate school, I had no idea how to cope with constant, chronic, low level stress. After two years, I lost it and dropped 25 pounds over 6 months and just retreated into myself. I couldn’t deal. I gave myself all kinds of medical problems.

    When I teach my physiology class about stress (and i’ll send you the powerpoint slides – it’s truly nerdy) I go in such detail because I want them to understand how pervasive the effects of stress are. You can also add bone thinning, shrinking of the hypocampus (responsible for memory), increased catabolism of muscles, increased fatty acid and glycerol production (at the cellular level, not the fatty acids that are good for you), greater blood glucose concentrate (to help the brain function under stress it needs more energy, so it takes energy from less vital processes like reproduction and digestion and thermoregulation and send it to the brain).

    We also watch a great movie called Stress: The Portrait of a Killer. It’s only 50 minutes and it’s free on youtube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs

    • Oooh thank you for the info (like always, you are a wealth of knowledge!!) and the video link. I’m excited to watch it. And feel free to e-mail me your slides! I’d love to read them!

  21. I had one of those days recently – I pretty much unscheduled the next few hours, climbed into bed, and read. I’ve just faced that I can only take so much without light at the end of the tunnel and sometimes I just need to take a few hours to just hide away and relax.

    Also, I would totally want to see your rash cuz I am totally curious like that. 🙂

    • Reading is SUCH good therapy! I love that you do that too. And I also love that you would look at my rash;)

  22. I can relate. Last year went through selling the house, changing jobs, big issues with the teenage daughter, and parent in nursing home. It was the worst stretch of stress I can remember. The weird part is it seemed like it would never end with all the challenges, and yet now an entire year has past by! So it does get better, hang in there.

  23. We are moving too! We’ll no longer be next door neighbors. 🙁 Although we are just moving to Savage. I wouldn’t worry too much about your house, as a buyer, they seem to be flying off the market complete with multiple offers for the happy seller’s choosing. However my First World Problems also make me wish there *were* pinatas stratigically placed. I could really use some. Sometimes things just suck! It will pass. 🙂

  24. P.S. Love you dear!!

    • Ah I love you too, Sylvie!! Congrats on your new move! I hope you found someplace really nice:)

  25. I love this book by Jon Kabat Zinn. http://www.amazon.com/Wherever-You-There-Are-ROUGH/dp/1401307787/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365784609&sr=1-1&keywords=wherever+you+go+there+you+are I’ve heard his others are goo too. I know it’s hard to do any meditation in the midst of chaos but a few minutes a day even helps me immensly. Good luck with your move and hang in there!

  26. For me, when I’m under stress I can’t sleep; toss and turn all night, can’t turn off my own chatter.
    Oh, BTW, when doing anything electrical (which I sometimes do), if you don’t know which breaker switch to kill, do it in the daytime and turn off the entire panel 🙂

  27. I can completely relate to you. I break out into boils too, when I’m stressed. So I would definitely want to see if your’s are as bad as mine!