Not fun at all, Hil. Sending soothing thoughts your way.

My niece's second birthday was today. It was fun, but if I don't see any pink again for a while, that will be fine. She is very into ballet at the moment, so I bought her the two Vampirina Ballerina books. All the pink needed some black to go with it.

So Kenny, Amy's son, is moving to Seattle. Good for him. I saw him as a baby, now I'll probably never see him again, unless I go to Seattle and know how to find him. So sad. I moved out here because Amy and I were sisters. Now . . . Ah, well.

Ugh, sorry about the panic attack, Hil.

I almost got into something that I would have regretted on FB just now, but I stopped myself. Must. Hold. Back.

I'm working my way through all five seasons of Through The Wormhole. SCIENCE!

I hope that attack is history now and that you have a restful night, Hil.

That is quite the transition, Connie. I hope that Kenny loves Seattle and that you can see him enjoying his new life. Tough I know.

now I'll probably never see him again, unless I go to Seattle and know how to find him

Hasn't he been living on his own for a few years now? (Because omg he became a grown-up when I wasn't looking.) Were you two just never able to get schedules to match up for coffee?

Hubby and he tried to get together for games, but 20-somethings live on a different time line than 50-somethings.

edit: and different cities.

Does this happen to anyone else? After I finally put into words -- and convey said words to another person -- that shit feels really hard right now*, everything suddenly feels SO MUCH HARDER. Way to go, brain.

*(It's just the cumulative weight of people dying all summer and Tim's dad's dementia getting worse and other smaller stresses that have started to add up. Frankly, I think that anxiety and crying jags are a normal way to react. I even thought, this morning, "Does this mean I need antidepressants again?" And then thought, "Fuck no. This isn't numb apathetic depression; this is a normal grief/stress reaction. It just blows." And I finally told Tim last night that it's just really hard for me to deal right now, and then today I feel exponentially worse.)

But, seriously: does that happen to anyone else? When you finally open up and talk about how you're really stressed and sad and anxious and grieving AND THEN you feel even *worse*? Or am I just a special kind of crazy over here?

But, seriously: does that happen to anyone else? When you finally open up and talk about how you're really stressed and sad and anxious and grieving AND THEN you feel even *worse*? Or am I just a special kind of crazy over here?

That's common (at least for me). I think it's because I'm finally acknowledging the exact dimensions of the problems or stress, and so my brain has the period of grief or anxiety while it grapples with the whole. (Because while everything was still undefined, it could be smaller than it is. Even though that's never the case.) Upside is that after my brain's freakout, I tend to feel more able to cope with everything, or at least to come up with A Plan. Even if the plan is to have crying jags and consume my weight in chocolate.

But, seriously: does that happen to anyone else? When you finally open up and talk about how you're really stressed and sad and anxious and grieving AND THEN you feel even *worse*?

Yeah. In my totally non-scientific explanation of my own brain TO my brain, it feels like the mental health analogue of getting past the big deadline/stressor/whatever and THEN getting sick because your immune system thinks it can finally let its guard down.

It does get better for me after that.

I think it's because I'm finally acknowledging the exact dimensions of the problems or stress, and so my brain has the period of grief or anxiety while it grapples with the whole. (Because while everything was still undefined, it could be smaller than it is. Even though that's never the case.)

Yeah, I think that's it. That makes sense.

I'm just always slightly afraid that the act of naming my stress/grief/anxiety somehow conjures even more from the aether.