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.

For me I think it's what juliana said -- it can seem smaller and less significant if I keep it bottled up in my head. When I start to talk about it, it makes it real (and huge), and that always terrifies me.

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?

It depends. Talking about it helps me to define it. Sometimes, it brings the problem into human scope. But sometimes, it makes me wonder how I can still function with everything that presses down on me.

Naming my fears, getting them out of my head, usually ends up with me being able to come up with a plan of some sort. Not all plans are positive, so I've experienced that "worse" feeling.

Sometimes, it brings the problem into human scope. But sometimes, it makes me wonder how I can still function with everything that presses down on me.

Yeah, this is me. Sometimes if I talk about things, I start freaking out about how am I managing to do any of it.