Coping Mechanisms

How do you react under stress?  How do you respond to stressful situations?  How do you handle things that are out of your control, yet impact you rather a lot?  How do you catch life's curve balls in a healthy manner?

I ask... cause I don't.

My biggest coping mechanism is probably one of the most unhealthy ways to cope.  Period.

Right now, I'm in a myriad of stressful situations.  Between school, health, work, and life in general, there are at least 3 major stressors in every area right now.  As in, this very moment.

And I want to go back.  I want to go back to the coping mechanism that has been helpful for so many years, and at the same time, has been so hurtful and unhealthy, I know I shouldn't go there.

Right now, I'm trying to invest myself in a project for school that I have no energy to do.  I want to do it, I know I could, but since I don't have the energy to do it to my standards, I don't want to do it at all.  Right now, I'm trying to organize some support, unsuccessfully, I might add, to help me through a big medical procedure I'm having in just over a week.  Right now, I'm trying to put together lesson plans for four weeks.  Yep, four.  This week, the two weeks I'll be out of school, and the week I return.  Right now, I'm wishing I knew how to better communicate with those I care about cause it's going to be really hard to pull through without them.

The sadness of the reality in my head is suffocating me right now.  It's clouded my vision and strained my breathing so that I can't see clearly what really is.  The reality in my head isn't some place that I like to spend time.

But until I learn some healthier coping mechanisms, it's where I tend to retreat, cause at least it isn't as bad as what I used to do, what I want to do... run back to the place of familiarity, where I am comfortable listening to the grumblings... in fact, they're music to my ears.

47 days down, 71 days to go.