Ever since I was little I've had panic attacks. I didn't know they were panic attacks until a few years ago when I read From Panic to Power and realized, "oh thaaaat's what those were!" I'm still exploring myself and don't have it quite all figured out. I can only sometimes figure out the source of the attacks and even then, that source is "it's just a panic attack, that's what they do: attack".
Growing up I always had a really messy room and a pretty disorganized life. But it always bothered me. It wasn't because I'm messy by nature, it was because I had so many hobbies with so much accompanying STUFF and when there wasn't a place for every little thing, my brain couldn't handle it, so it would just flip a switch and poof! I could completely block out the mess until it got so bad I literally couldn't see a patch of carpet or close my bedroom door. And then I'd Tasmanian Devil my way through the mess for four hours until it was perfectly clean.
Luckily when I got married, I was able to quickly implement some better habits to keep things running smoothly. Er, Running. Today I don't have a perfectly clean house, but I obsess over having a perfectly clean house. What I am is a crazy perfectionist with no time. When I think of the word "laundry", I see all my sweaters folded by color on top of each other, perfectly aligned so that not one thread hangs too far outside the width of the rest of the stack. Socks that smell like dryer sheets, not one shred of lint stuck to them and rolled into meticulous rows in my dresser drawer. I've come to realize if I can't have all that right now, in this installment of the ever-revolving laundry project, my brain will start leaking out my ears. So as a preservation method, my brain blocks "laundry" out of my realm of existence for the night. I sincerely forget that laundry exists on my planet. My brain is preventing a panic attack that would occur if I try and fail to have the perfect closet tonight.
Well, why can't I just go all Bree Van de Kamp-Hyde on the place and make it perfectly clean 24/7? I really hope I figure this one out before I die. Ha!
So the last two days I've felt a strange itch under my skin, and I know what it is. For perhaps the first time in my life, I can tell that within a few days, or maybe a week, I'm going to have a grand maul panic attack. I just can't do it all. Work full time. Be a mommy full time. Be a wife full time. Keep the house clean. Cook dinner every single fricken night so we don't die of fastfooditis.
Right now? Right now I'm not even stressed about it. Tonight I'm cool. I'm going to go switch the wash and then empty the dishwasher. I'm may not be making a dent in the big projects I need to do, but I'm keeping the day-to-day at bay. But within several days I'll put my tenth finger in the dam. And then the water will poke an eleventh hole. And then it will happen.
So because this is the first time I've felt one coming on, let's see how this goes. If I can feel this gurgling beneath the surface, does that mean I can prevent it? Can I just hurry and clean out the storage room, move the office downstairs to the new basement, wash every window, get the dead plants off the front porch, et. al. and then sit... and wait... and see if it never comes?
No comments:
Post a Comment