Done yesterday (20110210 Th)

[mdlbear]

0210 Th
  * up 6:40; W=196.4; drugs, nose, teeth; dishes, coffee, laundry
  @ chaoswolf | Reality Bites Back/C:tGY [Move II]/Conflikt report
    Selkit's Braintwitches - Nothing positive
  @ zoethe - Friendship Guidelines via theferrett
  % productive but hectic and very stressful day at work.  Cleared up two
    mysterious bugs -- what was Seth _thinking?_ -- but felt under tremendous
    pressure, and felt very close to the edge of breakdown.
  * stop eyedrops with 3rd dose
  * date night: Red Lobster
  @ Social engineering: 3 examples of human hacking - Computerworld
  * PAY BILLS
  * 11ish bed, snuggle.  
    ! hugging a stuffie very tightly, abdominal muscles all tensed up.  Very
      intense, but can't identify the emotion.  Grief?

I ended the day totally drained, hugging Colleen's stuffed wombat, and all tensed up. I still don't know what the emotion connected to it was, beyond wanting to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me. Is overloaded an emotion? It doesn't seem to fit with a need for comforting. Grief? But why? Suggestions welcome.

I had a very productive, though very stressful, day at work; I was able to end it with a real sense of accomplishment. (We will ignore for the moment the fact that things changed out from under me and I had to diagnose more problems in the same code this afternoon after Seth changed it overnight.) But exhausting. I felt under tremendous pressure, and very close to the edge of breakdown.

We went out to Red Lobster for dinner, having skipped our usual dinner on the way home from Lamplighters Sunday evening. Shrimp and bacon-wrapped scallops. Yum.

A few good links under the cut.

Comments

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

I find overloaded or overwhelmed is typically a combination of emotions and other factors. Usually it's some combination of stress, anxiety/worry, fear, anger, and sadness. This is often combined with exhaustion from not getting any processing or down time. There can be other emotions in that mix, though. Some of the worst times are when one has half happy-ish/good emotions and half unpleasant emotions.

In any case, I hope things get better and you get some relaxation time in.

[mdlbear]

Yeah; that. Thanks.

*hugs*

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[mdlbear]

*hug* Thanks!

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

Overloaded is an emotion. It is stress, for certain.

Now, many people's response to typical stress (work-related, ongoing health issues etc.) is to find a way to take a break from the cause - get away from people to recharge.

When the stress has been drama-llama in nature, though, (as I think you might be feeling from hints in prior posts) people want reassurance that emotionally, things are okay with people they love. Comforting rituals like snuggling, hugging, and touch are coping skills to deal with the stress. Not having them can lead to feelings of upsetitude, grief, or loss.

Big hugs your way. My suggestion to you is to make a point of doing the family "I love you" rituals with Colleen and those at home, (by which I mean hugs, the little gestures you do that mean something between you, etc.) to build up the support not only for yourself, but them, too.

[mdlbear]

*hugs* Thanks.

Yeah, that makes sense. It's certainly been a week from hell, both at work and in the family. Hugs help a lot -- and we've been doing that -- but can't fix the underlying problems.

Colleen and Emmy have had their main local support seriously disrupted by the drama; I never had local close friends to begin with. (Not any more, anyway.)

Ugh!

[paltergo.livejournal.com]

*hug* I think that overloaded is an emotion. I know there are times when I've had days that left me feeling both exhausted and tense and just wanting to hide and those days don't fit with any of the regular names for emotions but they do fit with using overloaded as the label.

[mdlbear]

Wow! It's always good to know that there's someone else who shares my weird difficulty with labels for emotions. Cool!

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

you know about the cortisol stress effects, yes? repeated stress -> way too much cortisol -> all sorts of bodily systems out of whack - > that feeling of being pressed to the ground by a great weight... feelings of not having control don't help, and if you keep having to fix the same thing someone keeps breaking that's going to quickly become a stress trigger. no really close local friends is going to be a bit undermining and isolating too, so it's kind of a 'no wonder you're stressed' week ;-) hugs!

[mdlbear]

Vaguely. *googles*

Um... yeah. That.

*hugs*

[mdlbear]

Hmm. Cortisol definitely explains my overload reaction better than anything else I've read about. Nice to put a name to it, finally.