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If you take a straw and bend it carefully, you can make it curve gently. If you bend it too hard, then the straw will crimp and bend sharply in one spot. After the straw has acquired a crimp, you can no longer achieve that gentle curve, because the straw responds to the stress by bending sharply in the one spot rather than gently over the whole length of the straw. Minds and bodies are like straws in this respect. They develop learned responses to stress. Sometimes we can turn this to our advantage as when we use exercise to teach our muscles to be stronger. A muscle that has once been strong is easier to make strong again. If a writer teaches herself to write every day, but then falls out of the habit. That habit will be easier to pick up again than it was to make new. Unfortunately these learned responses are just as often to our detriment. We turn to comfort foods that are not good for us. We find that the injured knee is never quite as strong as it was before.

Early in September of 2007 I crimped myself. There was one day in which we learned that the guy who had been doing layout for the Schlock books was not going to do any more. We also learned that a large chunk of investment money was never going to come back to us. That represented a loss of income as well as the investment capital itself. Those were the final pieces, but also part of the stress load were:
Being invited to participate in a writer’s group full of very professional writers. (A happy thing, but still stressful)
The Blank Label Comics split (It was amicable, but still required careful handling)
The low balances in all our bank accounts
The last finishing touches on Tub of Happiness
Impending book shipping
Looking forward and seeing that 2008 was already packed to the gills with convention appearances
Wanting desperately to have more publication credits before some of the convention appearances
The, still incomplete, Hold on to Your Horses project
Picking up a roleplaying game for the first time in a decade (fun, but still energy gobbling)
Conflict with a very good friend who was also under a huge stress load
The kids were starting school again and all of them were in transition grades
Teaching a once-per-week creative writing class for 4-6 graders. (This project took more of my time the longer it continued)
Being a cub scout den leader once per week (and being told that I couldn’t bring the young ones, they were too disruptive.)
And all the normal family and household maintenance tasks that are never ending.

At first I thought I was sick. I was shaky and cold. My heart raced and thumped in my chest. It was like being afraid, but it made no sense for me to be afraid while sitting at my computer doing accounting. My concentration was shot and I could barely keep track of what I was doing. Every small challenge was magnified and I imagined how they could end up with the direst possible consequences. I had to get up and walk away from the accounting. A nap and some reading restored normality, but it all came crashing back the minute I sat back down to do the accounting. And accounting wasn’t the only time. I feeling this way multiple times per day in all sorts of situations.

In hindsight I can see that I was suffering stress-induced panic attacks. I just didn’t recognize them as such because to me “panic attack” mean curling into a ball completely unable to function. I could function, it was just really hard. Everything took longer either because I was working despite the fog of an anxiety state or because I was trying to stay mellow to avoid triggering an anxiety state. Being terrified that something was physically wrong with my heart and adrenal system did not help. Neither did being terrified that I would be physically incapable of accomplishing the hundreds of tasks necessary to keep the family and business running.

The worst of it ended when we opened pre-orders for Tub of Happiness at the end of September. Once again we had money to pay our bills. Several other stresses ended in October which reduced the anxiety states even further to only 1 or 2 per week. I learned what steps to take to soothe the anxiety away. I also learned how to sense one coming and preempt it. Over the next few months we simplified our lives and the attacks became increasingly less common and less severe. Until one day I realized that it had been months since I’d had one.

It has been almost a year since I’ve had an attack as severe as those I experienced last Fall and Winter. The effects linger though. When I am under stress, I start to feel shaky, cold, and my heart rate increases. The good news is that I’ve adapted. I know how to recognize the signs and take a break from the stressors. The other good news is that most of the things that were piled on me last Fall are now gone. I’m more careful about what I commit to doing. Knowing my own limits is a good thing. It is also a good thing to realize that I can keep going even when doing something that makes me anxious. Twice I’ve had to walk away from this entry. Once I nearly deleted it. But I’m going to post this anyway because having anxiety is something everyone deals with. I will only be an anxious person if I allow my anxiety to dictate my actions.

I enjoy spending time with my family. It is endlessly interesting to review shared history and see it from different angles. I always come away with thoughts about who I am and where I have come from. This visit also gave me a chance to see more extended family as well. I saw aunts and uncles that I’ve not spoken to in years. It was good to catch up, but also overwhelming. There are so many of them and they all have so many children who then went on to have children. I can go to a family gathering and only recognize a quarter of the people there. Most of the conversations start with “Now who do you belong to?”

You see, my grandmother died giving birth to her 11th child. My grandfather then married a widow with five children of her own. My mother is one of 16 children. Those 16 children all got married and then had an average of 5 children each. I have 100 first cousins. I don’t even know most of them. The uncle who died was not one that I’d known well. But it was important to be there. It was important to reconnect with family. My uncle was afforded military honors for his service. The concussion from the three rifle volleys hit me with a physical impact. The bugle made me cry. I stood there, knowing that many people have stood similarly before. Someday it will be my turn to plan a funeral. But not today. Today I get to hug my kids and husband close.

By 10 am this morning all the relatives had gone home. I breathed the relief of having my house to myself again. No matter how much I love the people, being surrounded all the time is hard. I’m an introvert. Fortunately my family understands this. We’re all pretty introverted. So we socialize lots while we’re together and then decompress after the visit is over.

As usual when I have a house full of relatives, I have trouble finding the brain space to write. But it has been a wonderful chance to catch up. Things will be back to normal tomorrow.

12:30 AM welcome my sister and her family and help them bed down for the night. The baby objects to being put back to bed after being woken up. The crying lasts until around 1.

1:30 AM Patch has an attack of croup. I snatch him up, send Gleek back to bed, and take him outside into the cold air. We sit there shivering until the cool air helps clear his breathing. Howard brings us a blanket and resettles Gleek. Then I bring Patch back inside into the steamy bathroom to further clear up his cough.

2:00 AM I tuck Patch into bed between Howard and I. We try to go back to sleep while also listening to Patch’s breathing to make sure that he’ll be okay. The two activities do not go well together.

6:17 AM My alarm goes off and I roll out of bed to make breakfast. I have to be careful not to step on Link who chose to sleep on the floor by my bed rather than on a mattress in the girl’s room. (My sister has Link’s room.)

6:50 AM I feed breakfast to my Mom and Dad so that they can leave for the viewing. A few other people also wake-up and wander out to be fed. Link wanders down, which is good since I need to get him dressed and ready for his Scout Pow Wow.

7:15 Mom and Dad leave. I concentrate on helping Link get ready.

7:45 Link heads out the door. I head to take a shower.

Still to come:

9:15 AM My sister and I leave to drive 90 minutes to the funeral

10:00 AM Howard sends Patch and Gleek to a primary program practice, while my brother-in-law takes his girls to visit some other relatives. Kiki (hopefully) does homework during this time. Howard has a quiet space to get work done.

11:AM Funeral

Noon Kids arrive back at the house. Howard feeds them lunch.

3-ish I come back home and begin preparations for my mom’s birthday celebration tomorrow. I also need to replace the air mattress that went flat under Gleek last night. I also need to retrieve the nebulizer I loaned to a neighbor in case there is more croup tonight.

Then there will be bedtime craziness as we try to put seven kids to bed using three bedrooms or less.

Many times I’ve read articles bemoaning the fact that people try to dodge responsibility for things that they have done. I have the opposite problem. I grab responsibility for things which were truly not my fault. When I find myself in a heated exchange of words or a conflict, I feel like it is my job to fix it. Even when I can logically see that the best thing for me to do is leave it alone, the back of my brain keeps churning. It rehashes conversations or online exchanges, rehearsing things I could say or do. Somehow this back part of my brain believes that if I can only find the right action or words, I can make everything better and we can all be friends. Except, for some situations, it really is best to just walk away because mucking about trying to fix it will only continue the conflict rather than letting it fade away. I just wish my logical brain and my emotional brain would not work at cross purposes this way. It makes the inside of my head noisy until I want to hide from my own thoughts.

On a much happier note: Stacy Whitman, a former Mirrorstone editor gone freelance, interviewed me on her blog yesterday. We talked about my experiences with self publishing. It was fun to answer the questions because it showed me some things about my experiences that I hadn’t put together in exactly that way before. The interview is long, but if you’re interested You can find it here.

My mother is coming into town this weekend. The cause for the trip is sad. Her brother died this week and his funeral is on Saturday. But Sunday is her birthday and we’re going to throw a party. It’ll be just family, but there will be cake and games and presents. I figure she threw parties for me for 18 years, it’s only fair that I get to throw one for her. Besides it has been a decade and a half since I’ve been with my mom on her birthday. This is going to be fun.

We’re having a sale over at our store. We’re offering free shipping anywhere on the planet for orders over $100. This sale has done pretty well so far. It brought in 40 orders. This naturally means that I’ve spent a good portion of today packing those orders for shipping. I should probably do a write up of what normal shipping looks like to contrast it with our mass mailing style shipping parties. It will have to wait for another day. The shipping tasks were broken up by a trip out to go visiting teaching. This is a program by our church where women are paired up and assigned to visit other women in the congregation once per month. It functions as a way to increase social bonds within the congregation and to make sure that if someone has an emergency, they have people ready to help. I fully support the program. It gives me a chance to step out of my daily concerns and serve others. Today was just a pleasant visit, rather than service, but it was still nice to have a break. After that was an appointment with a blinds salesman. The boy’s room has been suffering from a bent curtain rod and ratty curtains for years now. It is time to have that fixed. This of course leads back to the sale in the store, since that is where the funds are coming from to pay for the new blinds.

My kids each carry a bag to church. The bags hold paper, pencils, scriptures, and occasionally the stowaway toy. These bags are very helpful in keeping the kids focused during the meetings. But after church is over, I find that 3/4 of the kids shove their bags into my hands before they dash for home. Individually the bags do not weigh all that much, but combined they are quite the load. And so I am left literally holding all the bags.

Church bags are not the only things I end up holding for my kids. I am the general repository for unwanted items such as coats, backpacks, books, blankets, even trash. When the kids are done with something, they hand it to me. I know this is the way it needs to be for young children who are not really capable of keeping track of belongings. But my children are not that young anymore. They are perfectly capable of taking a few extra steps to the trash can instead of handing the banana peel to me. And yet they hand me the peel, and I throw it away. Most of the time I throw it away without even thinking about it. I haul the bags home. I pick up the scattered shoes and socks. I clear the table. I do all these things and a hundred more without even noticing that I’ve done them, because that is the pattern we all fell into when the kids were little.

But every so often I have a day when I notice. When I resent being left holding the bag. When I wonder why everyone, including me, assumes that the unpleasant/boring jobs belong to me. When I wonder why I am always the one to share give away her last cracker or to be late to events because I’m scolding dawdlers into getting read. On these days it feels like I am the only one who cares about the state of the house, about the fact that we’re late again, about making sure that healthy food gets on the table.

The problem is that I’m so good at what I do, that no one else has to care. They can leave it to me and know that the work will get done. They trust me to do these things for them. On non-resentful days I treasure that trust and I express my love for them by doing all these little things. But the kids are growing. One day they will be adults. They will go out into the world to have roommates and spouses who will curse me unless I can teach them to clean up after themselves rather than always doing it for them. I do try, but somehow I always end up holding the bag, or the coat, or the trash, and wondering how I got there again.

I think some of the reason for the pattern pure habit. It is easier to follow the flow of a habit than to struggle to change it. Just accepting the trash feels easier than arguing with the child about proper trash receptacles. This is particularly true if you’ve already had that argument with two other children several times during the course of the day. I only have so much energy to make them do stuff. Usually I use it all up making them get up, eat breakfast, go to school, practice piano, do chores, eat dinner, and do homework. The last thing I want to do is turn into the bad guy by hauling kids away from their games to make them pick up their scattered shoes and backpacks. I know I should, but I just get too tired to fight over it. But the clutter is unpleasant, so I pick it up. I’m much better about this than I used to be. I’m making them clean up more often. I also hold out hope because I almost never have to clean up after Kiki anymore. She has grown into a responsible and willing helper.

I know I need to work on this. I need to train them to pick up after themselves so that there are fewer days where I’m left resentfully holding the bag.