Today

Today was the first day students were back from summer vacation.  I looked forward to the day.  It ended up fairly close to how I was expecting.  I took the dips and swirls of the day in stride - I was doing great........ Yea I wish.  One of the things I learned that I do on a daily basis is hide how I am feeling from myself.  I try to have a positive outlook in the face of challenges.  This year's motto for this school year for me is to 'Enjoy the Challenge.'  I thought I was doing great until I counted the number of candy wrappers from my chocolate mini's.....I am so lying to myself.  Later that evening, my DH mentioned that I didn't seem to be there with him.  I was here physically but my body language said I was somewhere else.  I told him I was decompressing.  Bam.... Connection.  I use depression to bring down my anxiety. Well crap.  Depression is my drug of choice for anger, anxiety, frustration and a host of other emotions that I feel uncomfortable with.  Eating lots of chocolate and popcorn are symptoms.  KavinCoach told me years ago that depression is usually a better choice than unbridled anger.  However, using depression is as addictive as any drug.  It calms me down but snuffs out happiness and joy.  It also demands more and more from me to get back out of the depression I put myself in to begin with.  Tomorrow I have a dead line set by someone else.  I am fairly sure it is totally unrealistic with the time constraints I have plus picking up my hearing aid in the middle of the day.  I am not afraid of a challenge but I dislike being setup to fail.  What to do?  How do I calm the anxiety without using depression?  Think - breathe - really, breathe nice slow deep breathes.  I can't do anything tonight so I might as well frolic on Facebook then get some sleep to be well rested for tomorrow.