The last few days have been fairly stressful for me from a psychological standpoint. My husband, who is out of work, thought he had a job offer coming; but instead was told that the position “isn’t funded”. Why you would go through the process of interviewing someone multiple times, both on the phone and in-person, over the course of a month for a role you don’t even know you can fill seems like the biggest waste of time to me. And despite my repeated warnings to not slack on his job search until he had an offer in hand and a start date, he slacked big time. And now he’s starting the process from scratch.
All of this makes me stressed from multiple fronts. He’s unhappy and stressed, which makes me unhappy and stressed. Plus, I’m stressed about money and having to be the sole provider while I’m quietly dealing with melanoma. Only one person in my company knows and she is sworn to secrecy because the last thing I need is people in my organization thinking that I can’t be both sick and productive. (Totally not true, I’ve been even more focused at work because it gives something worthwhile to do rather than sitting around watching my wound heal.)
The cold, dark, and gloomy weather has really started to kick my behind. I had thought that once I was in the healing stages of this, I would take myself somewhere warm, listen to the ocean, and just relax for a long weekend. But with the hubster’s situation, I can’t actually spend money now. I even spent last night searching for part-time jobs I could do on the weekends to make extra cash so I don’t have to worry about making the mortgage payment once our savings runs out.
So, with that backstory, I have spent most of the day wondering why my leg is hurting so much when it seems like the wound has finally closed. And finally, it hit me…I’m stressed big time and that is making any pain I have seem worse today. There has been some scientific studies, including one from Carnegie Mellon, which show a link between psychological pain and stress.
I wonder if this scar is going to be like Harry Potter’s scar when Voldemort was planning harm to him: any time I’m in the presence of something that makes me stressed, my scar will hurt. Up until today, I thought I had been handling everything pretty well, or at least blocking out and ignoring stuff that’s unpleasant. But today my body is reminding me that my brain can also cause pain where it shouldn’t be as severe.
I need to learn to relax when I feel the stress level ratcheting up. A warm weather location somewhere I can hear the waves breaking normally does it for me and so does an awesome massage, but both of those options are not currently available to me since both cost money. Ordinarily, I can lose myself in a book but even that last night didn’t work. Does anyone have a no-cost stress reliever that works for them? Either that or a beach house I can borrow for a little bit? ;o)