M. Suzanne Terry

I had a readathon this weekend, and I forgot how nice and relaxing they are. I needed that. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I looked at my calendar Friday evening, saw that I only had one additional thing scheduled the whole weekend (dinner at my friends’ house where I was plied with delicious food and wine and got to see their dog Charlie and catch up with them and watch TV – so, even the one thing was super low key), and burst into tears of relief. 

Welp, that’s telling.

In mental health news, it has been noted that I am describing a greater number of stress responses than usual in sessions. There are probably several factors. First, it’s the end of the semester, and transitions between application periods always have the potential for instability and extra wackiness. Even when the work week is reasonably calm – like last week was – just the awareness that this time of the year is particularly prone to changing in an instant is stressful.

I am also – once again – trying to do too much and not taking the time I know I need for proper rest and restoration. The writing project I’m focusing on is deeply personal and is uncovering some things I probably need to address in future sessions. And then there’s the ongoing, underlying theme of my brain’s particular neurospicy cocktail, which ensures that common elements in several environments I frequent often trigger an acute stress response, just as a matter of course.

A reasonable question might be, “Can’t you just avoid environments that hurt you?” As we discovered during the stay-in-place times during the height of the pandemic, the answer is yes – absolutely I can. That is technically a possibility that I could put in place if I really needed to, as these responses are rarely triggered at home. But since the aforementioned environments do allow me to do nice things like pay for food and rent or engage in creative pursuits and also socialize ever, they’re not really situations I would want to avoid, even if, technically, I could.

Up until recently, any time someone would mention the concept of fight vs. flight, I would state that I’m almost all fight. But while that may have been true at certain points in my life, I don’t think it is anymore. I still occasionally react in a tight jaw/tense muscles/knotted gut sort of way, but even then it tends to stay bottled up and internal, in ready-to-fight mode. More often, I get fidgety, which is more flight, or preparing to run away.

To my great dismay, though, the most common acute stress response I have these days is fawn. Particularly when the stressor is social. And it doesn’t have to be a big stressor – just something catching me off guard, conflict (even mild ones), someone talking more loudly than I can readily process, a slamming door (i.e., the doors at work all day every day), etc. I turn into this over-the-top people pleaser, which is not at all my usual personality. I switch into accommodation mode, giving the other people/person in the situation whatever they want or letting them control it completely. I become overly complimentary, saying things that, while they are truly what I think, are also in that moment specifically spoken to soothe their stress and, by extension, my own. I do anything I can to appear compliant, non-threatening, gracious, and useful. 

These things are not bad ways to be in general. But because I know it’s a stress response, and thus that the intention behind it is more about avoiding further stress than actual helpfulness, it doesn’t feel good. It’s not an honest interaction, but it seems to come across as one. It feels phony, and it’s hard not to judge myself harshly for that, even though stress responses are typically harder (impossible? I wonder) to control. At any rate, it’s my least favorite version of me, especially when I comply by doing something I didn’t actually want to do, but did do, and then felt compelled to either keep pretending that I wanted to or end the madness with an awkward conversation where I say all these convoluted things out loud and utterly confuse/hurt/disappoint everyone involved.

[That last sentence is what everything in my brain sounds like right now.]

Also, my skin hates it when I feel this way, and it’s acting out. That’s annoying. And itchy.

So that thing I was doing during Lent – taking the two time-outs per week instead of just one? I’m going back to that. It requires some creative corralling of my schedule for my second job, but it’s so worth it. I look forward to being myself most of the time again.

What are some things you do (or stop doing) to relieve stress?