It has been another bad day.
Today I have been the very defination of the term highly strung. I'm worried about everything, leaving Hong Kong, all the things I have to do before I go, getting to Jakarta, working in Jakarta, coming back to Hong Kong, going home. And when I am worried like this I fixate on unlikely and terrifying scenarios which distract me from dealing with the everyday horrors at hand and instead leave me curled up in a foetal position on my bed. Scenarios in which I forget one little thing and it leads to my total downfall/imprisonment/death by my own stupidity. And even if I manage to fall asleep I will have stressed-out nightmares. I want to go home. I want my mum.
In the cavern between Grant and Phil there is now a huge nervy knot and the huge nervy knot sends worries to my brain, tightens my chest which makes it impossible to breath calmly and makes my skin itch. You know how stress (and tomatoes, and oranges, and feathers) makes my skin play up. And it's so comforting and such a relief to SCRATCH even if it does leave my wrists and hands a little bloodied. There's a certain satisfcation in seeing them all scratched up also, like I deserve it for being so crazy over nothing (I think there's actual science behind this, right? Stress releases histamine, histamine makes you itch, scratching relieves the itch/stress?). That's probably as close as I'd ever come to self-harming, considering my almost comedic fear of inflicting pain on myself.
Outside my window, I can see the warm lights of a passing minibus and all the people tucked up in there cosy against the rain seem a million miles away from me and my crazy crazy stressness. It doesn't help that I've been trapped at home today by the black rain and not seen a soul. Or indeed that the rain has given Hong Kong such a doomed, apocalyptic air which hasn't aided my fevered imaginings. I have spent too long inside my head today.
But although I may sound like a nutbag I have solutions. Firstly, I have sleeping pills which I know of old are one of the few things that will calm me. There is no point trying to sleep naturally when I'm like this. Secondly, I have many meditations on my ipod. Sadly one of them has a man who sounds like a scary pedophile on it; the first time I listenined to that one I got the shock of my life when his voice kicked in after the initial plinky plonky relaxation music. Especially as he first gave a few deep breaths which made it sound less like a meditation exercise and more like an obscene phone call. (HA! I am feeling better, I made a joke!) Thirdly, I have writing and thoughts are so much less scary when you can put them on the screen, they diminish in size when they're not circling around and around in my brain like so many psychotic vultures.
When I was at uni (the first time!) I felt like this approximately... oooh, every 15 minutes. And I didn't really tell anyone I was having all these bonkers stresses and that made it this big, dark, shameful secret, like I couldn't cope with everything because I was a useless gimp and that was BAD BAD BAD. Now I know, it's OK to feel like you can't cope sometimes. And to admit it is to chase the stupid monster away with it's tail between it's legs. BOO! I am not scared of feeling bonkers any more. And just admiting to feeling a little bonkers, makes me feel... well, less bonkers. It's ok, deep breath, I'm just being a little daft because there is a lot of scary change happening and I have spent too much time on my own today.
Tomorrow is another day and this time it WILL BE. I have far too much to do to be anything other than organised and capable. It's get your shit together time.
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