Today’s Monday. Like a tremendous number of other people (and Garfield), I don’t like Mondays. It’s not even a regular Monday, it’s actually a day off. A bank holiday, as the British would call it. But still, I feel tired. To be fair, I didn’t get as much sleep over the weekend as I’d have needed to feel entirely refreshed. However, it was absolutely worth it because my weekend was a lot of fun. It was a well-needed break from my life with lots of live music, delicious food and wine and lovely people. Everything was easy, there were no worries.
But now Monday’s here and it requires me to focus on chores, tasks and planning the coming week. It forces me to be a responsible human again, to make decisions, to take care of things that need to be taken care of, to make up my mind regarding certain matters and so on − I reckon “adulting” would be the correct word to sum it all up.
If there was any way of doing this, I’d hit pause on my life right now. Then I’d go to sleep. For honesty’s sake, I’m letting you know that typing this blog entry’s actually a way of procrastinating. There are about a hundred things I could (and should, arrrghhhh!) be doing instead, to get ahead of things in order to tackle the coming week efficiently. All of the tasks I’m currently dodging successfully would actually serve a second purpose, apart from their respective obvious purpose (cleaning the apartment → clean apartment, doing laundry → clean clothes − you get the idea): they’d keep me physically active, which usually has a soothing effect on my busy mind.
Right before the past weekend, I realised that even the most regular things had started to require an extensive amount of energy from me again. Lots of basic, everyday tasks and activities that probably wouldn’t even make you bat an eye (or so I assume) had become increasingly draining for me, meaning that I’ve needed to summon additional strength in order to accomplish or get through them. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed quite easily and I’ve been having a hard time masking my discomfort whenever it manifested itself, which is a skill I’ve worked hard on perfecting over the years so it must have been quite “bad”.
Realising I was struggling again made me feel frustrated with myself and the universe for that matter (because it’s far easier to blame the universe than myself, duh). Since I didn’t have the time nor the energy to start an investigation regarding the underlying causes of my increased anxiety and the resulting behaviour right away − I had indeed noticed that when given the choice, I preferred to avoid certain situations rather than to gather the necessary energy and confidence to endure them − I decided to postpone “facing my demons” until after the weekend. Until Monday. Today. Ugh.
So here I am, procrastinating like a boss because I’m simply overwhelmed, trying to do one thing at a time, trying to think one thought at a time. It’s considerably less difficult to carry out one (physical) task at a time than it is to sort through the thoughts in my head. I have to be careful not to drown in them, not to get thoughts and emotions all mixed up and to get catapulted down a spiral of anxious thoughts. It’s all too easy to set up camp in those thoughts and their entailing emotions, forgetting that thoughts can be just thoughts and feelings can be just feelings, and ending up in what I like to refer to as the bubble when in fact, thoughts and feelings are only as powerful as I give them permission to be.
It’s quite difficult to find a balance between being authentically me and avoiding falling into a pattern of anxiety-induced behaviour. I mean, which parts of me are me and which parts of me are anxiety trying to trick me into thinking that’s just the way I am?! The line between what’s part of my personality and what’s the result of anxiety taking over is a very thin one and it’s super easy for me to trick myself.
“Do you like blabla?”
“Weess net, can I get back to you on this…?”
*grabs notebook and starts a thorough psychological analysis before coming up with an answer*
I believe theres’s absolutely no need for me to explain why being on the receiving end of my hesitancy to answer a seemingly easy question may be confusing. It’s almost impossible to fully comprehend how I feel in such a moment unless you’ve experienced the exact same thing yourself.
I tried to explain this in a previous blog post, if you want to learn more about the confusion one can get into when anxious.
Good news: Monday’s coming to an end. Next up: Tuesday. **
Let’s do this 💪🏼.
* For lack of a better word − “bad” obviously has too much of a negative connotation.
** Is there a word for the feeling of “Smonday” (→ when Sunday stops feeling like Sunday and the anxiety of Monday kicks in) when it occurs on a Monday? Mtuesday?! 🤔
Carrot Days 