One of the more helpful things I’ve learned in therapy is to let myself cry when I need to.
If I let myself cry now, when I’m alone at work with no clients, rather than trying to hold it off and hold it back, I won’t cry myself sick tonight or three days from now.
I guess it’s just letting yourself feel things when they need to be felt. I’ve learned that with panic attacks too. If I can get to a safe spot and let it come, it will last much much less time than if I try to fend it off and ignore it for hours. That just serves to make me feel terrified and shitty for easily five times as long.
I don’t know if it’s stress from nursing school, money problems, work problems, or marriage problems that are making every one of my nerves feel raw and my skin feel like tissue paper. Or if it’s just the stress of life in general. But I’ve been through periods like this enough that I know it’ll end eventually. There’s no light at the end yet, but I’m definitely in the tunnel so it must only be a matter of time.
I guess I should start journaling again, at least regularly. As Anna Nalik says, “if I get it all down on paper it’s no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to.”