Worry-Wart-Itis

Yesterday I got a comment from "me" (identity unknown) who commented:

"I absolutely love your upbeat look at life! Reading your blogs always puts me in a great mood!"

Well "me", I can't tell you how good that made me feel. Especially in light of the fact that while I definitely consider myself an optimist (I have to be, I'm a Bengals fan!), I certainly don't think that I have a particularly upbeat look on life. Probably because on the inside, I'm a chronic, multi-generational sufferer of Worry-Wart-Itis (WWI).

I was reading my friend Andy's blog this week where she discussed her own life-long WWI. I could really relate to the following passage: 

"Sometimes I don’t know how N**** can tolerate me and my anxiety, especially during this economic fiasco. Every single day, he comes home from work and I casually ask him “How was work?” and he responds “Fine” and I want to believe him, I truly do. But I can’t help myself from searching his face for any indication that his company went belly up within the past ten hours during which he was laid off, all of it coming on the heels of being diagnosed with a debilitating disease which will no longer be covered under our non-existent health insurance and which will surely bankrupt us in four months.

He can see the uncertainty in my face and he’ll repeat his answer of “Fine” until I’m convinced he’s being sincere and I’ll start to breathe again. This will last about a nanosecond and then I will immediately worry that he’s merely placating me because he doesn’t want to freak me out by going all Jack Nicholson on me and screaming YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

Feel free to send any sympathy cards to my attention and I’ll make sure to forward them to him."

So yeah, I could have written that. It runs in the family. My mom suffers, my uncle suffers, my grandmother suffers (Well she did.  She's dead now, but if dead people can worry from the great beyond, you know she's doing it!). Unfortunately, I see the early signs of WWI in the next generation as well. 

Most of us with WWI in my family cope with an uncontrollable and insane urge to clean (not that the cleaning necessarily happens, but sometimes it does). Rumor has it that several years ago, my uncle went missing in the early morning hours on a particularly stressful day. My aunt found him on the front porch scrubbing down the brick on the house with a wire brush, because we all know how dirty unpainted brick houses get, especially in the areas under the cover of a porch. My Grandma Mary's cleaning stories are legendary. But on very unusual, and particularly hysterical days, we WWI folks occasionally skip over the cleaning and head straight for the Kleenex.

This past Monday was not starting out well. I was getting ready for work and the WWI was already kicking into high gear. The first of the month was a day or so away, meaning that bills are due and money is tight. Then there was the economic armageddon that was about to come crashing down upon us. That right there is enough to push any WWI victim straight into a bag of tortilla chips, or a bottle of vodka. But then I made a literally HUGE mistake by deciding to face the dreaded scale for diet day #1, post-op. Granted, with recent surgery and lack of working out, I had pretty much figured out the hideous number that the scale was going to report. Little did I expect that the scale chimed in at Hideous-Plus-TEN. It had to be a mistake, so I tried it again, and then a third time with the same results. Isn't that the definition of insanity?  Well I was there and that was IT!  Hysterical WWI crying fit #1 busted loose, which I had to reign in so that I could go to work and pretend that I was all peachy and it was "going to be a Sunshine Day".  Poor Andy, I called him on the phone and I'm sure I scared him.

Crying fit #2 came about when some more bad news came along on my way to drop cookies off at a surgeon's office. I turned the car around and came home instead.  No Visine, no visit. At least the bad news at the scale hours before kept me from EATING the doc's cookies. 

The cookies were delivered about 90 minutes later when I was on the way to meet my friend Charlene for a nice chick flick, which we had planned a few days before. I thought it would be a good mental diversion.  We went to see Nights in Rodanthe. If you're familiar with Nicholas Sparks's books, you know that you can't see his movies without a Sam's Club supply of Kleenex. Hence crying fit #3. At least this one wasn't WWI induced.  

When I got home, I returned a call from my mom. We chit chatted for quite a while, but the conversation turned quickly sour when a heated political disagreement arose over the pending financial armageddon. I ended up hanging up and WWI crying fit #4 kicked off again. 

Now let me be clear here, I'm not much of a crier. Sure, I have a weak spot for sappy Diane Lane movies, running out of coffee, and puppies in peril, but I usually control my multi-generational WWI fits with taekwondo training and a large supply of Mister Clean Magic Erasers (remember...do NOT erase your face!), and that normally works out pretty well. But Monday was not a typical day if you have a job, or even a hope of retiring or sending your kid to college some day, so when our friends called in the late afternoon and invited me over for cocktail hour, I traded crescent kicks for cosmopolitans, and finally put an end to the day.

So back to my friend Andy's blog. She stated that when she gets stressed, she resembles "a high strung chihuahua strung out on meth". Oh yeah, I know how that feels. And on days like this past Monday, well meaning bits of advice from those who don't get it such as "take a deep breath and go for a walk", "visualize a happy ending", or my favorite "avoid caffeine", seem like the equivalent of putting duct tape on the Titanic. 

So "Me", given the crazed meth dog that I was on Monday, it's nice to see that somebody thinks I'm inspiring and uplifting. Because in my own mind, some days I can always be my own worst enemy. I can laugh about it a bit now. The sun did come up on Tuesday. The financial world did not come to an end (YET!!!!!). The doctor got his cookies. My mom and I made up. And after consuming nothing on Monday but 2 strawberries and three cosmopolitans, I lost 4.5lbs. when I stepped on the scale on Tuesday. Life is good.

Comments

[amily]

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[tina]

Okay- you totally described me. To a T. I worry ALL THE TIME. I often wonder what it would be like to be one of those people who just don't give a f@*#&. But, that's not me, and it never will be. As hard as I try. Just ain't gonna happen.
Thanks for the post and for keeping it so real Barb. Have a great weekend. : )
xo
Tina

[Char @ DigiScrapChat]

Oh, I can relate to this so much it's scary! My only problem is that lately I haven't been ABLE to cry, so all my stress and WWI is going internal. Makes for great backaches, headaches and stomachaches! Maybe I need to go see a "cry" movie?!

Thanks for sharing so much - makes the rest of us with WWI feel less alone!

[Roxanna]

WWI stinks - but you certainly hide it well (MUCH better than many i know!)...
thanks for the birthday wishes, have a great weekend!

[Carjazi]

First off, love the new look. I thought I was at the wrong place at first, especially when I started reading the post. I never would have guessed that you also suffered from WWI, you do always seem pretty calm and collected. And definately positive. Oh what we can hide behind the internet. I wish that cleaning was a side effect of my WWI but usually it's shopping and that doesn't really help with it either.

Hoping that you have a calm, worry free weekend.

[Carla]

I would have eaten the cookies.

I'm a WWI sufferer as well, I only wish I turned to cleaning. My house would be spotless. Unfortunately, my house is in chaos and the brownies are gone.

You might not feel great, but you're damn funny and that makes the rest of us feel better. Sorry you had a bad day.

[Jan Connair]

Just for the record, I think of you as unusually upbeat, too. You are never the sort of person to sit around bitching and moaning about stuff for long--usually you just come up with a plan and run with it!

I had a friend years ago who summarized WWI best for me. She said that her father had once told her she had an uncanny knack for taking every problem to its illogical conclusion. That's what I do. If I have a splinter, I can easily picture infection setting in, my untimely death, and my kids growing up without their mom. If the car makes a wee funny noise, I am usually sure it signals hundreds of dollars in automotive work heading my way.

Oh, and I clean when I'm worried, too!

[Andrea]

I know I keep saying this over and over but GET OUT OF MY HEAD AND I'LL GET OUT OF YOURS!

From one WWI sufferer to another ... have some Xanax on me.

(BTW ... LOVE the blog makeover! I thought I clicked on the wrong link when I arrived!)