anxietyandstress

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope everybody has a great holiday. My husband and I opened our gifts last night, and I got a lot of great things that I both wanted and needed. Today we’re just going to hang out around the house.

Of course, something always has to mar the Christmas season. Apparently, a guy dressed up as Santa showed up at a house and opened fire, killing 3 people. The home also caught fire, and 3 others suffered injuries. To me, this is just the epitome of sick. If you’re going to do something like that, quit screwing around and hiding your face. Commit your crime, and take your punishment like a man. Ooops, that doesn’t sound much like the public defender I am, does it? Well, I’m a little bit depressed today. Yesterday was not fun - I happened to catch the verbal bullets of a angry client, and I’ve been depressed ever since. I’m WAY too sensitive.

Husband seems to be coming down with a cold, hopefully he’ll be feeling better when he wakes up this morning. I’m going to let him sleep in as long as he wants.

We got another few inches of snow today. It was bad enough that our boss let us leave early, so my husband and I spent that time chiseling the ice from our driveway and trying to convince the dog to go to the bathroom outside. What fun! Tomorrow will be a shortened day also, being Christmas Eve Day. I’m going to try and make a dent in some of the large piles on my desk.

At least I’m working. In Florida, employment is at 7.3% which is roughly 680,000 people without jobs. That is scary. This is the first deep recession that I’m able to remember, and I’m starting to get scared. I’m hearing of so many people that have gotten laid off and can’t find work. The economy is really hitting hard, and it’s terrible to be laid off over Christmas. The article also indicated that retailers will probably shed jobs after a dismal showing in 2008. I agree that retail will be letting people go, but I shudder to think of what impact it will have on the already tattered economy.

It’s literally -1 degree out here, and the wind chill is even worse. The dog is refusing to go to the bathroom outside. I’d like to believe that she just has a very strong bladder, but somehow I think that’s not the case. Anxiety has been rough today too. It seems like the longer I go without difficult periods of anxiety, the worse it is when I do get anxious. It’s like a whole new feeling that I have to get used to again. All my therapy techniques seem to fly right out of my head, although I do my best to remember them. I want to finish work early tonight and go to bed early. I think that holiday stress is contributing to my anxiety.

Work is also stressful, both my real job and ChaCha. My real job has just been a disaster, I can’t find my desk, my clients are all nuts, and some of my co-workers are driving me up a wall.  At least with ChaCha I know the questions will be crazy and I don’t have any co-workers who are in the same house. That being said, I’m getting stuck in the position of not being able to make Top Guide this week due to my schedule. I think that’s pretty unfair. But I’m going to try for Top Guide, which means that tonight, instead of going to bed early, I’ll be doing the ChaCha. Ugh.

Well, Christmas is almost here, so it’s about time that my emetophobia kicked into high gear. Emetophobia is a fear of vomiting. After four years of therapy, I’m much better than I once was, but I’m not completely cured. I can guarantee you that I will go into utter hysterics if I’m going to vomit, but I can look at pictures of vomit and say the word vomit with no problem at all. The sad thing is that a few years ago, just seeing the word vomit would send me into a panic attack. I am having a lot of the good old “What if I vomit?” thoughts lately, and it’s related to the holiday season and all the fun viruses flying around. 

I saw a blog this morning that has to do with emetophobia, and a couple sentences summed up my holiday season perfectly in regards to emetophobia. Quoted directly from Writersblock: “Being in large crowded malls where any number of people could be carrying and passing this germ leads to more anxiety. And it never fails to pass that halfway through that Christmas dinner, a relative in close proximity reveals this is the first meal they’ve been able to eat since the norovirus attacked them the previous few days.

HoHoHo”

This is how things always work for me, so the post made me giggle. I was sitting next to one of the State’s Attorneys the other day, and whilst breathing right in my face, tells me that her daughter vomited 5 times at day care yesterday. My emetophobic radar immediately picked up.

But I’m still using ACT therapy to deal with the negative thoughts, although my anxiety tends to peak around this time. I wish I was able to get completely over this phobia, like some people I know have. But things are a lot better than they used to be, and I’m thankful for that.

My anxiety has been bad today, so I was searching around on the internet and stumbled across this. According to the article, 41% of PTSD was related to genetics, and 61% of depressive symptoms and 69% of anxiety symptoms are related to genetics. I knew that anxiety and other forms of mental illness had a genetic component, but I never knew that the likelihood of passing it on to your children was so high. My grandmother has slight anxiety, my mother has situational anxiety, and I got slammed with full blown panic disorder and emetophobia. It makes me shudder to think what my children may end up with if I choose to have any. The article ran studies on people who were all involved in the same trauma, an earthquake, so the trauma, or possible triggering events (were there earlier triggers - we don’t know?) is somewhat controlled. It’s an interesting study, but frightening as well. At least the word is still getting out about mental illness, because I believe it’s a lot more prevalent than most people think.

Speaking of thinking, I’m going to be ignoring my negative thoughts and anxious feelings for the rest of the night. Okay, I’m at least going to try. Some chocolate might help.

Remind me not to wish that work gets cancelled anymore. Our driveway is a sheet of ice, and I’m waiting for my husband to come help me chip away the ice. It sleeted - is that even a word?- all night last night, and everything looks like a skating rink from what I can see. However, the local government, in its wisdom, decreed that everything is to start 2 hours late, instead of just cancelling it altogoether. As far as any of the court calls are concerned, that’s just idiotic. Placing one court call to start late will start the ball rolling to make everything else start late, so court will probably run until about 7:00 pm. Some people will show up, but most won’t, and hopefully there won’t be any warrants issued. Screwing up the Judges’ schedules makes them very unhappy, which the attorneys and defendants tend to pay for, and most clients who are able to come to court won’t know to check the radio about the delay and will be at court at the scheduled time anyway. Grrrr! How irritating. And I might mention that all my clients will yell at me for the delay. Ugh.  So I’m just going to de-ice the driveway and go in at my regular time. Maybe I can get some work done in those delayed two hours.

Never fear, I’ll be back to whine more later.

Tonight’s weather forecast should be fun. The weather man is predicting about 12 inches of snow and ice. I love watching the snow come down, and the possibility that the weather may be bad enough to close court for tomorrow. Even if the courthouse is open, I doubt that any of my clients will show up. They have difficulty getting to court on an ordinary day, but with older cars that won’t start, especially in ice storms, they have a lot of problems getting to court. Luckily, the new Judge seems understanding about that. The old Judge wanted teenagers to walk across town, starting in the middle of the night, to get to court. I don’t know what he was thinking. I certainly wouldn’t let my child walk through some areas of this town during the day, much less at night.

I’m waiting for news of the Big Three automakers fate. I have family members who may be affected by this, so I’m hoping things get cleared up quickly, so that all my relatives and everyone else’s can have a happy Christmas.

Just for the record, I’m still sick. I think I’m improving, although not very quickly. I thought quitting smoking was supposed to help my immune system. What a crock. At least everyone else is sick too. I’m such a mean little witch that having everyone else suffer while I do makes me feel better. Evil!

When I read this article, I wasn’t even surprised. At least not by Drew.  Maybe I’ve been working in the criminal justice system for too long and reading too many true crime books. Let me tell you, Ann Rule is going to make one heck of a book out of the Drew Peterson mess.  I do have a couple questions, though. What idiot from this area, who presumably is up to date on the case, is going to take a chance with this guy? Especially when his exes keep showing up dead or not showing up anywhere at all? And by the way Drew, congratulations on your engagement, but what are you going to do about your current marriage? I don’t practice divorce law, but I don’t believe that abandonment via murder is a viable reason for divorce in Illinois.

On a different note, ChaCha is improving. I’m going to be able to make Top Guide for the second week in a row, barring any catastrophes. I’m actually getting a pretty nice variety of questions, although I was starting to get very fast at the sex and obscure NFL records questions. I just need to ChaCha until my shower is paid for, and then we’ll start on the student loans. One step at a time. My very first step, though, will be to grab my puppy and a movie and get some sleep. I still have a cold to get over.

The snow is coming down here. The roads are in very bad condition, and the snow just keeps on coming. Luckily, I got to leave work half an hour early, although it took me almost half an hour longer to get home. It is making everything feel very Christmas-y. Our tree is trimmed, and all the presents are underneath it. My husband will be so happy when he sees what I bought him. We get to spend Christmas Day by ourselves this year, instead of travelling on Christmas Day. The last time we spent Christmas Day alone together it was really nice. We made a nice dinner and hung around the house all day watching movies. Very low-key. Although the snow looks pretty, it needs to clear up by tonight, because I need to get to work in the morning, and I’ve already shoveled twice today.

The holidays are definitely upon us. I’m still sick, it’s 2 below zero outside not counting the windchill, and I just whipped out a batch of 20 Christmas cards in about fifteen minutes. Hallmark would definitely NOT be impressed. I also need to bring all my co-worker gifts to work tomorrow. It’s quite neat - I spend about $75 on gifts for co-workers and get nothing in return. Yippee.

Ouch. I’m really full of holiday spirit. Or is that hormones and rage? I lost a trial today, so that didn’t put me in a great mood. The Judge finds my client guilty (rightfully so, I might add), and I hear a noise that sounds like a bull panting. It’s my client, flaring his nostrils and looking like he’s about to attack the Judge. What is WRONG with these people? Does the bull breathing thing really work to help you get what you want? I thought it was just an adolescent way of having a temper tantrum, but maybe there’s something to it. Maybe I’ll try the “bull breathing” technique the next time the Judge rules against me. And this kid’s parents. Sheesh! They don’t want to take him home, because there’s something wrong with him, and he doesn’t respect people. This statement was made directly after mother spent a good two minutes reaming me out in very rude terms. I wonder where he learned it from?