Okay, first, before I write anything else, I have to ask:
Does anyone prefer orange Popsicles? I keep wondering why Popsicle companies always insist on putting orange ones in. The other flavours may be raspberry, or strawberry, or grape, or pomegranate or something, but there is always, always orange. Like, it seems like 50% of the Popsicles end up being orange in any given package. Why?? They are the least exciting flavour. They are the ones that always get left for last. People rummage for the red ones and the purple ones, and only start on orange once all the good flavours are gone. Ditto for orange suckers, when it comes to that.
Maybe it’s because they want you to run through the box faster, and buy more. You think you’re getting 14 Popsicles, but once you’ve eaten 8 or so, you realize that all that is left is orange ones, and after a couple of days of half-hearted eating you go and buy a new box. But surely any brand that sold grape-only, or red-only, would rocket to the top of the charts as the most popular brand?
These are the things I think about.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about – why am I finding it so much harder than some of my group-mates in facing my anxieties?
The only answer I really have is that unlike some of my fellows, who are terrified of talking to their ex-wives or abusive relations, or who avoid driving because they are afraid of car crashes… I don’t have any stressful situations which I am avoiding. Instead, my avoidance is the cause of most of my anxieties. Cleaning the house doesn’t make me anxious. NOT cleaning the house makes me anxious. Writing in my diary doesn’t make me anxious. NOT writing in my diary makes me anxious. So, I’m supposed to be doing things that will make me anxious, so I can tolerate the uncertainty. But I’m also supposed to start doing the things I’ve been avoiding doing. So should I clean the house, or see how long it takes before it resembles an episode of Hoarders?
Because it’s totally all the things that I’m avoiding doing that are making me anxious. And then I begin to associate the things on my mental to-do list with the anxiety that thinking about them all the time causes, and then that makes me avoid them more. Which makes them build up into bigger problems. Which makes me… you guessed it… more anxious. Like, the more I stress about being late for work, the later I end up being, because stressing about being late for work makes me avoid getting ready. It’s really, really stupid.
When I think back to the times in my life when I have been happiest, it has been times when my to-do list has been pretty small. I love being on trips because I don’t have to worry about cleaning the house or washing the dishes. I can just have fun and be on vacation.
But when stuff builds up like this, it becomes a vicious cycle. All the stuff becomes overwhelming, so I avoid dealing with it, and it becomes more overwhelming, so I avoid doing it more, which makes it worse. And now it’s hard to feel any kind of joy at all because the weight of all the things I have to do are pressing down on me all the time, and some part of my brain is constantly going, “don’t forget to look for that missing DVD. Don’t forget to trim your dog’s nails. Don’t forget to sweep – look at all that dog fur. Don’t forget, you have to get printer ink so you can print your resume. Don’t forget, you need to preserve those torches. Don’t forget, you still need to install baseboards around the house. Don’t forget…”
I’m supposed to write my worries, but they aren’t worries so much as endless thoughts about the things I’m not doing.
So, here they are, for the world to see. You can all help me not forget.
- Groom Beloved Dog
- Clean floors
- Throw away or organize clutter (Perfect Husband got a great start on this last weekend, when he went into the Baby’s Room aka The Room Full of The Boxes We Haven’t Unpacked Since We Moved Last August and Cat Litter) and spent a whole day sorting through the junk. You can actually see the floor!)
- Wash dish rack
- Do laundry
- Figure out why there is laundry under the bed and deal with that, too
- Figure out where that smell in the bathroom is coming from and eradicate it
- Figure out where the missing DVD went
- Buy stands for the torches
- Buy book case/entertainment unit for the living room
- Buy stuff to fix the soot on the torches because I keep worrying that it’ll all rub off
- Get house measured
- Get baseboards
- Get baseboards installed
- Finish painting the house
- Paint the baby’s room
- Buy new eye glasses
- Clean car
- Turn up the earth in the garden
- Get sod for garden
- Get outdoor planters
- Get plants for said planters
- Get small charcoal barbecue
- Pick up patio set from friends who have offered us said patio set
- Frame pictures needing to be framed
- Hang framed pictures
- Call friends who think I’m dead
- Write in diary regularly so I can worry there instead of worrying about how I need to go and write backlogs
- Write backlogs in diary
- Get hair cut
- Go swimming regularly
- Get psyched for our upcoming trip to New York
- Tell my mother about our upcoming trip to New York
That’s all I can think of for now, but I know there’s more. I’ll let you know when I think of it.
Aren’t you excited?
If By Yes 
I avoid things because I worry about not living up to my own standards, which are absurdly high for someone who does virtually nothing.
I like orange popsicles and think you’re ridiculous for liking purple ones. I also haven’t seen this phenomena you’re speaking of, of the orange ones being the last ones left. there are no orange suckers in the volunteer jar, there are red and yellow ones.
You are welcome to my orange popsicles :-p
Done! send them over.
I agree about the orange Popsicles… They were the ones that made my tongue bleed, or the ones you could tell did 🙂
I suggest hairspray for the soot on the torches… Good old fashioned aerosol stuff… Cheap and readily available and something you might have kicking around.
Good luck tackling your lengthy to do list. As long as you arn’t setting yourself some arbitrary deadline for any of these tasks, there’s no reason all of them eventually might get accomplished. And I (and lots io others) won’t judge you for a dirty dish rack or never finding the missing DVD 🙂
I know I find it really annoying when I confess how unhappy or anxious or stressed I am about some problem and someone says “Well, why don’t you do x?” As though I could make it go away by being rational at it. As though I wanted their advice instead of their understanding. As though the problem was the problem instead of how I felt about it. But anyway, because the urge to try to fix things is so strong, and having contact with you only through the internet so you can’t come and kick me:
Can you make your to-do list smaller by deciding not to do some things? Such as, will the baby care if you don’t paint his/her room? And, given how hard it is to go to the hairdresser when you have a small baby, perhaps you should grow your hair long?
But I do understand, though I don’t have it as bad. Wishing you energy and calm.
Baby won’t care, I will :-p
Maybe I could forget about laundry, though… XD
I like orange and grape popsicles equally. The pink ones are the ones that hang around until all other popsicles are gone in my household. However, I will say that I really don’t understand, for the life of me, why rootbeer popsicles are not available outside gas station convenience stores. If they could sell those by the dozens in grocery stores, I’d buy a box every week. Even in the winter time!
I like orange popsicles too 🙂 However, I ADORE lists! They make me happy. I’d say do the easy ones first – laundry (you can also make little tick boxes for all the stages(put on laundry, dry, fold, put away – see you just accomplished FOUR things…and that’s only one load!!! Okay, that’s my dorky side coming out:P )
I’m personally feeling a little overwhelmed at the idea of gardening…where to start?!?
Good luck-just take it one task at a time!
My psychologist spoke about dealing with avoidance in terms very much like dog training – our brains don’t understand longterm consequences, only the short term. Every time I avoid something I don’t want to think about, there is an immediate reward of seeking comfort in snuggling back into the bedding, or immersing myself in tv, or something else. The stress and guilt of knowing I’m avoiding something are harder to register as immediate consequences. When I actually do something I am supposed to do, there is a longterm benefit of less stress and a feeling of accomplishment, but the immediate feeling is fear and anxiety about how it will turn out, guilt for not doing it sooner even though I am doing it now, and overall resistance. So my brain associates avoidance with comfort and productivity with stress, even though the opposite is really true. To get around this, I am supposed to reward myself for doing even small parts of tasks that I typically avoid – eat chocolate while doing the dishes, save a favorite book for after I am in bed, etc. She’s also big on avoiding beating yourself up for not doing things.
The phsychologist I saw breifly in NB suggested trying to sort of sneak up on myself – kind of the “aim for a B” philosophy. He suggested breaking things I avoid into very small steps and only aiming to do the first one. I was avoidind schoolwork, so I should aim to put my books out on my desk as soon as I got home so they were ready when I was. Then I should NOT SIT AT THE DESK. Otherwise, I would just avoid the first step too and it would be the same as just telling myself to study more. I was supposed to take a break away from the study area and not think about the books. If that went well, the next step was to sit there and maybe do the reading for one subject, then leave again. It didn’t really work for me, but I started late enough in the school year that there was no hope of passing most of my courses by then.
Right now I am avoiding getting ready for work. Guess I should go do that.
Oh, that seems to be a key part of avoidance for me – I am incapable of prioritizing and think everything must get done and everything must get done well. It is only when it is down to the wire and panic sets in that I can start to think in terms of damage control – once I have admitted to myself that I will obviously fail to do everything, it is easier to look at what I CAN still do and just get it done. The stress actually simplifies things and I sometimes need it to function.
Okay, really going now.
That… makes a lot of sense.