less than this

How do you handle stressful situations?

• Anger
• Calmly working out a solution
• Complaining to anyone who will listen
• Moping alone

Ah, a more detailed answer. Ah, journaling on OKCupid... I suppose I'll have to copy this over to lessthanthis.com, where I 'normally' do my journalling. Anyway, moving on...

I suppose it depends on how stressful the situation is for me; most of the time I'm able to calmly work out a solution to potentially stressful situations before they really get bad. Sometimes I'm not so lucky; usually when the source of stress is a human being, and moreso when it is a human being I care deeply about (and/or love). In those situations where, despite my best efforts, I am unable to work things out calmly, I take all three of the other options... not at once, not usually even serially, it just depends on the situation.

Like with a recent situation with an ex that became quite stressful and which she insisted remain secret: I respected her wishes and did not speak to anyone about it who didn't already know, cutting off the 'Complaining' option in this case. I still cannot discuss the circumstances (I have yet to determine the statute of limitations on this secret), but getting angry couldn't have solved or changed anything about the situation, so I didn't really bother with that, either. Mostly I just kept quiet after offering what I could to try to calmly work the situation out, moping alone.

But when my new car started giving me problems three days off the lot and the dealership tried not to talk to me at all and then only to tell me the problems wouldn't be covered - without even looking at the car - I was already stressed out when I had walked into the dealership, and after trying to work it out calmly, resorted to anger. My anger got the guy to at least look at the car and give me the time of day (actually, his name and phone number, so I could register an official complaint with his corporate masters later), though he still refused to help me. Luckily, even though I had already got angry, when I spoke for the nth time that day to corporate I was able to remain calm and explain (complain about) the situation again (to someone in a call center with no chance of controlling the guy at the dealership, but who at least listened and did something instead of listening and telling me to go to the dealership) and get the help I needed.

So... All of these. Depends on the situation, depends on the stressor.

You know, forming a hypothesis, designing an experiment to test it, performing (and repeating) the experiment, and comparing the results to the hypothesis to see whether it was disproved. Not consciously, anyway. Some might hypothesize that I do a lot of casual, subconscious science all the time, but I'm not sure how to design an experiment to test that hypothesis, or that any data I collected about myself would be valid.

My brain keeps ... well, it's like I have cravings, except rather than cravings for particular foods, they're to design and perform a series of experiments, or to use experimental design to optimize systems... except I don't usually have anything to optimize or clear hypothesis to test, and I just continue to go about my business. Which just makes me more frustrated next time the craving comes up.

(more...)

I don't feel very good. Not so hot, as they say.

Sure, there are a few normal bits, a bit of a headache, a bit tired, and some of it's probably to do with my irregular sleeping these last few days, perhaps a bit of dehydration, perhaps even related to my grandfather's injury (though I doubt that; I don't seem to actually feel much about anyone getting injured, sick, or dying)...

And I suppose that the bigger chunks of my bad feeling are all pretty normal for me by now, too; the thoughts of suicide I so naturally cast aside as pointless, the crushing, drowning waves of depression and occasionally anxiety, the feelings of aloneness and separation with regards to romantic relationships and my seemingly insurmountable failures therein, along with the feelings of oppression and suppression that having my family around (my grandfather & my sister and her family mostly, but dad and Heath and Angela sometimes too) seems to generate...

(more...)

So, my grandfather went into surgery on his broken hip this evening and apparently everything went well/normally and he's in recovery now. My father has to talk to the doctors in the morning, but then he's got to drive back up to Moab, UT to retrieve the Scamp (which is a sort of camper you pull like a trailer behind your vehicle, but which would have slowed their drive down to Phoenix to get grandfather in hospital considerably so was left behind) and bring it back... which should be until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest. But which should also be earlier than grandfather will be ready to leave hospital. So, there's an update.

So, my father and grandfather were on a road trip up around Utah, and I'm pretty sure they were only two or three days out (they had said they were leaving Pine late due to weather, but didn't check in with me before they did finally go) and I just got a call that grandpa fell and broke his hip. Dad called from a hospital in Moab, and I guess they'll be in Phoenix this afternoon.

Silly cancer, eating his bones and ruining his vacation.