Anxiety

Yesterday I hit the roof. I officially became 'overplanned.' In addition to planning our entire trip to Vietnam, I planned and hosted a Thanksgiving for my family, have taken on Christmas shopping, wrapping and mailing, launched into planning a 1/2 marathon for a group of people, worked on a half dozen planning-related projects for work and have then tried to plan my absence from work. It all caught up with me in the form of a yummy panic attack.

For me, panic attacks come in the form of a quasi-psychotic episode where I can't exactly see or think straight, have extreme fear/anxiety, problems breathing and get a bile taste in my mouth. I find it to be an absolutely horrible feeling but remain intrigued by the fact that my brain/emotions can have such powerful physical affects. (I do not have a feeling of intrigue while I am experiencing the attack, btw. I also do not look as cute as this little brunette in the picture either. I assume I look like someone who a) is about to throw up b) is completely crazy and/or c) a combination of both a) and b), aka a barfing crazy person)

I think all of that planning had created an extreme sense of claustrophobia. I kept saying 'yes' to things and was just struggling to sort everything out. I felt trapped by my fucking planning. Somewhere I thought the point of planning was to make sure you don't end of trapped. Guess that backfired a bit. I also am a completely anal perfectionist which doesn't help to 'just get things done.' Even the Hubby has commented that in the past couple of days all I have talked about is what we need to do next; what needs to be sorted out or planned. Not too fun for him, I suppose.

After returning to the world of 'normal,' I decided to plan less and say 'no' more often. I executed this resolution immediately by:
- Telling a client I would not turnaround in thin air and produce an analysis before I leave.
- Sending a report that wasn't absolutely piffity perfect to a client.
- Saying "no" to the hubby to doing Christmas cards this year. Sorry, kids.

Today, things are better. In the end, it is all fucked up because the planning is driven with an end-goal of having fun. That makes it all feel even more crazy. Oh well. You gotta love the psychosis.