Irritability and Head in the Sand

Sometimes I don’t realise just how overwhelmed I am. I think my lack of structure is starting to get me down and making me feel very uncomfortable in myself.

I woke up this morning to a whole load of requests from people to support other people’s projects, write blogs for other folks, do some volunteer work and go to a gig.  I haven’t responded to any because it has all been sent to me in quick succession and I have no idea of when I am working, when I have days off, when I’ll need to slot in essentials like shopping for food (nevermind that it’s December next month). The last few weeks it’s been requests for seeing me over Christmas. It’s the same thing every year. I’m expected to go home but I’m working in a job (not just my current role) where I don’t get a whole bunch of days off like the rest of my family have always seemed to have. It’s just so much stuff on my plate at once and very little I can say or do until closer to the time. Then people get irritated because I don’t have an instant answer for them.

So today I am feeling highly irritable. I’ve so many things I could be doing, but I have no idea where to prioritise or where to start. I can feel the irritation through my entire body. It’s not just my head, but it feels like pins and needles all over my body. I have almost cramping muscles in my stomach from it. I have to stop myself from clenching my hands or going into throwing a tantrum, which isn’t a very becoming thing when you’re 31.

Instead of sitting down and working through what needs to be done first, I’ve decided to bury myself in some music and to write a blog to try to calm myself down. It’s been causing my real anxiety for a while but I’ve not really had anyone to talk things through with. After moving away after uni, I haven’t made a circle of friends where I can just go for a cup of tea and a rant like I did at uni. But then again, even the friends I do have near by I can never find any time to see with schedules being as they are with clashes in who is working when. I don’t really want to go for a pint either when I feel as anxious and irritable.

I think this is an area where I really missed out when at school. I never had the skills to structure myself or organise what I needed to do, but because they were unwilling to have me and my needs assessed, I’ve had no support in just how to deal with situations like these. I feel irritable, anxious and angry. I just want to curl up and wish things would sort themselves out for themselves, but I know they won’t and they’re still gonna be there for me to think about later on.