Storm in a Wine Glass

What a waste of high emotion that was!

The emotion: a sleepless night due to palpitations and high levels of stress that had my mind go into overdrive and no matter what I did – read a book, cuddle up closer to Hubby and counting his breaths or heart beats – I couldn’t slow it down. I agonised and catastrophised for hours. I was distracted even before we went to bed, continuously glancing at my phone and getting more and more stressed over each comment as they trickled into the WhatsApp group for the people on the counselling course. As I lay there awake with my heart racing in the small hours, the essay had grown in my head to something insurmountably difficult and complex and I convinced myself I can’t even account for the basics of the theories I need to cover. What about this? And that? And here’s this thing. Word count, can we go over at ALL? Do we count the sub-headings? Instructions in the course handbook? Shit, I never even knew there was such a thing! What fucking handbook? That was just the START of it, friends – once I was in full flow panic I also managed to convince myself I’ll not only fail the whole damn course but everyone including the tutor hate me as well.

The actual situation: dip our toes in the basics of a couple of schools of thought and outline the main concepts as well as reflecting on ourselves.

The reality: I spent two hours last Thursday spewing a bunch of waffle out as it popped into my head. Even if it was all shit (and mostly it was) it felt good to have at least written something. This morning I spent three hours rewriting aforementioned waffle, worked my way through all the points to cover and was done with it. Five hours of not particularly taxing work and stuff I know and understand BECAUSE THIS IS JUST THE FUCKING BASICS. There is no “analyse Bram Stoker’s Dracula using Freudian theory“, which is actually precisely what I wrote an essay on nearly 20 years ago at uni. I kid you not. This was just outlining basic concepts – just go over what they are and what they mean, no deep analysis or application. Nothing mind bending or you-need-a-PhD-to-grasp-this difficult.

The outcome: It’s not the best essay I’ve written, far from it, but the format is completely nuts – rather than a question/issue to ponder, discuss and argue, it’s a series of questions and points to cover. Like an exam but with quotes. I did what I could with it. I don’t know if it’ll pass but it’s done and that was it. Five hours’ work and I nearly had a fucking stroke over it.

….and what if I fail? Well, then I get to re-do it. With feedback from the tutor on where I went wrong. So even if it’s as terrible as my Arsehole Inner Critic would have me believe, it won’t mean I fail the course. Sure, that’d knock my confidence a little and it’d be a ball ache to have to do another essay, but hey – five hours! Even if a revision would mean TEN hours, that’s just one day.

Conclusion: chill the fuck out, Anna!

See what I mean? I get caught up in my own head, which at times like these is like a cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Star Wars. Oh well. Done now.

I’m bat shit crazy but at least I’m sober. Hah! I win.

Today I’m not going to drink.