I can’t sleep. I’ve been up for almost two hours (since before 3:00am). It’s almost serendipitous that I was scrolling through the streaming services and stopping on Limitless with Chris Hemsworth on Disney+. It seems to be about dealing with stress. Right now, I’m sucking at that, horribly.

My stress levels are way up. I’m falling behind on just about everything, and that is causing more stress. My blood pressure is through the roof. I’ve seen higher, but it still scares me. I have a feeling in my chest that ranges from fine to tightness to small amounts of uncomfortableness, teetering on the verge of physical pain. I’m on the edge of a constant panic attack. I need sleep to reset, but I can’t get it because my brain is won’t shut down for long. I fucked up. I should have taken my sleeping meds, but I didn’t. I got a few hours of sleep, but then BAM! My brain said, “Fuck you!” I tried for an hour to shut that down, but I just can seem to do it. Instead of waking up the girlfriend fidgeting or asking for help, I decided to just get up, put this on paper, and try to distract myself a bit.

I know distracting myself won’t help me fix what is causing the stress, and that causes me more stress. I need to fix this shit, but a lot of it is outside of my control. How do I manage it? The fact that it’s difficult to tell the difference between a panic attack and a heart attack (I’ve never felt a heart attack, that I know of) isn’t helping either. It’s too late for me to fall asleep today. I’m going on a job to finish up an install. I’ll probably crash. Coffee and caffeine are out today. The feeling of impending doom sucks, but I suck at shake it. It’s not a new feeling though. I’ve had that feeling all my life.

My chest is tight. My back is tight. I’ve got this pinched nerve and high blood pressure. Watching this show is giving me some anxiety, but it is also reminding me of a few things. It’s reminding me that cortisol is a killer if we can’t shut off fight/flight/freeze responses. It’s also teaching me that I need to be able to channel my stress in a productive way so I can shut it off when I need to. Right now, I need to finish this up so I can try to shut down before I puke or fall over. God, help me get through this day safely.