I don’t deal with stress particularly well. I shrink away.
I don’t eat; simply unable to stomach the thought of food or drink and getting through the day with water and gagging on whatever I force down.
I also go to ground, staying at home, not wanting to engage with anyone, switching off online, not blogging or posting to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram.
Recently, I caught up with one of my best friends after a (very unusual) three week break. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘The last time we saw each other you said you weren’t feeling great and then I didn’t see you for three weeks and you didn’t respond to my messages.’
I stopped and thought about it. And realised it wasn’t her that I was trying to avoid – why would I? She is nothing but supportive and wonderful and lovely. It was me.
‘I’m sick of myself,’ I heard myself saying. ‘I am sick of what’s going on. I’m sick of the diabetes burnout I’m experiencing. I’m sick of it all. I just want to disappear.’
I wonder if that is what I am trying to achieve when I am dealing with a stressful situation.
I stop eating and see and feel myself shrinking away.
I stop standing tall, instead wrapping myself in blankets and jumpers, folding into myself and taking up less space.
I stop seeing people so I don’t have to hear myself talking.
I limit my online presence, making my cyber-self withdraw.
Am I trying to make myself disappear somehow? Shrink away from the world and my problems?
I want to take up less space, not fill a room, curl into a corner of my bed. I want to be small. And insignificant. Because what I am dealing with seems so big – too big – and momentous. I want to be less weighty because the problems are bearing down on me.
I see this clearly when I emerge from the fog. As I stretch and look for sunlight and see people and engage again, I find my voice and start to feel bigger. Literally and figuratively.
6 comments
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May 21, 2014 at 10:53 pm
scully
this is how I feel right now and most of the time due to my poor (and seemingly degrading) health lately.
I get super antsy about being online and/or interacting with people both in social media and in real life.
It’s very tangible. It’s palpable. It’s not depression per se, it’s something I can’t explain. You just explained it a bit, so thank you.
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May 22, 2014 at 1:50 am
surfacefine
We are cut from the same cloth my friend. xoxo
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May 22, 2014 at 6:52 am
Karen
Oh Renza, I have felt much the same way more often than I can tell you. And I hate hate hate to know you have felt like this for even one minute. I think you are an amazing person and I don’t ever want you to want to shrink away. Sending much love to you.
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May 23, 2014 at 12:59 am
Carol
I feel like this almost every day. It takes every ounce of determination I have to fight against it. I have shared these stories with my endocrinologist and my primary. Who both suggest “more exercise” & “go out and walk”. Not much help. They don’t understand the complexity.
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May 29, 2014 at 8:40 am
kelly2k
Renza –
You words hit home on so many levels – the smallness, the fog – Yes, it hits home.
Please remember that even when you feel like shrinking to your smallest, you have an amazing and beautiful light that not only shines within, it shoots out and inspires others.
Xoxo
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May 31, 2014 at 12:05 am
Around the Diabetes Blogosphere - May 2014 Edition : DiabetesMine: the all things diabetes blog
[…] post, called Shrinking Away, is raw and powerful, straight from the heart of our Australian friend Renza Scibilia over […]
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