Do You Get Stressed?

I've actually had a good day. Sat at home on a quiet night-no interest in the Champions League-having consumed some splendid home cooked Thai BBQ ribs. So what to do? Well today as National Stress Awareness Day so I thought I'd do some blogging.

Today was virtually stress free for me! Actually most of my days a relatively stress free. Yesterday though was a different story. I was almost pulling what is left of my hair out by lunch time. Too much going on and too many people wanting me to do too many things all at the same time. The nature of what I do makes it difficult to drop everything and do something different but there are still some who think I can do this. In reality I can only manage one crisis at a time.

But that was yesterday. Stress free I had a look at the MIND website and discovered today is significant on the stress front. They had done some research that suggests that at work people are more likely to lie about sickness leave rather than admit it is stress related. So tell me something I don't know.

There are almost 100 MH advisors working across the Higher Education sector. As far as I'm aware only 2 of us work with staff as well as students; and I'm 1 of them. People fear admitting they are stressed especially in this climate. Yet everywhere I go people talk about their stress levels being up; they just can't take time off for that reason.

I am probably equally guilty. It is exceedingly rare for me to take time off for my mental illness. In fact I've only taken time off  3 times for those reasons since I found the Holy Grail in 2001. The last time was back in January. That was on my Doctor's advice and in the long run saved me from something far worse. I was back after 10 days although I worked part time for a few weeks after that. Much to my surprise everyone was incredibly supportive.

Now I'm fine and living a fairly stress free life; yesterday was the exception rather than the rule. That said I do sometimes get tired and I admit I do count down the days until the weekend-only 2 days to go!

I Heard a Voice.