by
I have a problem with stress. Who doesn't, right? But whereas many people seem to be able to deal with whatever's causing the pressure and move on, I tend to let stress linger, distract and disfigure. I become obsessed with how stressed I am. I can't get the furrow out of my brow and my sense of humor dries up completely.
It becomes difficult to manage the most basic social rituals. The usually pleasant sing-song of "Hi!" "How are you?" "I'm fine" feels like fingernails on a chalkboard when I'm stressed out. When I've got a lot on my mind, I forget I'm supposed to pretend like I'm not the self-absorbed only child I am. And I don't have time to visualize a lotus flower growing from my throat or a green light of love and forgiveness radiating from my heart chakra, as the yoga teachers I've known throughout the years have suggested.
This isn't a new development. My neurotic attachment to my stress has been with me since I was toddler, and I guess I've always been aware of the evil lurking within. There's a family story about my grandmother taking me to visit with one of her friends soon after I had started speaking sentences. Toward the end of our stay, her friend commented: "What a sweet baby!" My response was a harbinger of things to come: "Sometimes I isn't," I replied.
When I reached grade school, teachers were always saying, "Smile, Dani!" and I'd roll my eyes. I wasn't in the mood to smile all the time. I was trying to wrap my mind around the concept of Armageddon. I was haunted by the story of Anne Frank. I was deconstructing the plot development in A Wrinkle in Time.
In high school, academic success became the source of my stress. I would study late into the night, then climb into bed for a few hours sleep. The answers to various questions I was sure would be on the next day's test would whiz past my closed eyelids and my heart would race…
1066: the battle of Hastings… pluperfect indicative of the Latin verb "to die"… E=MC2… it was rough.
Back then I thought nothing of pulling all-nighters. But now, at age 27, I'm too old to forego sleep. So I played it smart when I started journalism school. I was incredibly organized and I made sure to get plenty of rest.
But as this program draws to an end and the deadlines are lined up tight like dominoes, the chronic low-grade anxiety attack is back in full effect.
Lying in bed the other night, I felt my heart pumping overtime and was convinced that at any minute, an artery in my temple or my neck would explode.
My friends worry about me. The other day I told one I was thinking of applying to an MTV reality show on which contestants compete for a staff position at Rolling Stone Magazine. Immediately, he laughed. And immediately, I knew his mind had gone straight to post-production.
"There are harder things to do than to make you look like the 'angry black woman,'" he said. And he's absolutely right. When a furrowed brow is topped by dreadlocks, what might just be stress is often read as "animosity!" "bitterness!" or "one bad mama jama…" and not in the Pam Grier sense of the phrase.
I taught high school for a few years, and that was the hardest thing I've done in my life. But it forced me to deal with stress in a healthier way. I think it's because it was never okay to be that self-absorbed. No matter how many papers I had to grade or how hard a time I was having with lesson plans, I had to appear calm, cool and collected. Being a nervous wreck would have made me inaccessible, and that's one thing I couldn't be as a teacher.
So now I'm working to get back to my teacher frame of mind with regard to stress. But in the meantime, cut me some slack. In general, I try to be kindhearted and charming, but let's face it. Sometimes I isn't.