According to the radio station on my way in to work today, the third Monday of January is in fact, the most depressing day of the year. I won't let that get in my way today however! After a particular grizzly day on Friday (more on that soon) I'm ready to take this week by storm. I will admit that I could have used another half hour of sleep this morning, but that is now behind me.
Happy New Year! My holidays were awesome. Very relaxing and friend-oriented. The second last day of school was cancelled which meant so was the Christmas Banquet. I had lots of time off from yearbook stuffs. I brought everything home over the break but who was I kidding? I got nothing done. Christmas was amazing, my partner's family got us kayaks to share among the family. I felt very special. Lots of bad-for-you food was eaten, but I stayed on top of my gym visits for the most part. We also did a lot of snowshoeing which was great for the ol' thighs. I missed my family back home but I got to talk on the phone a lot!
We are now two weeks back into the swing of things and a lot has and is happening. The first week back I spent most of my time on yearbook pages. I managed to perfectly upload all the school pictures and get their grade pages sorted out. Still waiting on some surveys but they will come in eventually (I hope) I started a journal on what we need to do, what we need from people, and what we still need to design. It isn't so bad. My least favourite pages as of now are the sports. I'm not a sporty person so writing about them is really tough. My biggest hope is that when all of this is over, I won't dread starting from scratch again next year. So far, it's been quite stressful, but I often over-stress on everything. Last week, I focused more on library things. I find when I am doing yearbook pages, I zone out of what is happening around me. So I will try to do yearbook things every second week.
Now that all of the happenings are cleared up, I can talk about my crazy Friday. On Thursday, we finally had the Christmas Banquet. I came to school for 8:30am, worked until 3:30, had a staff meeting until 5, went for supper, and then the dance was held from 7 until 11. It was tons of fun, my partner and I (he is a teacher here) supervised and laughed and danced in our seats until it was time to leave. I also had the responsibility of taking the photos for the yearbook. When I got home, I tossed and turned until about 1:30am. When I woke up on Friday, I went to work on my own and was extremely groggy. I had some coffee and made a plan of what I was going to do during the day. I was going to be a fun day. I started by chitchatting with the kids and emptying the camera on to the computer. I sorted the grades 6-8 sports pictures and put the SD card back into the camera. I thought "oh I'm all done!" and deleted everything...the dance pictures disappeared too. I immediately send out about 6 e-mails of cries for help. I freaked out a bit, had to stop drinking coffee and eat some real food and calm down. Lots of people attempted to help. That one event sent my day into a downward spiral. At lunch, I completely forgot to set up an assembly for an air-force troop to come in and discuss futures in the military with kids. The rest of the day I had zero patience and appetite.
Once I finally made it home, with the SD card in hand, I started to feel funny. I still did not want to eat anything, and I felt glued to the kitchen chair. My partner and I were discussing whether I would like to go see his hockey game or if I wanted to go to the gym, I couldn't decide what I wanted. I just wanted to sit on a chair. I finally made it to the couch, where my legs began to seize up and my heart was literally thumping. I remember saying "I think I'm having a panic attack" I began to focus on some trees in the backyard, and I began to speak about what was clouding my mind (lack of money and work stresses mostly) All of a sudden, the trees became black (it had gotten dark out) and I began to cry. I couldn't breathe, my hands were as heavy as lead, and my legs could not move whatsoever. This went on for about 15 minutes. Huge shout out to my partner for being super awesome and consoling during this time.
Now I don't want to just be another one of those people who post constantly about anxiety disorders and depression but I do feel as though what happened on Friday was an overload of emotions and fear. It was not an isolated event as I often worry about a lot of factors in my life. This panic attack has brought me to reading a lot about what it means to have one and the signs that an attack is coming. You can find out about what happened and what could happen to you or someone close to you here. When everything was said and done, I felt really tired. I watched some tv, took a shower and decided to journal. My way of journaling is probably not therapeutic but I like to make lists. I decided to make a list of who I am. I wrote about 80 facts about myself, mostly positive, and then I fell into a peaceful sleep. The rest of the weekend was great, I had almost forgotten what had happened. And guess what, I got all the pictures back that I had deleted (shoutout to the previous yearbook advisor and DiskDigger)
Now I can focus on the week and making this "Blue Monday" a not so depressing blue!
I will be writing a post in the next week or so about our school's plan for I Love To Read Month!
TAKE CARE!
