allergic to anxiety

I am alive and well at Stony Point Presbyterian Center. It is lovely here. It's a pleasant campus with older but well maintained facilities, incredible food service featuring many fresh vegetables grown on site, and an intentional interfaith community that focuses on peace and justice. Orientation (or disorientation, as we're calling it) has been keeping me incredibly busy so far, but is treating me just fine.

I went about 22 years assuming I was extroverted. I like people, and while I've grown increasingly shy in my adult life, I generally like visiting with people. I'm friendly, I think. A friend brought a Myers-Briggs test to the bar during grad school, and that was when I was first presented with the idea that being an introvert doesn't mean I dislike all humans (though if we're talking about geography, that's another story), just that I generally gain my energy from time away from them. It's so true! So (dis)orientation has been a little exhausting, aside from the busy schedule. I have, however, been able to spend a little time with my summer roommate, Catherine, and my ever beloved Katie, as they orient for their YAV sites, and I finally got to sit down with my entire New Orleans team for the first time today. There are eight of us living together in NOLA. That's a lot of women in one home.Thankfully, I've been talking to these girls a little bit for a few months now. Of the eight of us, four are from New Jersey. One even went to my college at the same time as me (but we didn't meet until this week). It seems we all have various things in common, and it was a comfortable gathering. I like them all.

Today's seminars were on conflict, stress and self care. We spent some time in small groups discussing stress-- our triggers, our tells (signs), our tools (recovery strategies). I acknowledged that I tend to work pretty well under some stress, and that I generally spread myself pretty thin, pretty effectively. I don't tend to be an overly anxious or stressed person, but it does creep up on me once in a while. Last week I had my first real physical response to stress, that literally crept up on me from my feet to my face: hives.


Here is my leg after two doses of Benadryl!

There was nothing different about my environment or diet. I was just stressed out of my brain, trying to say goodbye to people who are important to me, watching good friends go through difficult things, trying to tie up a million loose ends at my job, thinking about packing, dealing with a thousand other internal and external things... ugh. My hands and feet started itching Thursday evening, and by Friday dinner, it was literally creeping up my neck and onto my face.

So I spent the weekend bombed out on benadryl.

Thank goodness I'm not generally anxious or stressed or high blood pressured, because last week might have killed me.

Anyway. In our small group, we talked about high-stress situations, and I talked about my time in Mexico, and how I hit my stress limits when showering was literally my only alone time-- I was even sharing a bed with one of my research cooperators. That was just too much.

When I arrived at Stony Point and got to my room, I found two very nice girls, including one of my NOLA people, and two beds. It appeared that I was expected to share a full bed with a stranger.

The hives returned by dinner.

Long story short, I took another benadryl and acquired a roll away bed (that feels very hammock-like, which was one of the better sleeping arrangements in Mexico, but I digress), and my room is a happy little introverted place (all three of us!). I'm managing to find snippets of alone time, including this entire evening, and I even attended a Quaker meeting this morning (alone together!). I have a hard time navigating new situations with lots of new people, especially so many leaders and type-A personalities, but overall this is a kind, patient crowd or missionaries who mostly understand that I really don't want to hug when I meet them for the first time. And, after this week, I'll really just get to focus in on my crew of eight and my wetlands.

This will certainly be a year of growth and learning in many ways, and I'm sure my limits will be tested on occasion. Hopefully this new allergy to anxiety will not persist, or at least, that I'll be able to keep my stress to more manageable levels. I'm excited for the opportunity, at least.