Thursday, May 10, 2018

Bad at Handling End of Semester Stress

I am, with unfortunate frequency, occasionally reminded that I'm not good at handling stress. I have been facing some stress lately. Classes are over now, but I have some tricky final essays to write, on which I am making very little headway. The topics are challenging, I keep getting distracted, and family situations keep coming up and taking priority.

Thankfully, most of my family is sympathetic, and just about everyone I told about my struggle has offered to help. The trouble is that I don't know how they can help me except by not distracting me with their offers to help. I really just need to focus and write these papers. They don't even have to be good. I'm doing well enough in my classes that, even if my final papers are lackluster, I'll still probably get good grades overall.

I currently plan to go to the library tomorrow and work on my papers there, but I also owe my family members an apology. I have responded with misdirected frustration and annoyance when they were only trying to help, all because I was too cowardly to tell them that the best way they could help me was be leaving me alone. Though, actually, even if I had said that, that would have been wrong, too. As my sister pointed out to me today, even if someone can do nothing else for me, they can always pray for me. That might help some.

I plan to apologize to my family for being gruff to them, but I'll probably save those apologies for after I turn my essays in and my emotional state returns to normal. In the meantime, I would probably do well to avoid people for a while, so I don't unintentionally lash out at anyone again.

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