Good stress vs. bad stress

In 2017, I went to a doctor for muscle aches, and he wrote me medicine for my face freckles and called them an acne rash. I have always loved the star-lit-night dust on my olive-skinned face. Naturally, I was offended by his misdiagnosis. Why is it next to impossible for practitioners to solve for the patient's root cause?

This week, my physiotherapist, after commenting I had the spine structure of an eighty-year-old, went on to treat me for stress - pressure points, steroids, dry needling, and taping. Having tried acupuncture and yoga, I figured I might as well use science. 

Why is my stress so bad? I asked him over and over again. I had seen him the fifth time over two years after a significant back snapping attack. He went on about how it's "just stress," but the bad kind. 

What is the difference between stress that gets you to crank up your productivity vs. the bad stress that leaves you drained?

In the absence of his diagnosis, I'm offering my own five gargantuan features of the bad kind of stress that I experience:

1. The little things seem big

Remember how Po from Kungfu Panda ended up doing a perfect split on the kitchen ceiling because that's where Monkey stored his cookies? 

"I get hungry when I'm stressed!" was his explanation to Master Shifu. 

Well, that's how I don't feel about anything and everything when I experience bad stress. I may be bleeding out, but would rather nap than patch the cut.

I would be insomniac, but also be equally committed to watching the ludicrous DIYs from Instagram that has been filmed by the devil himself. 

I once stopped at a green light because I had no activation energy to get my foot off the break pedal. 

There are two brain cells I'd have, and they have killed each other out in a self-provoked duel. 

Some winter mornings are hell - I sit on my elbows in bed and croak desperately for my daughters to pass me my phone two inches away. No one gives me my phone. No one understands bad stress. 

2. Can't-do-it-anymore attitude

I drew a triangle for my husband, now battling chemo. I labeled each of the three corners - my life, your life, and the pursuit of happiness. 

I asked him to choose two out of the three things I can do - with a flair for the dramatics, remember, both remaining brain cells are dead by now. 

Always the practical one, he told me to drink a glass of water and focus on work before all else. 

I did dive into a monologue that would shame Hema Maldini in the movie Sholay before she went in to dance on broken glass shrapnel - whiny voice, and back of the hand on the forehead - the whole nine yards of drama ensued.

I can't do it anymore. Something has to give. I'm perpetually tired, and a good night's rest or a tiny vacation won't fix it.

3. A series of unfortunate events 

I have been supremely prepared for the apocalypse. Since I was born in the civil war during Ugandan dictatorships, I'm always overconfident about what I can handle and for how long. 

Proof -- I took 29 credits in my last semester in college and got a 4.0 GPA, never missed a single class; I was back at full-time work two weeks after my firstborn, and I also binge-watched Queen's Gambit on Netflix with zero breaks. Life has thrown its share of curveballs, and I've tossed them out of the park. 

I credit my wonderful personality and my positive attitude - you live only once, kiddo. 

Now, however, if I have a day where I wake up and stub my toe, my contact lens feels greasy, and I forget my phone charger at home when I have 11 meetings that day, I give up on myself. I end up Googleing how to disappear from NADRA records. 

It's too much, all at once, and I already told you about my two brain cells refusing to be friendly. 

4. Meaning doesn't seem abundant

Covid has given the best of us a kick in our solar plexus. We learn to be grateful, even asphyxiated. I'm always huffing and puffing, thinking how to break things down, so new bridges are built - disruption and that good stuff they taught us in the Silicon Valley. For a change, now, I try to go slow. 

I am deliberate. I take about a weekend to think about things before diving into my new projects. I try to take a walk around work with a 20% attendance, craving a chat with a colleague on how to raise teenagers or places to snack at. I had no appreciation for the energy in crowds and have been known to snicker at people having more coffees than stipulated by work-life balance. Now, I miss those clicks; I smile retrospectively when I think of the accidental gossip sessions I've had at the water cooler. 

I have to manufacture meaning outside the daily grind - without that direct human connection, I must take time out to call the people in my team who's parents have covid and ask if I can do anything, more importantly, ask how they are coping and listen when they pour out details of the human losses - expansive and hard not to take personally. 

There is now a global pandemic and a shadow pandemic with it - women have a triple burden, so I have to remember to take it down a few notches everywhere - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I heard a story about a widow in Karachi's outskirts who learned to use a mobile wallet to receive emergency funds the company gave her to use for her seven children during the lockdown. Her words made my 2020 worth enduring: I never knew that my phone is my personal safe deposit box and bank. 

Meaning has been hiding like a spy behind the bushes. The only way to catch it is to send a polite tea invitation and hope it shows up in your home. 

5. The body gives up before the mind

I have always had high functioning anxiety. When I feel burned out, I get myself more work to do, which usually solves stress. 

This time - it wouldn't listen to any flawed coping mechanism. It rattled ad rattled like an 80's Burik and stuttered to a close - saw-dust-in-engine kind of closed. 

Lights-are-on, but-no-one's-home kind. I'd knock at my shell of a body, and it would just not let me in anymore—kind of like the village people who move into the valley for wonder abandoning their snowed in shacks. 

My feet wouldn't listen, my fingers wouldn't listen, and my heart wouldn't listen. I say, hey, let's burn 600 calories today, and the lungs would say - meh. I'd say, hey, how about we get the presentation out of the way first thing in the morning, and the brain would say: sure, you go ahead, I'll stay here and answer 100 emails instead. 

The mind would crunch on, but the body would feel like a million years well beyond years - a guest that has overstayed its welcome. 

I know what the toxic-positivity logic is - be kind to your mind; you'll come back when it's time, it's a chakra blocked, speak to a tree, or best yet meditate. I do all these things with the devotion of a believer. I think lousy stress is serious business.

I have no way to crack this type of stress that takes away from the joy of challenges, but I know this for sure -- identifying what feels like bad stress to you is an excellent place to audit your good stress vs. bad stress. 

We need good stress; it drives us; it is bad stress, mainly from the wrecking of our routines during the lockdown, that we all experience a burnout for which we need new solutions. 

Words are always the right place to start.

I'm around sourcing solutions: What helped you bust the bad stress blues of 2020?