worry

[metaphortunate]

This week I tried a different experiment. From last Sunday to yesterday, I tried not to worry.

Because I've been worrying a lot lately, and I can't seem to just stop. But I can put it off. I can say to myself "Now's not a good time to worry about ______, I have to be doing this other thing." So this week I tried to leverage that to, for a whole week, Not Worry about:

• whether my relationship is inevitably headed towards married heterosexual 2.5 kids suburban nightmarish mutual hatred then divorce given that we already have the married and the 1 kid
  
• how we are going to make sure the baby gets proper nutrition as we transition him off of nursing
  
• whether the baby is getting enough attention & time with us
  
• whether we are reading to the baby enough
  
• whether the baby has the right kind of toys or whether it will damage his little psyche to be playing with empty contact lens solution bottles in the bath instead of rubber duckies
  
• what I am going to do about my parents when they start getting old and sick
  
• how I am supposed to find time to do career networking and extracurricular activities
  
• whether Mr. E and I are taking each other for granted
  
• is it better to be doing lower-status/skills work on high-profile projects or high-skills work on non-billable stuff like marketing, when my company has a track record of laying off/firing the people who find themselves working on non-billable stuff and therefore not being directly and obviously profitable
  
• is there anything I can even do about that when I don't get to pick my assignments
  
• how much responsibility can I take on given how much I can't stay late
  
• how much time I will end up needing to take off this year
  
• how am I ever going to find time to do all the extra work required for licensure
  
• the friends I never get to see
  
• factory farming and how I am contributing to it
  
• the death of bookstores
  
• whether democracy is an nonviable long-term system
  
• how much money I am spending these days
  
• etc., etc., EE MOTHERFUCKING TEE CEE
  
• how we need to stop cursing in front of the baby

Results of the experiment:

• The first two to four days went really well. I think I felt more relaxed and happier. It was easy to say to myself, as these worries came up, "I'm not worrying about this now. All these problems will still be here next week, and I can worry about them then," and make myself think of other things. As a nice bonus, when I'm not indulging in unproductive worrying, I can actually do something about the things I'm worried about, so I got some work done on my licensure requirements towards the beginning of the week.
  
• The end of the week was filled with anxiety and tension. It became more like "I'm not supposed to be worrying! Aargh! STOP WORRYING!" And one of my normal strategies for dealing with worry is to talk to Mr. E about my fears and whether or not they are reasonable, but I couldn't do that this week because I was meant to be Not Worrying. So that sucked and contributed to feeling awful.
  
• All those problems continue to exist and be available for me to worry about this week, except that like I said I did get to do some useful time management and licensure stuff early in the week, plus I bought the baby a toy boat to play with in the bath. (Making the spending money problem worse, I suppose, but not by much.)
  
  Conclusion:
  Maybe I need to start with one- or two-day Not Worrying sessions and work up to longer. Maybe I also need to start scheduling brainstorming sessions in which I can think about solutions to the problems. Worry is probably useful in that it alerts me to things I need to keep track of in my life and maybe do something about, but once the conscious brain has been alerted to the issues, it may be time for it to justify its massive glucose wages and get off its lazy lobes and do some work.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Massive glucose wages, hee.

Sympathies. I tend to do a related thing, contingency-planning awful things, which is useful up to a point and then starts spiraling down. Recognizing the spiral and consciously telling myself "Okay, that's enough, you've got everything useful out of that scenario" does often work, at least.

Also, I still remember the day we bought SteelyKid a couple of toys, came home, and watched her play with an empty Gatorade bottle all afternoon. Babies.

[kalmn]

I spent yesterday afternoon freaking out in the toddler toys aisle, about what if Godot doesn't have toys to play with on the plane. So I bought him some super friends figurines, and reading you guys saying this is immensely reassuring, because even on a plane I bet I can find an empty bottle or six.

[kate_nepveu]

I am sure the flight staff would be happy to find you empty bottles! (And yay, Godot imminent?)

Until pretty recently SteelyKid tended to sleep on long-ish car trips, so my travel-toy experience is limited, but if it would help I'd be happy to share what she likes.

[kalmn]

On a plane next Tuesday!

[kate_nepveu]

Best wishes!

[metaphortunate]

Good god! Best of luck to you all!

[commodorified]

Omg yay!

[metaphortunate]

I want to know! We frequently tell a screaming Junebug that, you know, some kids sleep in the car because they find it soothing! Then we laugh like maniacs.

[kate_nepveu]

Unfortunately I have a big gap around Junebug's age! I mean, I take those breakable-ring-things and fasten in rattles and teethers to infant carriers, but that's more for short car rides and for times in stores.

And SteelyKid's only stopped napping reliably in the car pretty recently, like I said, so what keeps her occupied are things like her digital camera [*] (though this also involves a lot of me twisting around to look at what she's taken); a mini magnetic drawing board, the kind with an attached stylus; silly little ghosts/Easter bunnies/etc. that you press a button and they light up and spin, the kind you find for five bucks in the drugstore seasonal aisle; and fake car keys that make noise, though only because we were able to negotiate that she did not press the alarm button. Also lots and lots of snacks.

[*] A several-years-old Canon A-series, originally Chad's obsolete one, then when I broke that, a similar type bought on eBay for thirty bucks, because kids' digital cameras have rotten features, especially lousy little screens. The first camera was a little heavy for her at first but it had a lot of space for her to wrap her hands around, which is a problem with smaller adult cameras.

And around about 2.5-3 years, my mom started letting her borrow her iPod Touch to play toddler games. We've yet to resort to Chad handing over his iPad, with or without Winne-the-Pooh on it . . .

[metaphortunate]

IDK if this would work for two-year-olds, but one of the Junebug's most frequent travel toys has been an empty water bottle with $0.07 worth of pennies in it to make a rattle.

[kate_nepveu]

SteelyKid will be four in August, has a thing for rocks, and one of those things is still putting them in other things to make noise. (Increasingly the other things are elaborate rules for their acquisition and placement that change every five minutes, as is only to be expected.)

[metaphortunate]

Yeah...I definitely do that thing of "If I worry about it, it won't happen while I'm worried about it! Must lie in bed and worry as hard as I can about earthquakes!" Uh, no, we bolted the bookcases to the walls & got an emergency preparedness kit in the car. That is all the useful worrying we can do, unless we want to study to become neighborhood rescue volunteers, which would be awesome but not very realistic right now.

[commodorified]

Maybe I also need to start scheduling brainstorming sessions in which I can think about solutions to the problems.

In my experience of using this method, that's crucial; if you tell your brain you'll think/worry about X later, you have to show up for that date or the whole system falls apart, because, well, you stop believing yourself. And in my experience that just makes your brain act like a toddler who's found that they have to keep escalating to get Mom's attention.

I realise that sounds like total woo, but it turns out to be true.

[metaphortunate]

Oh, shit yes. it's terrible when the different bits of you stop trusting each other. My body will never again trust my brain to feed us, and you know what, I can't even say she's wrong, because my brain can be talked into self-hatred and self-starvation, but my body just wants to live.

[wild_irises]

Were you thinking of private brainstorming sessions, or group ones? Because I would play if it was a group thing.

[metaphortunate]

Maybe both! Like anyone else I have some issues that are quite private, but not all of them, and I have certainly got great advice from, well, you, and other members of our circle of friends.

[dancingsinging]

First off, I'm sorry your life is filled with worries. :( I mean, you read my journal, so you know that I worry about similar shit just as obsessively, but still I wish you didn't have to!

I once read an article summarizing a study about worry that concluded that it helps a lot if you schedule some time to like super-intensely worry about stuff, kind of like what you're proposing and what commodorified suggests above. Just thought I'd mention that (depending on journalistic integrity and the accuracy of my memory there is Science! to support your idea.

Also, some unsolicited advice in case it helps with the baby-nutrition worry--you could get one of those little hand-crank food mills and just make plain steamed veggies a part of your regular dinner and then grind some of them up for the baby. I mean, I imagine you'd want to feed him more than just veggies when he's not drinking breast milk anymore, but it makes a really easy and sort of mentally-soothing nutritional foundation. Also maybe this is an obvious idea and you already do it, or maybe you hate those little food mills.

[metaphortunate]

Actually Mr. E has been doing the Lord's work with fancy organic foods and the Cuisinart. There are a million little frozen balls of homemade baby food in the freezer; vegan curry and chicken with bulghur and peppers with goat cheese and a bunch of stuff that is frankly holy crap delicious. But then we often end up just feeding him some of whatever we're having.

And then there's the timing issue; sometimes we just end up running out of time to feed him food in the morning or evening before he has to go to bed. I mean, he's not hungry, but it's because he's nursing; I worry about whether we should be giving him more solid food!

[kate_nepveu]

May I offer a data point on the offering of solid food?

[norah]

I hear you. I want to tell you DON'T WORRY but I realize it doesn't work like that. I somewhat sympathize - I worry SO MUCH LESS about the childrens than maybe I even should that I can't meet you there - research says they will self-regulate their nutritional intake, and toys are what you make them (we like flashlights, empty bottles, caps from containers, and old bink leashes around here). But the rest of it, oh god, I also make myself ostrich when I see articles about global warming or the decline of America as a global power etc. because I just can't go there right now. And maybe I walk instead of drive the next time it's a choice or write a letter to my congresscritter about something, but honestly, too, there is SO MUCH MORE TIME to be a proactive person once the kids turn three, you will be okay, it's just a hard road.

[metaphortunate]

I was wondering what a bunk leash was, and then I was wondering what a bink leash was. For a binkie, right? :)

No, it's good to be told that you're worrying less and your kids are still adorable and awesome. And alive! It's working!

[thistleingrey]

I hated the little food mill that I tried, but perhaps it was user error. Immersion blender or knife/cutting board worked pretty well, though I unabashedly bought jar veg puree till my daughter had enough teeth to nibble on "baby carrots," the short ones in a bag. Fewer teeth than I'd thought she would need for it! They can be pretty good for actual subsequent teething, too.

Used to worry about toys, especially since I don't want a ton of plastic clutter or glittery pink shit, and then we reached a point (12, 13 mo?) when the environment was a toy: cans and similar containers on a low shelf she could reach at will, small shipping boxes with the open part devoid of tape/labels, a small open-top bag that she puts her books into and carries randomly on one shoulder (sometimes she makes off with the canvas grocery bags), and so on. We didn't buy any of that for its learning potential, but some of it clearly is contributing to motor and spatial. (19.5 mo now.)

[kate_nepveu]

Is it a universal toddler thing, the putting of things inside other things? SteelyKid has like half a dozen little bags of toys around the house at any given time--which is seriously suboptimal because inevitably whatever little trinket is her very very favorite that day has been buried in one of them, but what I _meant_ to say was, things! in other things! Best game ever!

(Yesterday she spent probably about an hour in total, I think, with some construction paper and a roll of Scotch tape, wrapping up various "presents" for Father's Day & Chad's birthday. Those were some very, very thoroughly wrapped presents . . . )

[metaphortunate]

Huh! I am waiting to see if this happens with the Junebug. So far, not very interested in putting things in other things. Mostly he wants things with wheels that he can spin around.

[kate_nepveu]

Perhaps not universal, then! The Pip is still pretty much in "if I see it, I want to put it in my mouth" phase (I keep telling him that the dining room chairs are not edible, but does he listen?), so I shall be keeping an eye out.

[thistleingrey]

Hee! Yes, I think not wholly universal, but container management is definitely a thing for us. Useful to know that it may keep on being a Thing for awhile.... FWIW, I'm nearly certain that in my daughter's case, bags and boxes aren't learned from a daycare classmate or from how the teachers run the room. Wearing hats indoors randomly is, by contrast.

[metaphortunate]

Our little dude, despite the purees we have for him, is not really a big fan of purees. They are hard for him to grab. And he does Not want to be fed No No. He wants chunks of things he can hold himself!

[thistleingrey]

*nods* We were pretty firm about spoon use because I wanted to avoid the later thing where it's hard to eat oatmeal with apple pieces with one's hands--but I have realized since that I was lucky that my daughter was okay being spoon-fed till she could hold the spoon with me or darkforge, then eventually on her own. Then too, no wheat meant twice-steamed rice with stuff mixed in once we got past literal purees, and perhaps she realized that mushy rice is kind of difficult for hands. Basically, yay for experiential diversity, seriously.

[jesse_the_k]

re: Worrying. My shrink advised me to set aside a short bit of time every day to catalog my worries. Twenty minutes and done. That way I don't have a leaning tower of worry at the end of the weak.

Another technique I've used is worrying while I'm swimming. I don't have paper or pen, I can't see anything, I'm literally living in the flow and the worries just don't gain traction.