I'm starting to worry a bit about the impacts stress has been having on me lately, more specifically the stresses my mother manages to exert.

Life is like 200% less stressful now than it was for, at least the last couple of years worth, and much of 2010 in extreme particular. Everything going on with the move has my stress levels frequently elevated, by my rather annoying parental unit. But it's no where near what it once was. These rounds of increased stress seems to be most pronounced as proximity to my mother increases for any measurable duration, and fairly consistently for a long time. I love her but she drives me batty. What else can I say? It's like being constantly needled without any prayer of reprieve, and any strategic applications to head it off, often seem to result in larger flurries later on. She doesn't get it and never will.

My mood often swings rapidly, if my mother is the active stresser, and it's usually combined with rather dark moods. The only thing that really seems to calm me is switching off the old marbles. It's like I can be in an excellent mood and she manages to have me in a terrible mood, like clock work.  Worse, the types of aggravation involved frequently forces my train of thought to digress into other matters, ones that bother me greatly on their own without any need of help; as they are issues I've been trying to find an answer for without success, for quite a number of years. Thus ramping up the stress level even further. Kind of feels like having a lit cigarette stuck on a soar spot, not nice. On the upside, when I'm working, or succeeding at *trying* to get some rest instead of frustrations, I'm much better, more content, and happier. Of course, that is frequently impacted the same way: my mother has to make like a big bird with radar. That's another reason why I enjoy Airsoft over PC games, less morons and less opportunity to gain more stress than rest.

Recently the temptation to drift into an armoured shell and rarely be reached again, rears its ugly head in my minds eye. The minds fortress of solitude. That's what you learn around my family anyway, if you're not so volatile as some. It doesn't really help that eleven to twelve hour days (counting commute) largely has me cut off from most people that I care about, and that don't drive me crackers more often than not. I'm somewhat afraid though, that if I fall into that shell again, I'll never come back out of it. Some might argue that's a good thing but hey, if you don't like me, it's not my fault :P.

Right now my one major goal is to get the move over with and survive the process.  By 2012, I should have had a month or two to take things easy, between then and now. For the time being however, the only good times seem to be had at work. It's so peaceful.


Sigh.