I stole your chart. Thank you to the fabulous creator of this really helpful chart.…
You May Lay Your Head Down.
Remember back to the olden days, when you spent the entire night redialing to get a ring instead of a busy signal?
Back then, in school, when we were finished our assignment, test or quiz, teachers allowed us to “put your head down on your desk.”
Being the little know-nothings we were, we would place our cute little heads on top of our cute crossed arms, not realizing how stupid we looked.
I was a fast finisher so I always got to lay my head down on my arms.
But back then, the school desks only got washed once a grading period, if I recall correctly. I need to remember to tell that to my nieces and nephew. They all carry hand sanitizer.
Anyway, I would sit there, curled up, smelling my sleeve that smelled like whatever I had sprayed on it. Since I was a fancy Nancy, I had lots of perfume. samples. That was before body wash had been invented.
But I never would have fallen into any sort of relaxed trance or sleep when we put our heads down on the desk. My mind was going a million miles an hour, making puzzles out of everything. If there was one easy way to walk home from elementary school, I had to consider the other nine complicated and dangerous routes.
So of course I obsessed about who would pick their head up first when we all had our heads down. Â I would join the brave few who looked up with great stealth to avoid each other’s gaze and yet still determine who would break the room’s silence.
Those were the days.
And I love those memories.
And I’m finally getting those good memories back. And I’m so happy about it.
Because dark thoughts. And yada yada yada …yada yada diagnosis…  yada yada treatment.
Getting to the point: Frustration WAS THE PROBLEM.
FRUSTRATION.
If frustration was a color, what color would it be? And why doesn’t school teach you how so much of what you’re really feeling is super duper frustration?
Because now it’s so obvious.
When you can’t find any way to communicate what’s happening in your body and mind, doctors can’t treat you properly or fully.
When you can’t find any way to communicate what’s happening in your body and mind,, family and friends can’t do things for you or with you that would be helpful, even if you think what you are saying should be easy to understand.
So yeah. You gotta figure out the communication part.
A writer frustrated by not knowing how to communicate. Now THERE’S a new angle.
That’s why I’m learning to write scripts now. Â Because my head is filled with all of the dialogues that frustrated me and ended too soon. Â My head is filled with all of the things I want to say now that I understand what was going on in my brain.
And I’m learning to write scripts because it’s fun and funny too.
Because I’ve had enough of that other frustrated life. Now that I don’t need to think about bad things all the time (thank you, TMS), I can have fun and I can be fun.
I definitely prefer that to the frustrated life.
So you do it too now.
It’s really cool. It’s not easy, but you can do it much faster than I can do it.
Identify Your Frustration.
Then Do Something Different. So you won’t be so frustrated.
And Happy Saturday.
I hope this weekend is good to you.
xoxoxo, d (and bella)
Oh wow, the memories! Remember when you first encountered a phone with a “redial” button? How amazing that was!
Now I’m trying to remember if I ever fell all the way asleep with my head on my desk…