Stress and nervous

[Reece30]

Hi, I've always thought of myself as a strong minded individual and able to deal with stress quite well, but lately I've been struggling lately as something bad happened at work a few weeks ago it's all sorted now and since then I haven't been feeling myself I'm very nervous to even do my job or even my phone pinging to let me know there is a notification gives me stress and makes me nervous, I've got 2 amazing children and a beautiful girl that I usually use as a de-stress tool but nothing seems to be working lately, I've found myself smoking again which I really don't want to be doing

[CHPA]

You don’t offer specifics but could you be going through some sort of PTSD from the event you mention? I’m sure there is plenty of reading material concerning causes and how to address this. Without knowing more it is hard to be specific.

[Hidden]

Stress can deplete lots of things you need to deal with stress. A few years ago I had a really bad traumatic few things happen which wrecked me. Left me shakey insomnia unable to think straight etc. Its taken me years of struggling getting better and worse along the way but I've finally come to the conclusion I have not been adequately nourished for the level of crap i went through. If you went through some crap think of it like you've had an accident and need to have a period of rehabilitation. Stores of things get used up fast during a crisis ...the basic ones I known are b vitamins c zinc magnesium ..but I'm sure there are loads more. I thought I ate very healthy but actuallybwhen I tracked myselfnwith an app called cronometer I found I wasn't getting enough of lots of things ..every day. And with stress or trauma you can need extra because of it using up things to cope. Even simple things like salt helped and along the way I've found more things that helped. And some that didn't or made things worse. And if you have kids and a job in any event that's already a big load to be carrying never mind the things that come at us from left field. Coping with stress leaves you needing to rebuild your resilience up again. And that takes time and a lot of self care which can be very hard to focus on when you've got kids. My kids are older now and its becoming easier for me to prioritize myself. But its so important. So don't exoect yourself to just shake it off or think you should be able to do that. At the end of the day we can only take so much crap and sometimes a straw hits the Carmels back and we are down. But you will regain your footing it just might take extra care ... Just like you know your kid needs extra care after a bad time. So do we all. especially parents. And smoking although I love it is a great way to repress emotions that need processing and just force ourselves to get on with it and keep coping keep coping. I find when I give up and I've been off and on again for years that I bawl my eyes out and every single thing bad upsets me so a lot of times I say I don't have time for this nonsense smoke a fag get on with it. But its always there underneath waiting to be dealt with. And that is a weight on us like an email we havent opened cos we know its gonna be hard ... But when I have faced the well of greif that my smoking kept at bay it was always hard and always good in the end. Not to say I didn't give in again next time my life hit the rocks lol!