Chapter 18: Stressed Out

All signs point to the fact that I am stressed, yet as I think about my life I can’t pin-point my stress. In all my waking hours I don’t feel stressed (having a little bit of a hot flash right now but I don’t equate that to stress). Some people say that if you lose a lot of hair while you are in the shower (washing your hair) then it’s a sign that you are stressed…or that you have a serious medical condition and you should get yourself an appointment with your doctor. The other signs of stress appear in your dreams; Dreams that involve lack of control, murder attempts, etc.
To start off this past Friday night I had a dream that I was married and my husband was trying to kill me. He had kidnapped me and taken me to a work picnic. We were inside a house and he had a friend there too. I was scared but I was looking out the window at all the people coming to the picnic, they were a bunch of big wigs in the company, most people from corporate and some store managers. I saw the store manager of my new work location and I overheard my husband tell his friend that she would be the perfect eye-witness, thus being the worse person to see me alive at the picnic. So I ran to the window and opened it and started to yell her name as loud as I could. I kept screaming it until she finally looked up. When she did I waved at her and started to climb out the window and unto the deck. I asked her how she was and just tried to make small talk to. Then I started to climb down the deck to get closer to the crowd of people. My defeated husband and his friend went to the car and I watched them drive away but the people that were surrounding me also started to head to their cars and I watched as his truck turned around. I grabbed my cell phone and called 9-1-1, my connection wasn’t the greatest but I told the dispatcher that my husband was trying to kill me and she asked if this was an emergency. Frustrated I told her that it was and I was crying as I told her that he was turning the car around and coming for me and I asked her to please help…then I woke up.
The next night I was married again, but to Coz (who isn’t really a cousin remember so I’m not living out some West Virginian fantasy here) and he was trying to kill me. I remember that I was pretending to be asleep on the couch and I had a steak knife in my hand to attack should he come near. I started off with my eyes slightly open so I could see his silhouette in the darkened room. He was leaning in the doorway and I was gripping my knife but then my eyes shut and for the life of me I couldn’t get them to open. It was so scary because I knew he was coming closer but I couldn’t see him coming and I had my knife but what good would it do if I didn’t know where he was?
I woke up from that one a little unresolved as well.
Then the next night, there were no attempts on my life but I was pregnant and about to pop and I had a deadline instead of a due date. I was with my family and we were going to move that night so I was suppose to pack up all my stuff, go have the baby and then we would go. But it took me forever to pack up, as I was packing I kept looking through the stuff and pretty much just taking up a lot of time, so I tried to tell someone that I didn’t think it was going to happen that day. I also didn’t feel like the baby would come that day even if I did pack up in time. It wasn’t so much the subject matter of the dream but the feeling of being late for something, and I was scared that I would be in trouble for not packing up and having my baby that day.
In addition to all this while I was taking my shower today a lot of hair came out (I don’t have bald spots but you know what I mean). I don’t know if it’s just me or if other people have this problem, but all signs point to “stressed” but I can’t see what the stress is. I shouldn’t be having dreams where I am fighting for my life or worried because I won’t have a baby on time. I want these dreams to stop and my sister tells me it’s because I’m stressed out and if I can’t see what it is that’s stressing me how am I suppose to stop it? Maybe I drink too much milk, but I haven’t been drinking that at night so it shouldn’t still be in my system by the time I go to bed. It will be interesting to pinpoint my stress in the next couple of days.