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Is your life making you sick? - how stress can affect your health

Essence , June, 1990 by Pearl Cleage

IS YOUR LIFE MAKING YOU SICK?

THIS WRITER FOUND THAT HER LIFE WAS. AND THEN SHE DISCOVERED THAT THE CURE FOR HER BODY LAY IN THE WAY SHE LIVED

It took everything I had to walk normally to the ladies` room between the mayor`s office and the city-council chambers. I wanted to run, to be out of sight before the tears came. I knew they were coming, and fast, unless I could lock the bathroom door and take enough deep breaths to calm the panic.

I was in luck. The room was empty. I locked the door and grabbed the edge of the sink, which felt warmer than my hands. I could feel my heart beating, and I was gasping for air so loudly I was afraid they could hear me in the hallway. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried desperately to pull myself together.

My boss, the city`s first Black mayor, was under incredible stress as he tried to calm the fears of those who weren`t ready for "Black Power" at City Hall and meet the high expectations of those whose votes had put him in office. Sometimes those of us on his personal staff felt the brunt of that pressure. I often found myself on the defensive in meetings where my suggestions and memos were met with his disapproval, disbelief or even disgust. My delight in holding the pivotal position of press secretary was beginning to evaporate in the face of an increasingly difficult reality.

He doesn`t mean it, I reminded myself. He`s just tense. He knows you`re a good writer. He hired you for this job. Besides, if it gets too bad, you can always quit and find another job.

Quit? The unexpected suggestion from my subconscious startled me, and I opened my eyes. This was not just a job, but a cause, a mission--the job I was trained to do and committed to doing well. My boss needed me. I would never quit this job. Never! I was tough. I could handle it. I always did, didn`t I?

I began breathing more normally. I looked in the mirror and smiled at myself, still shaky, but better now. Then I noticed that my left eye was twitching, just a little tic near the corner. It was hardly noticeable at first, but as regular as a clock.

I was horrified. A nervous tic? Even though I had been crying in this very bathroom almost every day for the last two weeks and waking up with headaches so often I had started taking "preventive" pain-killers before going to sleep, I still hadn`t admitted to myself how much my job was upsetting me. In the hope of fooling myself, I had ignored the messages my body was sending me. And then my eye betrayed me in a City Hall mirror. Tic. Tic. Tic.

I threw cold water on my face, grabbed my purse and fled to the nearest park, where I spent the day sitting on the grass and looking at the lake, trying to relax enough to make my eye stop twitching. I went to bed early that night but didn`t sleep well.

In the morning, my eye was still twitching. I headed for work anyway, but when I got there and pulled into the parking lot, my stomach was in a knot and my eye was twitching so hard I didn`t have to look in the mirror; I could feel it. I stayed at the office only long enough to say I was going home sick; then I headed back to the park to think.

If I went home, I knew my boss would call with a rush assignment or send a messenger to deliver it to the house. He`d actually done that the day I`d brought my newborn daughter home from the hospital. Determined to prove that motherhood was not going to interfere with my productivity, I`d plunged right in and soon had found myself burping my new baby with my left hand while scribbling a speech with my right. I went back to work full-time the day after we both passed our six-week checkups. Still determined to be Wonder Woman, I`d spent the first month speeding home at lunchtime to nurse my daughter, then dashing back to work before my boss could miss me.

Laughing a little at the memory, I suddenly realized that I had never broken that pattern. I took on every job that was assigned as if I had nothing else to do. I was determined to do it faster and better than it had ever been done before. Not only did I want to please my boss--I didn`t want to let Black people down, even if it meant destroying my health, equilibrium and peace of mind.

The first thing I had to admit to myself was that I was in trouble. I knew I had been burning the candle at both ends, but at 25 I was still young enough to believe I was invincible. I had survived the 1960`s intact and understood clearly that it was my responsibility to use the education and advantages the struggle had won for me to "uplift the race." I was convinced that I could, and should, perform well at an incredibly demanding job, satisfy my boss`s perfectionism, love my husband, entertain and be entertained regularly, nurture and enjoy my 3-month-old daughter and write a little poetry on the side.

And for a while I did all those things--and did them well. But the hectic pace and nonstop demands of my personal and professional lives were taking a toll on me physically, mentally and spiritually. Yet I couldn`t acknowledge to myself that I was at the point of doing myself serious damage.

Post Scripts

Saturday Evening Post , Sept, 1999

Mow or Less

   Man sows grass seed in early spring,
   Then waters and feeds to grow it,
   Then all summer long, he will try
   To find excuses not to mow it.

--William E. Morgan

And the World Laughs With You!

   Angry pressures build in men
   Which would cut their lives in half,
   Were it not for the fact that God
   has installed
   His safety valve--the laugh!

--Gary T. Juarez

Retirement Blues

Since I`ve retired, I haven`t had a holiday off. Come Labor Day, the Fourth of July, or Veterans` Day, my buddies still expect me to be on the course for an eight o`clock tee time.

--Robert E. Thomson

Eschew on This!

   Though healthful menus sometimes
   bore us,
   We can`t help but conclude
   That fatty foods are better for us
   When they are well eschewed.

--G. Sterling Leiby

Actually, They Prefer Tequila

A teacher took a glass of water, a glass of whiskey, and two worms. He put one worm in the water. The worm wiggled about happily. He put the second worm in the whiskey. It writhed around and then sank to the bottom.

"What lesson do we learn from this experiment?" the teacher asked.

Kevin raised his hand and said, "Drink whiskey and you won`t get worms!"

--Anonymous

Pedantic Antics

   It`s been said that verbal dexterity
   Is the gateway to social success,
   So I set out to dazzle society
   And my tacit shortcomings redress.
   I spoke with voluble eloquence,
   Pronouncing each word as it
   should be.
   I soon had myself to speak to,
   For, alas, no one else understood me!

--Pearl Hoffman

A Total Liar

A member of my golf club has a notorious reputation for, to put it delicately, being unable to add.

One afternoon he walked by a table where I sat with some newer members. One of them asked me what the passerby did for a living. I told him, "He writes fiction."

"That`s great," he said. "What`s his latest work?"

"His score card" was my reply.

--Jack Winder

It Depends on What the Meaning of Is Is

Our president seems willing to finesse the truth whenever it`s to his advantage. And while that leads some to call him a fibber, a prevaricator, or worse, he may just be a "chronic lawyer."

--Mark Tipton

The Digital Age

The little girl asked her mother what a digit was. The mother and child looked the word up in the dictionary and discovered that a digit was either a number from zero to nine or a finger or toe.

"Now do you understand?" the mother asked.

"I think so," the young girl replied, "but if a finger is a digit, why don`t digital watches have hands?"

--K. L. Jones

Jigsaw in Jig Time

"How long did it take you to do the puzzle?"

"Four months."

"Well, gee, that`s good! It says on the box `two to four years.`"

--Marguerite Loucks Dye

The Trouble Spot

A sign in front of a country church: "If you have troubles, come in and tell us about them. If you have none, come in and tell us how you do it."

--Tom R. Kovach

Defeating the Purpose

A man going to visit his parents found a note on the door advising him that they had gone to the store, but that the key to the front door was under the mat. Before he could react to the note, his parents drove up.

"That`s not a very good idea," the man said, pointing to the note. "Why, anyone could come along, lift the mat, and get your key."

"Relax, Son," his father said. "We`re not crazy enough to leave the key under the mat. Go ahead; take a look."

The son lifted the mat. There was no key, just another note that read: "The key`s not here. It`s in the mailbox."

--K. L. Jones

Ewe Better Baa-lieve It!

   Mary had a little lamb,
   Its fleece was white as snow.
   And every time she looked at it,
   She saw another clone.
   They followed her to school one day,
   Which wasn`t against the rules
   Because, you see, Mary worked
   on gene research
   At the Eweniversity.

--Chris Myers

Enough to Go Around

One day while taking a walk through a strange neighborhood, I came across a small black dog who briefly barred my way, barking dutifully as if to say: "Look, you, no funny business. I`m in charge around here, and I`ve got my eye on you!"

Finished with the warning, he turned and fled back up the driveway from whence he came. Strange, I thought, what a funny little dog! I had just resumed my walk when he came back, all doggie smiles this time, with pleading eyes that spoke eloquently: "No one`s home to tell me I`ve been good. But I have been good! Someone tell me I`ve been good!"

What else could I do? I leaned over and patted him on the head. "Good dog," I said. "Nice job of guarding the house." Satisfied with my recognition, he turned around and sauntered back up the driveway.

Sometimes all any of us wants is a bit of praise, and it doesn`t matter much who gives it.

--Rick Thorne

Middle Ground

   The battle of the bulge begins;
   The waistline grows and grows.
   Perhaps we call it "middle" age
   Because that`s where it shows.

--Charles Ghigna3

Eyes relaxation index