Am I stressed?

I’ve been having a couple of health issues recently – namely psoriasis on my scalp and an outbreak of hives on my neck and ears. My next dermatologist appointment is in 2020 (free healthcare is like this) so in the meantime, I paid a visit to my Chinese doctor to see if eastern medicine will improve my condition.

Last year I had a cut on the corner of my lip that spread up my cheek. My skin was cracking, bleeding, flaky and itchy and I literally looked like I had herpes or become the Joker. I saw western doctors for months, tried on all types of cortisone creams and treatments and in the end, 2 weeks of Chinese medicine made it go away.

For those of you who have never tried eastern medicine, I like to explain it with external and internal. I often find that western medicine tries to fix something from the outside. For example, they’ll prescribe me a cream for a skin condition. Eastern medicine tries to fix something from the inside. The Chinese doctor will prescribe you ingredients that you take home and brew for hours until it becomes a black and bitter cup of tea/medicine.

Eastern medicine focuses on overall health and balance inside the body and systems and this often takes longer to see positive effects, but lasting effects.

So my Chinese doctor take my pulse and from that, he tells me that all my health issues are connected and stemming from stress. He diagnoses that my hives are not a separate allergic reaction, but actually related to psoriasis, which is caused by smoking (I don’t smoke), stress, and lack of vitamin D.

He asks me if I am always an anxious or impatient person and I honestly am a little surprised because I didn’t think I was that stressed. I mean you can look at my Instagram – I look like I’m living a fine life?

I’ve been thinking about this more seriously in the last few weeks because I suspect that maybe I am hella stressed and I’ve just been letting it raise a fire inside my soul. What are some of the things I have been stressing about?

1. Work. I am a lead on a big corporate project this year that first started in the fall of 2018 and has since stretched on to this summer.
2. Broken knee. This injury impacted my work project and I had to cancel my planned vacation and try to get all my money back. I haven’t been on any vacation this year at all and I’m worried about the condition of my knee once I go on my first vacation in September.
3. Weight gain. I didn’t walk for 2 months after my injury and even now I am still limited to the types of activities I can do (I can’t run or jump yet). Food has been my stress-reliever and main form of socializing and I don’t fit into a lot of my clothes anymore.
4. Mortgages??? I’ve been learning about how mortgages work, looking at listings and my finances and I just don’t want to talk about this anymore.
5. Psoriasis, hives and all the other things going wrong with my body. Talk about negative feedback loop from hell. Health issues caused by stress > cause more stress > health issues get worse.

My boyfriend tells me that I am spending a lot of my energy stressing about these things but not actually doing anything to solve what is within my control. Throughout our conversation, I came to realize that a lot of my stress comes from my distrust of others.

For example, I am not the only person on my work project, but I feel as if the whole project’s success depends on me so I have to do all the work otherwise it won’t be done right.

Another example, I am looking to get a mortgage with my boyfriend but I feel as if he is not taking the process or his finances seriously and thus, I need to do all the research and make sure we can afford what we want.

When he told me that he is thinking about it seriously and that he does have his finances in shape and has a plan, the realization hit me that I just didn’t trust him. He is saying all these things and they are probably true because he is a good and honest person, but for whatever reason, I was super skeptical.

When did this start? Did it start when I watched my parents lend money to their “friends” and never get it back? Was it when the company my dad helped start and work at for years fuck him over after he had a stroke? Or was it during my university days when I worked 50 hour weeks to pay for my tuition and had to tell my friend I couldn’t go to his birthday dinner because I couldn’t afford a $40 meal?

Money is such a sensitive topic for me and I stress about it the most. I don’t trust other people with my money. I don’t ever want to owe someone money or have them owe me money because I don’t 100% believe I will get it back. I also don’t trust other people to have good spending habits or a financial plan.

When I meet someone who is generous with money and carefree with their spending, I automatically think that’s because they are more privileged than me and never had to worry about money. That must be why they can be like this and I cannot, but that’s not always the case is it?

I don’t have to be so stressed about all these things, right? I can trust my partner with his finances – a partner I am considering to own property with for god’s sake. I can trust my team. Other people can actually help and be reliable, right?

I don’t need to do it all alone?

Sincerely, Loewe