One of the things I love about my therapist is that she's good at spotting patterns that I'm oblivious to. We were talking today about the things that seem to be aggravating my anxiety, and she observe that they all have non-specific endings, and that might be wearing on me.
I've often said that it's nice to have something to look forward to, and that I get anxious when I don't have a trip or special occasion on the calendar. It's not that this comes at the expense of the moment, it's just nice to anticipate fun things. What I never considered was that having some specificity about when difficult things end can also reduce anxiety.
My biggest struggle is the parenting, because ordinarily we would be at the stage where things would be getting easier, and we could be a little less hands-on. But ASD and the delay in emotional development that comes with it means we aren't there yet. In fact, every milestone has come later than expected, and that's rough after 11 years. We don't know when we'll have a child that's more self-sufficient, and love doesn't make that any easier.
I've had a project at work that has taken a lot longer than expected, and it has been hard to nail down when it's going to end. Despite a half-dozen other things landing as expected, the uncertainty of this one has caused anxiety for a long time.
And you know, you may have heard that there's a pandemic, and we certainly don't have a "done by" date for that. At best, we can hope for vaccination availability for kids in the next few months.
There's only so much you can do about certain things, getting them to an end state. But as is the case with anything around mental health, understanding what makes you tick, or interferes with how you roll, helps you out.
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