This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

Well, my bus ticket today is going unused.  Wonder Woman had a stomach virus earlier this week, and I may have it now and I didn’t want to take it to NY with me.

And I say may have it because I feel crampy and generally icky, but don’t really have any other symptoms.  I’m just ‘off’ enough that I’m not willing to risk infecting another household, not to mention 6 hours on a bus. . . I can’t imagine that would be fun.

I’m waiting 24 hours and if I feel better I’ll take a bus up tomorrow morning and still come back Monday.  Otherwise I’ll wait and go up later this month.

I’m impressed with how well I’m handling the change in plans.  Normally I’d be freaking out and basically throwing a temper tantrum.  I mean, I’m bummed, I’m upset, this sucks.  But there’s not a whole lot I can do about it and getting even more upset and stomping my feet about it won’t make a bit of difference.

I’d like to know why it took me this many years to figure that out.  I’m really thankful for DBT skills that I’m able to step back and put this in perspective now.

I still have some days that things go wrong and I generally freak the fuck out.  But even those freak outs are a lot calmer and more manageable then they used to be, and I come out of them quicker.  They take over an hour or two of my emotions instead of a whole day and they are happening less and less often.

It’s much easier for me to say “this is going to be an overwhelming situation for me, I need to put some skills to use” and then work on figuring out what skills best fit the situation.  A lot of the time it’s simply radically accepting that it is what it is and then doing some self soothing and distraction and going about my day.

This is one of those situations.  I’m not willing to potentially expose a house with a toddler (such an adorable itty bitty toddler, who I can’t wait to see), to a really bad stomach virus, just so that I get my way and get to go up when I want to.  I can’t change those facts.  It is what it is and therefore there’s no reason to rebel against it.

Now, if my stomach could just decide what the fuck it’s doing.

Am I sick, or not?