Because of the unsteady levels, I felt a lot of family pressure to watch her and make sure she was doing what she was supposed to. That really didn't help with all of the problems I was facing at work. I was on steady alert at home as well as at work.
Then my disabled brother had issues that we had to get checked out at the hospital. One of his problems was curable, but the other was a condition we had to watch for the remaining time in his life. So many concerns.
I wasn't completely aware of it at the time, but I was going through some things myself as a result of my chronic stress. With this being a public post, I'm leaving out details. I began showing issues probably about five years before leaving, but it was so subtle that I didn't realize what was happening. For some odd reason, it never occurred to me (I was probably too stressed to be logical about anything going on with me, to be honest) that the things I was dealing with were related to my stress. The only reason I know now what was happening was that as I got taken from that atmosphere, my symptoms slowly began to improve. I still have an occasional occurrence, but nothing as frequent or intense as what I was experiencing during those times.
I'm not pointing out which ones I experienced, but the Mayo Clinic gives a descent list of what the general risks are that are associated with stress on the body. I'll also point out that I had things happening that aren't specified here, but were definitely direct results from one or two of these:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Digestive Problems
- Headaches
- Muscle Tension and Pain
- Heart Disease, Heart Attack, High Blood Pressure, and Stroke
- Sleep Problems
- Weight Gain
- Problems with Memory and Focus
Today, I'm feeling a lot better, and as it has been mentioned that I still have episodes, they aren't frequent anymore. I have episodes maybe once a year, a few times at the most, if that often, and the severity of the episodes has improved significantly.
