I think I should be a case study

A study on the unorthodox ways that humans react to stress. Most people,

The get angry...

Or really sad...

Or helplessly curled-up in a foetal position...

But not me, I have a biphasic reaction (Yeah, I’m going to use geeky words because I’ve been studying a lot lately!)

Phase 1: Screen-saver mode

I get really quiet and functional, doing everything that needs to be done in a robotic fashion. In my head it’s like:

Val cook dinner

Val eat while checking your email

Val take a shower

Val remember to wake up early tomorrow morning.

While in this state I’ll speak only when spoken to and reply in monosyllables. People will ask me questions like:

Random friend: Val how’ve you been?

Me: Ok

Random friend: How’s school?

Me: It’s fine (And then I’ll smile)

 I’ll also be listening to music with the volume turned up high (Sometimes I wonder if that bothers my neighbours but seeing as they haven’t complained yet it probably means that they’re really understanding people, or maybe we just have very thick walls!)

Phase 2: The Over-compensatory phase

My mind eventually surpasses the threshold for stress and makes an actual effort at making me happy. I’ll sing a lot, laugh a lot, and do crazy spontaneous things I hadn’t planned on when I woke up that morning. I’ll say a prayer, or two or ten, in the course of this period. But mostly I’ll take to social media and post post post! I’ll also tend to write new blog-posts........like I’m doing right now.

 Ciao... J