I had a really hard day yesterday, hard to the point of crying in my office with my friend.  Part of it was horomones.  Part of it was that there was a baby shower that day for one of my coworkers.  Part of it was finally being able to let go after all the stress of the last month.  I hadn't been able to let myself feel that before because I had needed to be able to keep pushing through until it was over.  But the horomones and baby shower causing some emotion let the rest come out as well.  I think maybe the need to keep going and to be strong for others may have done more than the Zoloft did in getting me through this month.  But either way, I'm through it. 

I'm not doing well.  I'm not sure I even count as managing at this point.  But I am at least surviving.  I haven't been written up at work again.  I'm even catching up on paperwork since several intakes have not shown.  I'm not snapping at DH, I'm being successful at being supportive of him.  So maybe I'm managing.  I don't really know at this point.  Sometime next week or the week after, I'll redeem the massage that M bought for me.  I figure it works better to use it this month than last month because last month we weren't trying and last month the stress was so constant that the positive effects from the massage would have been gone right away.  Hopefully this month will be lower-stress enough that the effects of the massage will last a decent amount of time. 

Plus, this month I have several APO events to run.  That actually lowers my stress rather than raising it for the most part.  At this point, APO is my happy place.  APO is where I feel competent and able to accomplish things.  APO is where a lot of my friends are, and especially a lot of friends that don't have kids and aren't having kids anytime soon.  It's not that I don't want those APO friends or any of my other friends to have kids.  But the fact that many of my APO friends don't have kids makes APO feel like more of a safe place for me emotionally.  Besides, it helps fill my time.  I thought I was going the responsible thing by not continuing as a Section Chair because I thought I'd have a baby by now.  Since I can't have that, I might as well fill my time with APO and other activities.  Yes, it's like dealing with grief by running around cooking and cleaning for everyone else...it doesn't do anything to address the grief.  But it makes it possible to survive for one more day and try to keep going.