What is your biggest stressor?

Awhile ago I had to write a paper in Psychology about my biggest stressor in life. After many hours contemplating about this very subject I came to the conclusion that I really didn't have any great stressors. I decided that, while I do react in a high pitched kind of crazy woman tone, I don't feel that any of the things that happen in my daily life would be so bad to warrant the title of "stressor". I talked about my mother and my codependent relationship with her, my children and their behavior due to a mixed belief parental influence and then there is my sister and the fact that we haven't spoken since my mom was diagnosed with Cancer. These things are all events that have happened and there is a ripple effect that each of them have caused. I see a stressor as something that you cannot change. A stressor falls into the category of your job or your personal relationships.  They are like bellybuttons, everyone has one!  So when I am asked to select the biggest one, well that is a difficult thing to do because, on any given day, one could be more stressful than another.

We have these moments in our day where the unexpected happens, whether it be a phone call you have been dreading, your boss decides to increase your workload or your child decides to confide in you something you didn't want to know about.  All of these may seem mundane and trivial on another day but, for reasons you can't explain really, today they push that button and you are immediately stressed out!  How we deal with this stress is a different story and one that repeats itself over and over again.  When this happens to me I try to isolate the reason this particular event is stressful.  I pick it apart until I have it in pieces in my mind and then I can analyze it, inspect it and approach it from different angles.  I don't run away from it like some people do but, instead, choose to approach it with wonder.  I feel that this approach works for me with the best outcome and therefore I can't really identify them as significant stressors in my life.

That being said, I was finding it really hard to complete this assignment.  I gradually was feeling more and more anxiety over completing the project and decided to ask other people about it.  I did what millions of people do these days - I posted it on Facebook.  I mentioned stressors, how I was finding it hard to identify and then I made a joke about it.  I commented on how this would end badly because my family would either not speak to me again and made sure that I stayed within the "lighthearted" attitude so as not to incur the wrath of my sibling.  This did not work in my favor and what followed was World War III.  I was questioned about my intentions, made to feel like I was inconsiderate and selfish and spent hours defending myself.  All of this was truly a learning experience and, as a result, I now know that there is a very fine line between what you think is funny enough to post on Fbook and what you are willing to deal with as a consequence of that post.

All of this was not in vain though because I did finish my paper and I received an "A" on it.  In the end my paper was written about the paper!  I had come to the conclusion that my biggest stressor turned out to be the act of deciding what my stressor actually was.  I had found that I was fairly stress free but when asked to review my stress, I came up short and therefore became stressed about doing well on the paper.  This escalated into a panic over what I would write about and, in the end, I determined that the assignment itself had morphed into my "Biggest Stressor".