Software glitch

There is a glitch in Just Frances, the person, that I can’t seem to repair. It started when I first got the Frances 3.0 upgrade nearly four years ago and it seems that it can’t be uninstalled. At least not until there’s a new major version for me to download.

The glitch is a low-laying Panic.exe file that seems to run silently in the background, but every once in a while it throws up these annoying little pop-ups that I can’t seem to close down. And sometimes it gets so bad that the entire system crashes and it takes a while for it to restart.

OK, enough of the analogies. I know how annoying they can be!

What I’m basically saying is that since Paul died, I get all worked up and panicked over things in a way that I never did before. And I hate it! I went from being a fairly calm and easy-going person to this silly little frightened child. I get so overwhelmed so quickly and so easily and I don’t know how to stop the cycle.

And, as you may have guessed, I’ve had myself a wee panic. And it came completely out of the blue. Which I suppose is better than the panics that I spend days anticipating, making the pre-panic almost as panicky as the actual panic!

I’m not talking about a full-on panic attack that has me flying off the handle and breathing into a paper bag or hiding the sharp knives. No, it’s just these mini-episodes where all of the sudden I am upset because I am not in as much control as I want need to be. And when I’m not in control I start to worry about each little step and all of the WhatIfs along the way. And when I realise that I don’t have control over the next steps and WhatIfs, I panic even more. It’s a vicious cycle.

Unfortunately, I’m at a point in my path that I have very little control over – although I’m trying to navigate the obstacles in a way that will get me back to where I want to be.

Fortunately, I have a friend who’s been trying to help me find the signs that point me to my desired destination. I’m travelling a path that she’s never travelled, but she is busy reading maps to help me find my way.

(Whoops! I went from a software analogy to a navigation one. Let’s just pretend I meant a sitemap instead of a geographical one. OK?)

Anyhow, I’m trying to not let these stresses bother me. I’m trying to not let fears about tomorrow ruin today. I’m trying to not let the WhatIfs take over.

I really wish that I could get rid of this glitch though. Life was so much easier when I was able to just go with the flow. I miss being that person who was so naïve that she always thought everything would work out. I miss being that person who believed without a doubt that the world was filled with nothing but beauty.

But since the glitch seems to be here for at least the foreseeable future, I guess I need to accept it. Accept it and find ways to survive it. And, thankfully, I have an amazing network of family and friends to help me with the survival part!