Stress Management

Stress Management A major stressor in my life, as of late, is not knowing if all I have done is going to be enough. In particular, waiting to hear if I got into any of the nursing programs I applied to. Certain questions area constantly on my mind; these are the things that I think about when there is nothing else on my mind. When there is no homework or deadlines to remember and all seems well, the things that I should of or could of done better to heighten my chances of getting in sparks up in my mind. It is something that I must deal with because this is the way I was brought up to think. I’ve always been held up to certain expectations from my parents and if I don’t live up to those expectations, then I am a failure. My parents seem to be the source of my stress. This sounds terrible, but after close evaluation, they are what everything leads back to. As a child, I didn’t understand why my mother would get so angry at me for not doing my homework on time or not excelling in my classes. All throughout elementary school, I was considered “dumb”. I never really did my homework because I didn’t know how. I ended up having to go to a learning center to help me with my reading and such. After that, however, I started to do really well on assignments. I remember how happy this made my mother and how much praise she would give me. I remember thinking I needed to continue to push myself in order to make her happy. My father, on the other hand, was very laid back. He would reward me with money or candy whenever I

would straight As. I felt like I needed to keep this up. By middle school, I was staying up late at night and studying after my mom would tuck me in. But it paid off because I graduated with honors. By high school, all-nighters were normal, getting As was a must and excelling was something that was expected of me. I didn’t realize by doing this to myself I would end up tiring myself out by the time I was a sophomore in college. After graduating high school...