Duality

Tch.

It seems, against all reason, that I am, by some unfathomable cause, stressed.

One would think that, in the prime of holidays, when I have nothing on my schedule save what I feel like doing, that I wouldn't be stressed.

I don't feel particularly stressed, yet, for the first time in my life, including throughout the end of last semester when I was scrambling to get like ten projects done within a fortnight, I'm actually exhibiting consistent medical symptoms of stress.

The first thing I noticed was the irritating tendency I've sporadically been acquiring to stutter and mix up letters in words and words in sentences, often forcing me to abandon the idea I was trying to express and fall silent, whereas in the past I've not so much as muddled a rapid "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". I Googled it and found that, barring neurodegenerative diseases, it's a definitive symptom of anxiety or stress.

Second indication of stress I received were several episodes of the even-more-unsettling-than-it-sounds sleep paralysis, which only shows up under conditions of sleep loss (not me), drug/alcohol use (laughably not me), or stress.

And then, just today, despite the trailing off of the aforementioned two symptoms, my phone's health app diagnosed me with 'very high' levels of stress.

The weirdest part is that I have no idea why.