What Do You Do When You're Upset?

So, your therapist told you to read a book or find a new hobby or do something at your pace that helps you relax when you're upset, right? Mine took a Xanax and referred me to a different therapist. But this isn't about my therapy, it's about what I DO for therapy when I'm overwhelmed. Coincidentally, I've been overwhelmed (or at very least "whelmed") a lot lately.

As a result, I go online, find a free (or cheap) course of whose content I'm not entirely familiar, and I study really hard. I think the kids called it "cramming" when I was a teen-ager but I'm not sure what it's called these days. That study takes my mind 100% off what's bothering me for the length of time it takes me to consume the reading materials for the course.

Recently, it was a course for a legal certification and I went through the study materials, which you are supposed to really study for a couple of weeks at least before attempting the exam, in about an hour. I made light of someone else's hard work is what I did, and I ought to be ashamed of myself.

Anyway, so the test was 50 questions and I was not truly prepared. You had to score at least an 80% on the test in order to get your credentials/license, and I breezed through the test and went back over it to make sure I didn't miss anything. Oddly enough, the program didn't like being passed over like that. So, it legitimately "unmarked" some of my answered questions as if I'd missed them. The instructions specifically said if you skip over a question it will count as an error. Is this designed for failure? I don't know, but I went back over and re-answered all those questions and then, made the fatal error, I second-guessed myself.

On original approach, I had easily 95% correct. There were several "trick" questions that are worded in such a way that at least 2 answers could theoretically be correct. I changed my answers, partly because I was shook by the number of questions that had been unmarked by the program, and scored 90% correct - well and above the needed score to achieve my agenda.

That's not bragging. That's me giving you a 2 second peek into my therapy. I learn something new. In the time it took me to register through the Secretary of State's office, then the course registration itself, then go through the study materials and download the accompanying PDF files and study them, take the test and email the test to the admins, I quit being plagued by bothersome thoughts from recent events. I was able to lay down and go to sleep feeling like I'd accomplished something instead of leaving something undone. I have a real problem with that.