I've never discussed my full-time job in this column except to say that it is stressful. That's turning out to be the understatement of the century.
In my offline life, I am a police dispatcher. I can personally testify to the fact that the whole country is on edge because I have intimate knowledge of my little corner of it.
As difficult as it was to watch the televised destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, the anthrax scare seems to be doing even more damage where I live. People who never had a second thought about opening their mailboxes before September 11 are calling in about all kinds of suspicious mail. A good share of these calls are resulting in activation of our bomb squad, the unit within my department that has the capability to handle potentially dangerous mail.
Since September 11, dispatchers at my agency have been working mandatory overtime to ensure that there are enough people to answer the phones and send officers to calls. The extra hours are an inherent part of the job; service at times requires sacrifice.
In times of crisis, service also means stress.
Long hours spent attending to the needs of others sometimes means you have little time to attend to your own needs. (That has to ring true with all the moms out there!)
What this means for people with psoriasis is that sometimes self-care routines get cut short. Let's face it, psoriasis care can be time-consuming. It takes time to get to the doctor's office for light therapy, time to get prescriptions from the pharmacy, time to administer the medication. It's a royal pain.
When you're in the throes of any crisis, you run the gamut of emotions - from fear to depression. Gallons of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenalin are dumped into your bloodstream, making you feel lethargic and cranky. Pesky patches of psoriasis pale in comparison with the crisis.
The moment you realize you're out of focus is the exact moment you need to start taking care of yourself, no matter what the crisis.
After the onset of a crisis, most people take great comfort in routines. They find themselves grasping for anything familiar, anything that is a known entity.
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