Handling overwhelming stress

Things at work in the last several weeks have been very tense and extremely busy. Actually, I've been crazy busy since going back to work after summer break, but especially so because of the staff reductions we had due to budget cuts. In an unfortunate twist to all of this, all of the volunteers I had may have to go away. The union is accusing us of displacing laid off workers, even going so far as to say I am in cahoots with the principal to disguise the work they're doing. Totally ridiculous. I have had the volunteers years before the layoffs happened and they are doing nothing to displace anyone.

The snippiness, gossiping and everything else that has been going on at school has been really difficult. I am trying to stay out of the ugliness, but I also have friends that have confided in me and it's hard not to take sides. All of this is reminiscent of what I was dealing with at my last position at the district office. It's not there completely there yet, but it's getting there. It was so bad that I ended up leaving and taking a demotion to do so. There's a big part of me that just wants everything to come out so that we can deal with it.

In the meantime, I'm personally getting buried in my own workload. I am trying so desperately to prioritize and do what I can, but it's hard. I have so many demands on me and I don't know at what point I can put my foot down. The kids always come first, but there are so many other things that involve them that it's just hard. I am committing to not taking work home any more ... I need my break. Sometimes it's nice to take things home because it's much quieter than being on a busy high school campus with thousands of students. However, I need my time to myself. I'm in college and have demands there, as well as taking care of the diabetes and just having some me time. I'm fortunate that I'm not married with children at this time in my life, that I have the opportunity to have some time alone to regroup. However, how do I handle the stress that seems to keep piling up?

I think that is one for the God box. At this time, I need to work my program of recovery that much harder. That means going to a meeting, reading the BB, working on a step question, etc. Those things work to give me peace and I miraculously lose more weight when I'm active in OA. I hope those things will give me more balance in other areas of my life.