stress=success

so after today's work day, i have decided that for me, stress=success. now that doesn't necessarily mean that the stress part is required, but i find that no matter how i try to avoid it, it's always there. would that be considered a personality trait? maybe flaw is a better term than trait. is it genetic? is it social? or am i just - what's that work that you use for liking to inflict pain on yourself, but not in the gross sexual way? - i can't remember... but i think that my subconscious is having an affair with the part of my brain that tells me to be freakishly worried about everything. whatever its origin, stress has become a part of who i am - you love me, you love my stress.
anyways, our auditors were at work today, and i seriously thought i was going to throw-up when i got there and found them. it was that look in their eyes, like they were hungry wolves and i was the lamb that just rolled down the hill and fell in front of them. all day long it seemed like they were finding one thing wrong after another. it was missing forms, then stuff not signed, then papers missing proper documentation, etc, etc, etc. my team probably hated me today; i was on them like white on rice. and did i mention i was stressed? oh yeah, i think i did. and, by the way, when the auditors were ready to analyze the processes with me and my manager, her boss and his colleague decided to come from the market office to join in the slaughter - i mean review.
in the end we did really well (8 out of 10 for our office as a whole, and my stuff got a 9, thank you!), but it's that panic that comes over you when all of a sudden, there are people rummaging through all of your work for the last 3-5 months, finding ticky-tack mistakes that you didn't even know existed! and i know their real job is help make us better, but they can be so unintentionally intimidating. would i have done just as well even if i hadn't been so psychosomatic? probably. but it's over now, and luckily they shouldn't be back until January (praise the lord, hallelujah!)
ugh, what a day.