These are strange and hard days. Even normally healthy people are having issues with their mental health, and when you have a mental illness and are already coming at it with a disadvantage, well, things are… well, they’re extra fragile. We’re too many days into quarantine to keep count, the threads that weave my emotions together are tenuous, and even simple interactions are leading to my undoing.
It’s a hard thing to explain to someone who hasn’t been there, but sometimes the simplest, most innocuous things can set off an ugly chain. And you see it, you see it happening as if you’re looking from outside your body. You can see you’re being irrational. You can see your mind is twisting things. But you’re utterly powerless to stop it. It takes on a life of its own, and it owns you, until it either burns out of its own volition, or you’re somehow able to recall some helpful tidbit from therapy that allows you to diffuse it.
Last night, I had the following conversation, which sadly, followed the same pattern of MANY conversations:
It started out well enough. YouTube, celebrities, tomato plants, desserts. Delightful. Happy. Random. And then for some reason (I never know the reason) I decided to unleash a tangled mass of word vomit, this time about how much I hated taking medication, and why did I take it anyway, and what if the naysayers were right, and what if I just stopped taking it? I was seeking reassurance I think, though the reasoning is often lost even by that early point.
What I got in return was not reassurance, but being (rightly) called out for being unreasonable. I promptly felt stupid, and embarrassed, and unheard. I could barely answer her. My friend ghosted then, for any one of a number of reasons. Maybe a kid needed her, or she got called away, or she had to cook dinner, or she needed to use the bathroom for God’s sake. I don’t know. But she was gone, and then my mind went into overdrive. Paranoia and abandonment issues are real. I felt stupid and embarrassed and unheard, AND now felt a desperate, frantic need to undo it. This is a big thing with me. ABORT! ABORT! Make the bad feelings go away. I tried to apologize (for what, I’m not sure. Also a big thing with me) all the while hating myself for it, because did I really have something to be sorry about? I was PANICKING. Pure and total panic, over… what? I never know.
She resurfaced after my bumbled attempt to apologize, after I was already certain that she hated me, because seriously, how long can I expect a person to put up with someone who flies off the handle at any imagined provocation? She told me simply, “You’re okay,” which, for some irrational reason made me feel ten times worse, because I needed to hear words. I needed to hear reassurance. I needed to hear – ironically – that I was okay. That WE were okay. That I wasn’t crazy. That she didn’t hate me. That she understood. (Though, how anyone could understand any of it is beyond me) I needed to hear something magic, and I don’t even know what it was. I don’t know that anything would have helped. When I reach that point, very little does.
So they stayed. The gross, tearing-up-my-insides feelings remained. I went to bed feeling stupid, and embarrassed, and unheard, and sad. I went to bed hating myself, because WHY DID I DO THAT? Why did I do that, AGAIN? What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just be normal? The answer to that final question, by the way, is because I’m not. My brain is not wired normally. And it’s okay. Maddening and frustrating maybe, but okay.
Sleep was hard to come by, but it finally overtook me. I woke up feeling stupid, and embarrassed, and unheard, and sad. I woke up hating myself, this time because in my post flip-out hangover, I saw it even more clearly. I saw what I’d done, and I knew – I KNEW – that if I’d stopped and breathed and used any number of self-centering tools, it all could’ve been averted. But I never realize that except in hindsight. In the moment, I’m too blinded with… something. Something that takes over.
And now, 24 hours later? I am calmer. A little more rationality has crept back in. I feel a little more human, a little less crazed. But I’m tired. I’m tired of it catching me off-guard. I’m tired of the sudden and sickening tsunami of emotions. I’m tired of worrying that my relationships can’t withstand me. I’m just tired.
But I’ll move on. I’ll try to learn from it. I’ll try to do better next time (and, sadly, there will be a next time). When all is said and done, all I can do is try.
