It’s more like a feelings problem, really.
Whereas normal people get sad, I get blubbering-bucket-of-tears sad. Whereas normal people get worried, I get certain-an-airplane-toilet-is-going-to-come-crashing-through-the-roof-and-kill-us-all-repeatedly worried. Whereas normal people get angry, I get blood-pressure-spikingly-and-extremity-tremblingly angry.
I’d say I’m bipolar (isn’t that when people get super manic and then super depressed and then back to super manic for periods on end?), except I don’t have high and low periods. I have appropriate emotional responses to things immediately upon them happening. My emotional responses just happen to be super intense.
And they happen to happen when I haven’t taken my anxiety meds.
So clearly, they’re an offshoot of my anxiety (or maybe they’re straight up symptoms of anxiety). And they’re incredibly unpleasant.
In the midst of these feelings, I know they are extreme. I want them to stop. I tell myself to calm down and recognize the fact that my physiological reactions are abnormal. I tell myself to jump back inside my body and quit being a fucking lunatic. I threaten me with things like tying me up in a straitjacket or making me go talk to somebody about my feelings (which to me IS THE WORST punishment imaginable).
Eventually, I convince myself to quit the crazy.
My feelings problem has been favoring anger and frustration recently. It’s probably because I’m done with school for the summer, as are my kids, and we’re all going through a transition period. And NONE OF US IS GOOD WITH TRANSITIONS.
Each morning since vacation started, my kids have awoken screaming and defiant and generally characteristic of Satan’s spawn, and I have responded with curt rebuttals and yelling and bum taps (don’t judge) and retreats to my room so I can calmthefuckdown for a minute.
I have also shared this AWESOME side of me this week with Mr. Sammichand unsuspecting strangers. Pretty much anything Mr. Sammich does or says that I’m not 100% in love with unleashes my feelings problem, as does crappy customer service and what I perceive to be the receptionist at my kid’s therapy office’s inability to string a coherent thought together or do her motherloving job.
Moral of the story? Take your meds if the doctor thinks you need them, kids. Otherwise, you’ll wind up rocking in the corner, eating your shoelaces and murmuring woosah to yourself for minutes on end.
GOD, I’m super pleasant to be around right now. WHO WANTS TO HANG OUT?