It's Beyond My Control
I completely lost it yesterday. Completely. Before I go into how that went down, I need to precurse with a little background about me and my emotional well being. I can't remember a time growing up when I wasn't told that I was overly sensitive or too emotional. I am the most empathetic person I know and, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, an extreme emotional sponge. If someone I care about is down, I'm down. If they're hyper and in a good mood, the same holds true for me. I can not turn this off and it makes me feel helpless (can we say control issues?).
The last week or so has been a roller coaster for a couple of the people close to me and things have been especially bad since last Friday. Being around everyone as much as I am means I get tossed back and forth between happy and depressed every five minutes. I haven't been sleeping well and I've tried to keep some semblance of normalcy...I guess in an effort to be the solid, got-it-together girl I feel like people expect me to be. Between the sleeplessness and bottling myself up and starting to feel physically ill, things finally boiled over yesterday morning.
I felt like crap and had a fever when I got to work and was on the verge of tears from the get-go, so when my boss said good morning, I told her I felt sick and she sent me home, no questions asked. The minute I got out the door and to the crosswalk, the floodgates opened. Without even thinking, I called D and told him I'd been sent home from work. I wanted to tell him everything; the only thing I could say was that I was not ok and I didn't want to talk about it on the phone. The panic in his voice knocked some sense into me and I realized I must have come off like someone died or I had some life-threatening disease or something. I immediately apologized and said I shouldn't have called, shouldn't have started his day that way. I felt mean and selfish and desperately wished I had better control of myself and the situation but the tears wouldn't stop and the guilt magnified everything. I said he had things to do and I would talk to him later; he insisted he'd call before he had to be at the radio station at noon. About five minutes later, he called and said he wouldn't be able to function with the thoughts running through his head weighing on him all day and I needed to tell him what was going on. I gave him the Reader's Digest version and by the end of that conversation, he'd planned to come see me after he was done at the station so we could talk face to face.
When I got home, I went straight to bed and finally stopped crying and fell asleep about an hour and a half later. I napped for about four hours and still felt shitty, but heard a movie going in the living room, so I went out and parked it on the couch in my pajamas and panda slippers. Shauna and Trip didn't even hear me come in but when they realized I was in the room and got a good look at me, the tears started again and I told them what I'd done. They were too sweet about it, both trying to make me laugh and watching another movie and then music videos with me and ordering pizza. I'd finally gotten to where I could take a deep breath and stopped sniffling when the phone rang. D came over about an hour later and after sitting in the living room talking to Trip and Shauna for about twenty minutes, he motioned to my room and we went back to talk.
Needless to say, the tears started back up almost immediately after we shut the door and sat down. I layed out everything...what I'd been thinking and feeling and explained about the whole empathy thing and tried to make clear that he shouldn't feel guilty about feeling however he felt, but that I needed him to tell me what's going on so I don't start doubting myself or his feelings for me. By the time we were done, I felt a bit better about everything and where we are and we got to a point where we understood each other. I finally stopped crying and could breathe a little easier just knowing we can communicate well with each other and things would at some point go back to normal.
I still felt feverish and, even though I went to bed at 11:30 last night, physically exhausted when I woke up this morning so I called in sick today. Having a mental breakdown takes a lot out of a girl so I'm calling yesterday and today mental health days because if anyone needs to take some time for herself it's me. By tomorrow, I'll be back to my usual, middle-of-the-road self.
