Losing my shit

I wanted to try and describe how it feels when I get overwhelmed. Since it happens so often now.


It starts with a feeling of dread. My heart and stomach drop. I know what's coming, what feeling, what experience. I know what to expect. My heart starts to speed up, slowly at first. It beats hard and fast and I can feel each beat in my temples. In my whole body. I start to sweat a little. Not much, just a little. Everything is in slow motion now. My world will come crashing down.

 I feel myself sink to my knees, shoulders slumped as it happens, as my world falls. And fall it does. Glass flies as the windows shatter, their cacophony almost as loud as my self defeating thoughts. Plaster and drywall rain down on me. There is water, water falling from somewhere that I can't see, to add to the mess. Right in front of me, like a movie projector, is everything I love and care for. My friends and family. My husband. My son. They fade as they're pulled away from my outstretched arms, forever out of my reach. I'm rocking now. I place my hands over my ears and scream. Silently, I scream. 

Everything starts to go dark. I look around at the encroaching blackness and panic. Not again. Not like this. I tell myself that I'm fine, everything is fine, I'll be fine. The rocking quickens and I still have my hands over my ears. I shut my eyes against the darkness and continue with my mantra. I slow my breathing as the anxiety and dread build. Breathing slowly, thinking of my family, breathing slowly, thinking of my family. 

There may be tears, there may not be. There may be anger, there may not be. There may be a rage so great that I feel compelled to add more destruction to my already crumbling world. There may not be. There may be despair and sorrow so great that I completely break down sobbing, knowing that I can't possibly go on. There may not be. 

Slowly, eventually, my mantra starts to work. Slowly, eventually, my heart rate slows, the rocking stops, and I can look around at the destruction. The water is still falling, but so lightly that it's a mist. Debris lays strewn everywhere, piles of glass and drywall and hopes and dreams. I stand in a daze, that dread still there. 

Because now I have to clean up.

I wring out my shirt as best I can and pick shards of glass and flakes of paint and drywall from my hair. I have to push on now. I have to push on and clean up and pretend and act like this never happened. That I'm okay. Because I have to be okay, don't I?


That, my friends, is how I feel when I get overwhelmed. Every time I get overwhelmed. Which may be several times a day. Now, obviously I don't drop to my knees and scream and rock (well, sometimes I actually close my eyes and rock, but I don't scream, let's be honest). But this is how I feel. The feeling may only last a few minutes - boom! Here and gone. It may last a few hours. Or the initial feeling may last only a few minutes but the cleanup may take all day.

It's not fun. And it's not all that easy. It takes it's toll on me. By the evening I feel emotionally and mentally drained. If it's a good day, where these episodes are few and last only a few minutes, I'm doing pretty okay. I'm mostly okay. On a bad day, like yesterday, I'm down and withdrawn, easy to anger and exhausted.

I have a feeling that this is how I'll be from now on. That if I'm not in acute crisis (ie depression, mania or mixed), this is how I'll be.

And on a good day, that's fine.

But on a bad day . . .

And there are triggers. There are definitely triggers that make this all worse. Some of them I know, some are completely random. And a lot of them are unavoidable. So I'm always on guard, alwyas on alert. Always monitoring.

It's pretty awesome.