I had melt-down yesterday. Pretty bad. For some reason, I woke up in the morning, just straight pissy. I warned Ethan of this, and he was really understanding at first.
I started the day trying to figure out how the godforsaken iCloud works, so that I could get the pictures I have on my phone OFF my phone so that I could take new pictures. Apparently there is no easy way to do that. All I wanted was to move all of my pictures to the iCloud, so that they were off my phone (no longer taking up memory), but so that if I wanted to see them, I could still access them on the iCloud from my phone. I don't understand what would be so difficult about that, but then again, maybe I don't understand what the iCloud is actually for.
After trying, and failing, to figure it out, and then having trouble with my laptop performance speed, I just about threw the thing out the window (which wouldn't have done much as we live on the ground floor). My laptop isn't that old, but I guess it needs some work to clean it up so it will actually run at a normal speed, but that's really not the point. The point is that it pissed me off to the point that I wanted to be destructive in some way. Whether it was destroying the computer, or destroying another object, or even destroying myself, I wanted, I needed, to take my anger out in some way.
Instead, I decided to take Phoenix out for an extended walk/sniffing adventure. What I really wanted to do was plop down and try to calm down by watching TV shows or a movie on Netflix or something. But the weather yesterday was fantastic, and Ethan hadn't gotten around to planning a bigger walk/hike/adventure for us (even though I'd asked him early in the week), so we just walked out the door and walked around Rock Creek Open Space for about an hour. We stopped by the dog park that's right next to our complex, and Phoenix was so hot he even went into the water of the creek itself a few times. It was a really nice walk. By the time we got back home, I had relaxed quite a bit.
We then decided we would go to Ethan Allen to look at coffee tables (we don't have one right now and Ethan has always wanted a piece of furniture from there), and then we would go see a movie. We didn't have time to stop to get something to eat in between the furniture store and the movie, so that made Ethan cranky, which in turn made me cranky.
We ended up seeing Wild, the story of Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in the mid-90's as a sort of soul search. This summer, Ethan attempted to finish the last 250 miles of the Colorado Trail that he hadn't yet done, and although I was very involved in his planning and preparation, I wanted to see what it might have been like for him. The movie was, in my opinion, very good. Ethan would have probably liked to see more of the hike itself and less of the flashbacks and story line of why she decided to take on such an enormous feat. Either way, in my super sensitive state, I of course cried a bit during it.
When we arrived and were trying to figure out what to eat before or during the movie, we talked about Que Bueno, this Mexican place right next to the theater, about whether or not either of us had ever been there (neither of us had), and he made a face that indicated to me, "maybe we should try it."
So after the movie got out, I directed us to the restaurant, and when he asked me why, I said I thought he wanted to go there. He said no, that he didn't mean that we would be going there after the movie. I was still starving, and I assumed he was too since he's hungry pretty much anytime, anywhere, and after hearing that we were not going to get food right away, I lost it. In my head, I was trying to understand why I felt so upset, and I decided that it was because this happens between us a lot. He mentions something, I assume that it means that he wants to do it, and so I assume it is going to happen. It's simply a misunderstanding, probably on my part because I assume things.
He had mentioned that Sunday was going to be Chipotle day. Ethan loves Chipotle. And Mexican food. He could eat Chipotle for lunch and go to a Mexican restaurant for dinner every single night and never ever get sick of it. I love Chipotle too but I can't eat it as often as he can without getting sick of it. Either way, when he said he wanted Chipotle on Sunday, I kind of assumed that we would be getting Chipotle on Sunday. So when he said we would not be going to Que Bueno, I asked if we would just go get Chipotle and he was very ambivalent about it. And again, I lost it. I yelled at him. I yelled that I was tired of misunderstanding him, and that he needed to TURN HERE to get to Chipotle, at which point he said he was done talking to me.
And whatever I had left, at that point I lost it too. We pulled up to Chipotle and I let him go in by himself. I had told him Saturday when me first mentioned Chipotle and again Sunday while we were walking that I would get something different from what I usually get (carnitas burrito, no beans, white rice, mild and green salsa, extra sour cream and cheese), and get a chicken quesadilla. I knew, though, that he wouldn't have gotten me a side of green salsa, and when he got back in the car, I asked him if he had - in order to avoid a fight or him feeling guilty when we got home, and me getting even angrier for no apparent reason. He hadn't, so I went in and grabbed it (did you know that if you don't make an actual order they charge you $1 for a side of anything?! I almost threw a fit in there too, because they seemed to not believe that my boyfriend had just been in there and forgotten to get it). I HATE being a bitch to people out in the world
When I got back into the car, my brain pretty much exploded, flooding me with thoughts of negativity, worthlessness, and hopelessness. I thought about the movie, and how she walked this whole 900 mile trail in order to get some clarity and finally feel like the daughter that her mother had raised her to be, and how I am not at all the person I thought I would be by now. Not at all.
I'm so freaking smart. I got straight A's all through school. My goal through high school was to be Valedictorian. When I got my first B, I freaked out. When I hit college, I discovered that my Depression gets worse the more stressed out I get, and that's why it took me 8 years to get my Bachelor's degree. But when I finally got it, I thought the whole world would open up for me and my intelligence and my abilities. Not so.
I thought at least, then, if I didn't have a career, or a career PATH, or be doing some kind of job that I felt I had a passion for, or felt like I was suited for, maybe I'd be a housewife, staying home with an immaculate house for my husband to come home to, and a delicious dinner on the table, and with happy and healthy kids. Not so.
It hurts me a whole fucking lot that I am a piddly receptionist at an office full of people who have dreams and accomplishments. I work for lawyers. Who all made it through law school. I work for business owners - successful business owners! And I get yelled at on pretty much a daily basis by the clients of these people, and told how stupid I am for not knowing the answer to a very specific question, or yelled at because I am not allowed to give out someone's email address, or cursed out because the cost of the appointment someone called in to schedule is way more than they were anticipating. I am a peon. I hate this job. I'm good at it because I'm detail oriented, and very intelligent, and I try every day to problem solve so that one problem one day is not a problem the next day. But it is entirely the opposite of fulfilling for me.
I'm so very disappointed in myself for not working harder, or not letting my moods and meltdowns keep me from finishing school faster. I'm so disappointed that I didn't follow through on some of the things I started - like going to NecroSearch International meetings, or actually attending the Westminster PD Citizen's Academy last year. I feel like I've disappointed the world, too, because maybe if I were active in these things, I would have better direction in my life at this point. But I don't, because I completely shut down when I feel the way that I feel right now. I say, "I can't" to the very littlest things because I feel like if I start something (read: laundry or cleaning the house) and I don't finish it, I'll just disappoint myself more, and as the disappointment mounts, it becomes very overwhelming and I pretty much just want to die. Or hurt myself.
So that was just one line of thought that thundered into my brain last night. Another one was that Ethan shouldn't want to be with me because I am a gigantic mountain of crazy, just waiting to spew molten hot crazy all over him, and he is going to get hurt. He so does not deserve for me to hurt him. In any way.
To continue the story, we got home from Chipotle, and I sat in the car for a minute after he got out and went in the front door. Phoenix came out, and was wagging his tail all over the outside of the car, so I got out, shooed him inside, dropped my purse in there, and then shut the door and walked away. My initial instinct was to walk around the corner to where my friend lives, because she's out of town right now and my ol' roomy Meredi has been staying there taking care of the dogs. I walked over and she wasn't there, so I kept walking, trying to find a place to sit and think for awhile. I eventually settled on a grassy spot on a hill overlooking a basketball court, and I just sat there and thought and cried for about half an hour. It wasn't cold, but I was definitely chilly. I really, really did not want to be in my head right now, but I didn't want to talk to anyone about it, either really, so I tried really hard to just breathe and look around me and ground myself.
I thought about why my anger gets so out of control, and why I so often think about hurting myself, and why. I thought about breaking up with Ethan so that I am forced to get out of my comfort zone and figure out how to make myself happy. I thought about killing myself and what people might say about me at my memorial (I didn't write about this, but a friend's mom passed away suddenly a couple of weeks ago and her memorial was on Saturday and I went and all everyone said about her was how sweet she was in life). I thought about what would happen to Phoenix if I weren't around anymore. I thought about what I could do when I got home to simply just try to relax. I thought about how I should be proud of myself for leaving and going for a walk alone (despite it being night and there being coyotes very very active in this area) instead of staying at home and yelling at Ethan, or driving to a liquor store to get a bottle of vodka, or locking myself in the bathroom and cutting myself, except that I wasn't proud of myself because I still wanted to do any or all of those things. I tried to think of all the other times I've been in crisis, or in a thought process like this that just spirals down and down, and how I've handled those in the past. I thought about how I don't really want to kill myself, or even hurt myself, and how ridiculous those things sound to me when I'm feeling really great. I tried to talk myself into realizing that this is just a momentary thing, that it will not last forever, that I will feel better again, and that my life is important. I thought about how I still feel like I have some purpose on this earth that I have yet to find, but that my patience is really running low. I thought about how sad it makes me that neither of my parents ever really call me to check in on me, but how I worry so much about them both that I call them at least a couple of times a week to check in on them, and how it makes me wonder if they even care about me at all.
None of it helped.
When I finally got up and walked back to the condo, I didn't feel any different. And I didn't know how I was going to handle Ethan, or how he would react to me coming home. I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there, aside from taking half a Xanax XR and shooting the last little bit of tequila that's been sitting in our freezer in an attempt to calm down very quickly.
I took the Xanax with the tequila, and then grabbed a bag of candy from the counter, and decided I would go lay on my bed and watch something on Netflix, because in the last 10 years or so I've been dealing with these feelings, watching a show or a movie has been the only thing that I can find that will help. I also saw Ethan's buck knife on the counter and I grabbed that too because I still wanted to at least draw blood somewhere so I didn't feel so dumb about being so emotionally messed up without feeling some physical pain. I don't hurt myself to draw attention to myself. In fact, I'm actually embarrassed today that I have marks from what I ended up doing last night.
Ethan noticed that I'd grabbed his knife and took it back. I told him that it was okay, because I could still hurt myself by punching the wall (which I've been wanting to do for awhile), and followed that by punching the wall a few times. I kept telling him to leave me alone, and he kept asking if he left me alone, would I hurt myself, and one thing I pride myself on is that I don't lie if I can help it, so I told him no, that I could not be trusted not to hurt myself since that's all I could think about doing last night in order to feel some kind of relief. I then punched another wall a couple of times. I tried locking myself in the bedroom, but the stupid setup we have has 2 doors, one out to the living room, and one to the closet/bathroom, and only one locked from the inside. So he forced his way in. I told him I could still find ways to hurt or cut myself and then proceeded to punch a mirror we had sitting on the floor of the bedroom. It was at that point that he grabbed me forcefully and moved me to the bed where he stood next to me until I got up into the bed.
I feel really, really embarrassed to have acted out that way. It seems so very immature to me to act like that, to throw a fit or a tantrum or however you want to label it, but at the time, I felt like that was all I was able to do. I still feel pent up anger inside, I still want to hit something or slice my skin open with a knife, but I am not really sure why. My hand swelled right up, and it hurt, but not too bad. I have a bruise on my knuckles today, and a teeny tiny cut on one knuckle, but that's it. I had to take my ring off because my ring finger was swollen and I didn't want to have to cut the damn thing off later because of circulation. It's still swollen.
I think that maybe part of the reason I want to hurt myself is that the pain from it is lasting. Like, when you have a bruise or a cut, and you accidentally bump it, it still hurts for awhile. If I hurt myself, and I bump it or whatever, I remember why I have it, and that feels better. It's not the cutting or whatever that releases the pain when I'm right in the middle of the crisis. I think it's that I remember for a week or so after I do it, that I'm still here, that I'm still alive, that I survived that awful experience. I don't like having the scars. The scars on my wrist from this time last year are terrible, and I'm always embarrassed of them. That's why I wear a watch all the time.
When I finally started to settle down last night, I texted my mom and talked to her for just a little while. I told her that I was in crisis, that I was acting irrationally, and that I needed her to know it. I told her that I'd gone off the Effexor, and that I'm struggling a hell of a lot right now. I think I reached out to her just so that she would know that I'm having a hard time and with hopes that she will check in on me from time to time.
I fucking hate that I feel this way right now. It's fucking awkward as fuck, for me and for the people around me. I like me better when I'm hopeful and happy and warm (my hands have been cold for weeks now and it's driving me nuts). I like me better when I'm efficient and productive and proud of the things I accomplish, however small. I hate this with every single fiber of my being.
I started the day trying to figure out how the godforsaken iCloud works, so that I could get the pictures I have on my phone OFF my phone so that I could take new pictures. Apparently there is no easy way to do that. All I wanted was to move all of my pictures to the iCloud, so that they were off my phone (no longer taking up memory), but so that if I wanted to see them, I could still access them on the iCloud from my phone. I don't understand what would be so difficult about that, but then again, maybe I don't understand what the iCloud is actually for.
After trying, and failing, to figure it out, and then having trouble with my laptop performance speed, I just about threw the thing out the window (which wouldn't have done much as we live on the ground floor). My laptop isn't that old, but I guess it needs some work to clean it up so it will actually run at a normal speed, but that's really not the point. The point is that it pissed me off to the point that I wanted to be destructive in some way. Whether it was destroying the computer, or destroying another object, or even destroying myself, I wanted, I needed, to take my anger out in some way.
Instead, I decided to take Phoenix out for an extended walk/sniffing adventure. What I really wanted to do was plop down and try to calm down by watching TV shows or a movie on Netflix or something. But the weather yesterday was fantastic, and Ethan hadn't gotten around to planning a bigger walk/hike/adventure for us (even though I'd asked him early in the week), so we just walked out the door and walked around Rock Creek Open Space for about an hour. We stopped by the dog park that's right next to our complex, and Phoenix was so hot he even went into the water of the creek itself a few times. It was a really nice walk. By the time we got back home, I had relaxed quite a bit.
We then decided we would go to Ethan Allen to look at coffee tables (we don't have one right now and Ethan has always wanted a piece of furniture from there), and then we would go see a movie. We didn't have time to stop to get something to eat in between the furniture store and the movie, so that made Ethan cranky, which in turn made me cranky.
We ended up seeing Wild, the story of Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in the mid-90's as a sort of soul search. This summer, Ethan attempted to finish the last 250 miles of the Colorado Trail that he hadn't yet done, and although I was very involved in his planning and preparation, I wanted to see what it might have been like for him. The movie was, in my opinion, very good. Ethan would have probably liked to see more of the hike itself and less of the flashbacks and story line of why she decided to take on such an enormous feat. Either way, in my super sensitive state, I of course cried a bit during it.
When we arrived and were trying to figure out what to eat before or during the movie, we talked about Que Bueno, this Mexican place right next to the theater, about whether or not either of us had ever been there (neither of us had), and he made a face that indicated to me, "maybe we should try it."
So after the movie got out, I directed us to the restaurant, and when he asked me why, I said I thought he wanted to go there. He said no, that he didn't mean that we would be going there after the movie. I was still starving, and I assumed he was too since he's hungry pretty much anytime, anywhere, and after hearing that we were not going to get food right away, I lost it. In my head, I was trying to understand why I felt so upset, and I decided that it was because this happens between us a lot. He mentions something, I assume that it means that he wants to do it, and so I assume it is going to happen. It's simply a misunderstanding, probably on my part because I assume things.
He had mentioned that Sunday was going to be Chipotle day. Ethan loves Chipotle. And Mexican food. He could eat Chipotle for lunch and go to a Mexican restaurant for dinner every single night and never ever get sick of it. I love Chipotle too but I can't eat it as often as he can without getting sick of it. Either way, when he said he wanted Chipotle on Sunday, I kind of assumed that we would be getting Chipotle on Sunday. So when he said we would not be going to Que Bueno, I asked if we would just go get Chipotle and he was very ambivalent about it. And again, I lost it. I yelled at him. I yelled that I was tired of misunderstanding him, and that he needed to TURN HERE to get to Chipotle, at which point he said he was done talking to me.
And whatever I had left, at that point I lost it too. We pulled up to Chipotle and I let him go in by himself. I had told him Saturday when me first mentioned Chipotle and again Sunday while we were walking that I would get something different from what I usually get (carnitas burrito, no beans, white rice, mild and green salsa, extra sour cream and cheese), and get a chicken quesadilla. I knew, though, that he wouldn't have gotten me a side of green salsa, and when he got back in the car, I asked him if he had - in order to avoid a fight or him feeling guilty when we got home, and me getting even angrier for no apparent reason. He hadn't, so I went in and grabbed it (did you know that if you don't make an actual order they charge you $1 for a side of anything?! I almost threw a fit in there too, because they seemed to not believe that my boyfriend had just been in there and forgotten to get it). I HATE being a bitch to people out in the world
When I got back into the car, my brain pretty much exploded, flooding me with thoughts of negativity, worthlessness, and hopelessness. I thought about the movie, and how she walked this whole 900 mile trail in order to get some clarity and finally feel like the daughter that her mother had raised her to be, and how I am not at all the person I thought I would be by now. Not at all.
I'm so freaking smart. I got straight A's all through school. My goal through high school was to be Valedictorian. When I got my first B, I freaked out. When I hit college, I discovered that my Depression gets worse the more stressed out I get, and that's why it took me 8 years to get my Bachelor's degree. But when I finally got it, I thought the whole world would open up for me and my intelligence and my abilities. Not so.
I thought at least, then, if I didn't have a career, or a career PATH, or be doing some kind of job that I felt I had a passion for, or felt like I was suited for, maybe I'd be a housewife, staying home with an immaculate house for my husband to come home to, and a delicious dinner on the table, and with happy and healthy kids. Not so.
It hurts me a whole fucking lot that I am a piddly receptionist at an office full of people who have dreams and accomplishments. I work for lawyers. Who all made it through law school. I work for business owners - successful business owners! And I get yelled at on pretty much a daily basis by the clients of these people, and told how stupid I am for not knowing the answer to a very specific question, or yelled at because I am not allowed to give out someone's email address, or cursed out because the cost of the appointment someone called in to schedule is way more than they were anticipating. I am a peon. I hate this job. I'm good at it because I'm detail oriented, and very intelligent, and I try every day to problem solve so that one problem one day is not a problem the next day. But it is entirely the opposite of fulfilling for me.
I'm so very disappointed in myself for not working harder, or not letting my moods and meltdowns keep me from finishing school faster. I'm so disappointed that I didn't follow through on some of the things I started - like going to NecroSearch International meetings, or actually attending the Westminster PD Citizen's Academy last year. I feel like I've disappointed the world, too, because maybe if I were active in these things, I would have better direction in my life at this point. But I don't, because I completely shut down when I feel the way that I feel right now. I say, "I can't" to the very littlest things because I feel like if I start something (read: laundry or cleaning the house) and I don't finish it, I'll just disappoint myself more, and as the disappointment mounts, it becomes very overwhelming and I pretty much just want to die. Or hurt myself.
So that was just one line of thought that thundered into my brain last night. Another one was that Ethan shouldn't want to be with me because I am a gigantic mountain of crazy, just waiting to spew molten hot crazy all over him, and he is going to get hurt. He so does not deserve for me to hurt him. In any way.
To continue the story, we got home from Chipotle, and I sat in the car for a minute after he got out and went in the front door. Phoenix came out, and was wagging his tail all over the outside of the car, so I got out, shooed him inside, dropped my purse in there, and then shut the door and walked away. My initial instinct was to walk around the corner to where my friend lives, because she's out of town right now and my ol' roomy Meredi has been staying there taking care of the dogs. I walked over and she wasn't there, so I kept walking, trying to find a place to sit and think for awhile. I eventually settled on a grassy spot on a hill overlooking a basketball court, and I just sat there and thought and cried for about half an hour. It wasn't cold, but I was definitely chilly. I really, really did not want to be in my head right now, but I didn't want to talk to anyone about it, either really, so I tried really hard to just breathe and look around me and ground myself.
I thought about why my anger gets so out of control, and why I so often think about hurting myself, and why. I thought about breaking up with Ethan so that I am forced to get out of my comfort zone and figure out how to make myself happy. I thought about killing myself and what people might say about me at my memorial (I didn't write about this, but a friend's mom passed away suddenly a couple of weeks ago and her memorial was on Saturday and I went and all everyone said about her was how sweet she was in life). I thought about what would happen to Phoenix if I weren't around anymore. I thought about what I could do when I got home to simply just try to relax. I thought about how I should be proud of myself for leaving and going for a walk alone (despite it being night and there being coyotes very very active in this area) instead of staying at home and yelling at Ethan, or driving to a liquor store to get a bottle of vodka, or locking myself in the bathroom and cutting myself, except that I wasn't proud of myself because I still wanted to do any or all of those things. I tried to think of all the other times I've been in crisis, or in a thought process like this that just spirals down and down, and how I've handled those in the past. I thought about how I don't really want to kill myself, or even hurt myself, and how ridiculous those things sound to me when I'm feeling really great. I tried to talk myself into realizing that this is just a momentary thing, that it will not last forever, that I will feel better again, and that my life is important. I thought about how I still feel like I have some purpose on this earth that I have yet to find, but that my patience is really running low. I thought about how sad it makes me that neither of my parents ever really call me to check in on me, but how I worry so much about them both that I call them at least a couple of times a week to check in on them, and how it makes me wonder if they even care about me at all.
None of it helped.
When I finally got up and walked back to the condo, I didn't feel any different. And I didn't know how I was going to handle Ethan, or how he would react to me coming home. I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there, aside from taking half a Xanax XR and shooting the last little bit of tequila that's been sitting in our freezer in an attempt to calm down very quickly.
I took the Xanax with the tequila, and then grabbed a bag of candy from the counter, and decided I would go lay on my bed and watch something on Netflix, because in the last 10 years or so I've been dealing with these feelings, watching a show or a movie has been the only thing that I can find that will help. I also saw Ethan's buck knife on the counter and I grabbed that too because I still wanted to at least draw blood somewhere so I didn't feel so dumb about being so emotionally messed up without feeling some physical pain. I don't hurt myself to draw attention to myself. In fact, I'm actually embarrassed today that I have marks from what I ended up doing last night.
Ethan noticed that I'd grabbed his knife and took it back. I told him that it was okay, because I could still hurt myself by punching the wall (which I've been wanting to do for awhile), and followed that by punching the wall a few times. I kept telling him to leave me alone, and he kept asking if he left me alone, would I hurt myself, and one thing I pride myself on is that I don't lie if I can help it, so I told him no, that I could not be trusted not to hurt myself since that's all I could think about doing last night in order to feel some kind of relief. I then punched another wall a couple of times. I tried locking myself in the bedroom, but the stupid setup we have has 2 doors, one out to the living room, and one to the closet/bathroom, and only one locked from the inside. So he forced his way in. I told him I could still find ways to hurt or cut myself and then proceeded to punch a mirror we had sitting on the floor of the bedroom. It was at that point that he grabbed me forcefully and moved me to the bed where he stood next to me until I got up into the bed.
I feel really, really embarrassed to have acted out that way. It seems so very immature to me to act like that, to throw a fit or a tantrum or however you want to label it, but at the time, I felt like that was all I was able to do. I still feel pent up anger inside, I still want to hit something or slice my skin open with a knife, but I am not really sure why. My hand swelled right up, and it hurt, but not too bad. I have a bruise on my knuckles today, and a teeny tiny cut on one knuckle, but that's it. I had to take my ring off because my ring finger was swollen and I didn't want to have to cut the damn thing off later because of circulation. It's still swollen.
I think that maybe part of the reason I want to hurt myself is that the pain from it is lasting. Like, when you have a bruise or a cut, and you accidentally bump it, it still hurts for awhile. If I hurt myself, and I bump it or whatever, I remember why I have it, and that feels better. It's not the cutting or whatever that releases the pain when I'm right in the middle of the crisis. I think it's that I remember for a week or so after I do it, that I'm still here, that I'm still alive, that I survived that awful experience. I don't like having the scars. The scars on my wrist from this time last year are terrible, and I'm always embarrassed of them. That's why I wear a watch all the time.
When I finally started to settle down last night, I texted my mom and talked to her for just a little while. I told her that I was in crisis, that I was acting irrationally, and that I needed her to know it. I told her that I'd gone off the Effexor, and that I'm struggling a hell of a lot right now. I think I reached out to her just so that she would know that I'm having a hard time and with hopes that she will check in on me from time to time.
I fucking hate that I feel this way right now. It's fucking awkward as fuck, for me and for the people around me. I like me better when I'm hopeful and happy and warm (my hands have been cold for weeks now and it's driving me nuts). I like me better when I'm efficient and productive and proud of the things I accomplish, however small. I hate this with every single fiber of my being.
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