Mental Health Day

I took the day off on Tuesday. I wasnt sick. Thank goodness. Ive been sick far to much this year already. No. I took a mental health day. I really needed to get myself back in order after havinv been sick so much. The house was in disarray. Taxes (ka-ching) loom heavy on the horizon and are needed to be done immediately for connors financial aid. Wedding plans and travel arrangements need to be solidified. Ka-ching. Ka-ching. The kitchen and bathroom are in states of disrepair and need to be designed post haste. All of that is just a lot and my grip was slipping. And thats just the surface level stuff.

When I was little I would have melt downs every night. As the Sun would set and the day would grow still, I would begin to process everything I had taken in and experienced through the day. I would replay it all slowly only Id experience it multidimensionally. Meaning that I would simultaniously experience it... feel it really... through the lenses of all those involved. I would hazzard a guess that I began this processing process at 2 when my world was intruded upon by my brother. My melt downs however would not begin until I enteres kindergarten. I knew little of the world but what I knew was warmth. Intersecting with the world meant being bombarded by sorrow pain misery grief anger. All this pain and emotion that I could not explain or understand. And so nightly I would wail in misery and anguish, A soul wrenching sobbing that would last until I fell asleep. These nightly fits lasted up to four or so hours.

My parents, as patient as they were, could only handle it for so long and by the time I was 9, they had had enough. And it wasn't like I was enjoying it either. I so I endeavored to learn how to contain the flow of external emotion within myself. By 12, I had ulcers. And so began the process of learning to control the spigot. I generally got a handle on it and learned to balance my interactions and apply filters (like being aware of where I was directing my attention and what undercurrents were attached or like practicing avoidance/isolation when necessary) so that I was never swept away unexpectedly by essentially the very air I breathe.

Enter adulthood and the challenges that came with that; such as dealing with autoimmune issues that limited my mobility and left me in a constant state of pain, Childbirth, parenting, and navigating my children's neurodivergent lives, mental health issues and autoimmune shit. These things (and others) did a number on my nervous system. My typical coping mechanisms were no longer enough and slowly but surely, I (for the most part unconsciously) turned the spigot down and no longer allowed for any external feeling to enter my awareness. A stoic approach to life allowed for the most manageable existence and it worked. As I sit here reflecting, I know I have taken on and beaten some giants that I could not have otherwise.

As a result, life shifted but old habits die hard and after... how many lifetimes??... My memories of feeling everything and everyone so deeply, so completely, had faded to nothing more than tattered memories of those nightly tantrums.

It took quite the personal blow to my sensibilities to blow the flood gates back open. Although an unwitting accomplice, my disconnect led me to act impulsively and foolishly and in doing so I caused another harm. Without a doubt the realization broke my heart. How could I reconcile the person I want to be, who I strive to be, with the one that was reflected in my selfishness?

I Broke My Own Heart. And through the cracks the emotional currents began to pour. The vibrations of guilt, sorrow, regret, anger and the like cannot be ignored. I feel it ALL again. But Im equipped now to know what trickle of emotion that I need to hold on to/react to and what oceans I must let pass through me unhindered. There is no longer a need to wail myself to sleep like I did when I was little. I am no longer trying to hold on to the shore. That said, don't be surprised to catch me teary eyed at any point during the day. I probably won't explain why I am weeping. I'll probably just excuse it as a symptom of allergies or the weather.