Melting Down

I wrote a post quite early on about the "holy trinity" of self-care. On Monday I disregarded that. I went non-stop all day and fuelled myself with pizza, chips, chocolate and Chinese food. That night I slept poorly. And then yesterday morning I had a massive melt-down.

I periodically melt down. It's usually hormonal and that was a contributing factor yesterday. This was big, really big. This one saw me spending most of the day in bed in foetal position, covers over my head crying. The beds remained unmade, dishes unwashed until a family member took it upon himself to do them, clothes unwashed until late in the day, dog poop unscooped and pets' water unchanged. That may be the norm for some people but not for me; I usually have all that done by late morning at the latest. If it's not done, then either I'm very busy or something is wrong.

Of course, I'm not talking about clinical depression. I'm not even talking about depression really. If I were I might still be in bed today. I'm not; I'm feeling emotionally fragile and my eyes are puffy as hell but I'm up and about and not crying.

There were other contributing factors to yesterday which I won't go into. Suffice it to say, it's been a period of heavy stress for a few months.

What I found interesting yesterday was how I dealt with it. Or rather how I didn't deal with it. I have almost reprogrammed myself when it comes to anxiety. I have to be in a state of extreme agitation to be unable to use ACT, CBT or mindfulness. It's unusual to get to that point with anxiety these days because I'm attuned to it and on the watch for it so use the techniques as soon as I need to.

Not so with an emotional melt-down. A fog descends on my brain rendering me unable to have any thoughts except for the ones about how worthless and unloved I am and how much my life sucks. I know today that it's not true but yesterday was a different story. I was too agitated to be able to use any of the techniques. Maybe they're not effective for melt-downs anyway; I don't know.

The thing with anxiety is that everyone suffers from it. To have Anxiety Disorder simply means that the anxiety is out of proportion and affects the life of the sufferer. I don't really know if everyone has melt-downs or not. I do know people get upset. I can't tell you the last time I ended up in bed with one but I think it may have been in the wake of my mother's death six years ago. The melt-downs I usually have are intermittent and over quickly.

The point I'm making is that anxiety affects my day to day life and limits what I can do. It is crucial, therefore, that I use techniques that help me to live as fulfilling a life as I can. Sadness doesn't. It happens but it's not limiting my life in any way. Okay, so I didn't do the chores yesterday. I did them today. That being the case, does it matter if I'm in a fog of 'unhelpful thoughts' from which I can't escape. It passed. I could spend unnecessary time and energy trying to fix something that doesn't need to be fixed.

Obviously, if I were suffering from depression I would need to get help and anyone who thinks they are should see their doctor. I just had a bad day.