Full Stop

When I said I was at my lowest on Wednesday I was either lying to myself or too sure that I’d let this one end on a soft note. Either way I was completely wrong about that.

You just know something is off when every little thing, even the smallest details make you explode almost immediately. From my phone not working (as per usual) to spilling tea on the carpet and myself every little thing was another drop into a boiling hot tea cup which was about to overflow and burst.
And I should have known that venting to my mother was a bad idea but rational thinking was out of the window at that point. So I sat in the kitchen, wallowing in self-pity and being angry at god and the world.

Now, my mother has some narcissistic personality traits; no matter how bad you’re feeling or what you’re going through, she’ll always find a way to make it about herself. Doesn’t sound that good but once you realize what you’re dealing with you quickly adapt and know what to say and how to say it.
But, like I said, rational thinking went out of the window and so I babbled on without thinking, causing her to fall into one of her rants again.

And I can’t deal with those.

My mother is not abusive, neither physically nor psychologically. However, the things she says in situations like these tend to sound manipulative and usually aren’t the best thing to tell your daughter who’s having a mental breakdown in your kitchen. I was desperately trying to catch myself while simultaneously prevent the situation from escalating because, let’s be real, who’s up for fighting with their mom, who’s up for fighting in general?
So I did the next best thing I could think of and just straight up said sorry. I tried apologizing for my behavior, for the things I said because I knew I was acting out of line but boy oh boy was that the wrong thing. Me apologizing only got her started with her rant. She freaked out, she got louder and talked faster and the faster her words came out the faster my breathing became, the less I felt like I had myself under control. I couldn’t stop my body from cramping up, my brain felt like it was going to explode and it was all too much.

Now let me give you some advice.
If, like me, you’re on this journey, this will happen. Not all the time, of course, but it can and probably will happen. Because you sometimes reach a point where you feel like you cannot function anymore. Seeing the positive side in everything is exhausting, trying to lift yourself up and out of your Downs drains you, it’s totally normal.

And it’s also normal to feel like you’re out of energy and want to give up.

Because that’s what was happening. I hadn’t slept well in almost two weeks with at least one severe panic attack every single night. I had tried desperately to stay away from catastrophic thoughts and obsessive thinking because that’s what I’m supposed to do. And as the days went on I felt more and more drained, I hardly went outside these past two weeks since I didn’t feel like doing anything at all.
Negativity was just piling up inside of me, ready to break open the doors and flood my entire system.

If you get to that point, do not, I repeat, DO NOT for even a single moment think that you’ve failed your journey. These moments are a part of it and like normal Ups and Downs should be accepted and handled accordingly.
Ground yourself (if you’re hyperventilating try breathing through your cupped hands, breathing with your belly or hold your breath for 10 to 15 seconds.), cry if you need to, god please cry if you feel the need to. It’s the best outlet nature could have given you, please use it and never suppress the need to let out your emotions (more on that in the future, probably). If you feel empty after all that, that’s alright. You just let go of a lot of emotions and thoughts and feeling empty after means something is happening.
Sort yourself a little. Go talk to someone; a friend, your therapist, your siblings, your mom, your grandmom, your dad, your dog, whoever you feel comfortable with. If there’s nobody you feel comfortable talking to about these things, try searching up the number of a help hotline and if you’re not comfortable talking on the phone there’s plenty of hotlines who offer a chat as well.
Or if you don’t want to talk, as basic as this sounds (greetings from pinterest), go outside. You’d be surprised how much something as simple and stupid as a walk can do for you.

Just know that you’ll be fine. You maybe feel like absolute shit at that moment and it will tear through you like you’re a piece of paper but you’ll be fine.
You’ll get through it and you will learn from it.
Let it happen, catch yourself and then start over again.

It’ll all be fine in the end.

20171123 - lunaluna