Big Feelings

These past few weeks have been shit. I have been in a rut and feeling all sorts of weird. Not sure if its the Eclipse or just the changing of the seasons but it has been ROUGH! Don’t gt me wrong life itself has been great. The warmer weather has been amazing! My Tuesday friend group has been doing some really fun things around town too. As for my mood it has been lackluster and last Tuesday I had hit my limit.

It started out as a normal day… well normal for me that is. We decided to go to a new spot for trivia. Immediately that caused me so much anxiety. New places stress me out. I have to research the menu, parking, bathroom situation, seating, prices etc. I felt pretty confident I had prepped myself…boy was I wrong. I walked in later than the rest and immediately was hit with an overwhelming sense of anxiety. The street parking stresses me out like no other so that was strike 1. Then walking in to a crowded small space almost caused a full on panic attack.

Let me paint the picture for you…

I walk in to a crowded entrance full of people. I had to slither through all of them to find my friends. It was hot and loud. As I was walking I had to dodge waiters and people. Finally found my friends and FUCK the seating was not to my liking. ( but saying something would have caused a scene or I would have been pegged as Dramatic) I had to sit with my back to the door. That’s a HUGE NONO! (I was raised to never NEVER sit with your back to the door, to always have an escape plan and to study each person in the room for threats )Immediate stress. The only saving grace was my cop friend was sitting so he could see the whole room. Once I sat down I searched for the exits. I realized the large windows opened from the inside and you could literally walk out. GREAT an escape plan if needed. I searched the menu again and again and was so stressed I couldn’t find anything to eat I just gave up. ( I can't have garlic or onions due to sensitivity and allergies) At this point I was internally freaking the fuck out. Deep breaths and disassociation kicked in and I just became a zombie. That was until a friend of mine showed up and sat down next to me. It’s weird but his presence calms me. So there I sat wedged between two of my guy friends and I had finally settled down a bit… or so I thought. Then the not so friendly banter kicked in. Normally the stuff they were saying would never bother me but that night I had had about enough. I just shut down internally but tried to act normal on the outside. It was hard….

Fast forward to the next day. The “picking on me” continued. Just stupid stuff like… why do you always wear black? Why aren’t you smiling? Why are you wearing those shoes? Stuff that normally I wouldn’t care about but after all these emotions piling up inside I just shut down. I went home and crawled under my weighted blanket and watched TV for a few hours. Had a good talk with that same friend and went to bed feeling much better.

Now I know me and I know I needed space and to just sit for a while and process. I did but it wasn’t until a friend of mine that was there said… “you know sometimes the same shit just hits you different” WHAT?!?!?!?! It was like it all clicked. If I had been in a different mind set none of those things would have bothered me. So I went for a walk, got a coffee and changed my mood. I knew I didn’t want to fall back into he same pattern of disappearing like I used to. It wasn’t healthy and it only made things worse. Then I came in to the studio (the place that saved me) and was talking with the owner. She somehow always makes things better without really doing anything at all. We talked it out and I left feeling pretty damn good.

Listen, life is hard especially when you feel so deeply like I do. Or when you have anxiety like I do. Sometimes we internalize and take offense to what people say even though we shoudnt’t. Luckily I have done so much work on myself over the past few years I can now identify the problem and work though it. I have different ways to cope and process and let me tell you it has saved me. Once you have learned to not take ANYTHING anyone says to heart, your life gets exponentially better. After all it is what it is… right?! AND if all else fails just tell them to shut the fuck up :)