Scheduling a Meltdown

A few years ago I was a freshman in college. Life is kinda scary as you finish freshman year: you begin to realize how fast time (mostly college) goes, how little you have figured out in your life, and much you need to get done in the next 3ish years. I remember sitting in my first psychology class, discussing mental health and being very worked up about everything in my life. I planned to go home that night and I wanted ice cream from a local shop. I was going to have a meltdown and then go have ice cream. I told my friend Hannah in the class, "I'm going to go home tonight and have a meltdown and then I'm going to Whippy Dip to make myself feel better." The mental health nut in me now realizes that sounds like a disordered eating issue that I can eat my feelings. I still do that sometimes. Ice cream to celebrate, ice cream after a funeral, whatever.

For the record, I went home that night back in college, had my meltdown, got my ice cream, and went on with my life. It was a therapeutic event. It solved my problems that day. I had a scheduled a meltdown in my life and carried through on it. The ice cream was my coping mechanism. I had found a way to feel better. Sure, it was not a calorically good choice, but it was a temporary band aid. In the grand scheme of life, the meltdown wasn't over anything big. To tell you insignificant it was, I don't even remember why I was scheduling a meltdown in my life anyway. True meltdowns happen. And we can't control them. Sometimes I can tell a meltdown is coming and I induce it just to get it over with. I watch Cristina Yang's last scene from "Greys Anatomy" and I cry every time. I cry it out/dance it out and I feel better. I had found another coping mechanism. My coping mechanisms don't work anymore. I need new ones because these don't provide for me what they used to.

And that brings us to my current life. I'm working through a rough patch. My employment is not what I want it to be and honestly, most days feel like a failure. I am constantly tired and feeling dejected. Not enough to warrant a trip to a psychologist or therapist but I have a very real awareness of my lack of happiness. I have cried more in the last year than in my entire life and much more often than I would care to publicly admit. The worst part is you can't schedule a meltdown. Ever. They have a tendency to just happen and usually at an inopportune time. I used to have a series of disappointing meetings on Mondays that resulted in a cry fest on my couch every Monday night. It happened to work out that my fiancé was out of town every week I had one too. I would sit at home with no one to talk to and it left me too much time to think and wallow. It was weekly self destruction as my dog and I sat there trying to forget the world as we watched "The Bachelorette." My job was stressful: I wasn't eating and I wasn't sleeping. I lived this way for more than month. At some point I accepted that this job was not going to work for me. I was running ragged making phone calls and sending emails and attending events. The catch was I wasn't happy and I didn't know how to fix it. And had no income because I work on commission so I was also constantly worried about my finances. I was mad and sad and angry and disappointed and ungrateful and upset. All at once and all the time.

I was (and some days still am) on the verge of what felt like an emotional breakdown nearly every hour. The worst part was most people didn't know. I walked around like a glass doll, fearful of someone knocking me off my poised position on the shelf. I was cautious and withdrawn and uncertain. I thought if I just kept quiet about my struggles I could protect myself from the impending hurt. If I stayed put on my shelf, my glass face couldn't be broken. It would stay painted and intact. I felt perched on a branch, watching my own life unfold before me and fold in itself everyday. It was and still is heartbreaking. Having a daily meltdown didn't solve my problem; neither did ice cream or dancing.

I am at the point of emotional exhaustion. I'm trapped in my own life with little certainty of what to do next. My former stress relievers of choice might work if I had a different mindset. I will revisit them at a later date when my mental emotional health is in a better place. My mental health is in shambles. The moral of the story is you can't schedule everything in life. I just made a to do list for the next few days leading up to Thanksgiving to make sure I get everything done. I got to the point I knew a meltdown would happen every day but it was too depressing to acknowledge it and put it on my daily to do list. The small optimist in me hoped it wouldn't happen every day so by not putting it down, I wasn't going to let it take over my hour or evening or week. But you can't schedule a meltdown. They just happen.