Meltdown!

Today was a bad day! Today I got so worked up, so overwhelmed, so stuck in the chaos of my head and not knowing how to get out of it that the inevitable happened…I had a full meltdown in front of my boss.

Look. I have depression, anxiety, Fibromyalgia brain fog, stress at home, stress with family and on top of all that, stress at work. I work really, really hard to keep control of my emotions. Especially at work. But I am human, and every now and then the emotions need to come out and be dealt with.

So maybe the emotions didn’t just come out, maybe they violently burst from me, causing me to sob like a baby and have a panic attack whilst desperately trying to maintain some form of composure or dignity, which, lets face it, did not work.

The upshot is that I finally admitted that I needed help and that I have not been coping.

My boss is, thankfully, a very nice lady, who did not just tell me to pull myself together and stop being ridiculous. She sign-posted where I can get the help I need, and told me that maybe I can get other help with my mental health through the company. Something that I will not say no to this time round.

I find myself getting stuck in situations like this. Let’s take work for example. It gets busy, I feel overwhelmed, I know I should ask for help and that I am only human and can only do so much. Logic dictates that I say “I can’t do that” or “I can’t take on any more” or just simply “no”. Instead, my brain starts talking its poison at me.

You’re pathetic, you should be able to handle this, other people can handle this.

Don’t be selfish, everyone in the company has a lot going on, don’t burden them because you can’t hack it.

You’re so useless.

Stop whining!

My dear brain is not the nicest. It is filled with the trauma of forever being told that I am not good enough, or lazy, or useless. It is a byproduct of parental arguments and stroppy ex-partners and oh so many bullies. My brain has clung to every mean thing that has ever been said to me, filed the memories away, pulling them back out to use as weapons at every opportunity it can find.

Today was one of those opportunities.

Today, my brain launched an attack that was so vicious that, when my boss called me to ask me a simple question, my brain used that moment to make a final blow and told me that the reason I was being asked the question was because I had done something wrong and messed up again, and was going to be yelled at because I am so bloody useless.

Finally, after months of this battle in my head between my bully brain and my bubbling emotions, the bully brain pushed too far and the emotions took over. I babbled to my boss about how I was feeling. I cried. I felt the emotions crash through me like a tidal wave…and then I felt calm. For the first time in so long, I felt relief. I had said what needed to be said, albeit not in the best or most professional way, but it was said, it was out, and now it could be dealt with properly.

Bottling up your emotions never helps. Somehow, I keep forgetting that fact.

It is ok to not be ok. It is ok to not be ok. IT IS OK TO NOT BE OK!!!

Pretending you are ok when you are not, that is the problem.

Today was a bad day because I had a meltdown on a call to my boss. But! Because I had a meltdown on a call to my boss, my day ended up being pretty good. I said what I needed to say. I got help where I needed to get help. I got stuff off my chest. I felt less burdened by everything.

Life is messy. It is ok to be a mess.

JT