Happy Hour Fridays: I'm exhausted.

The name “Happy Hour Fridays” is starting to get morbidly ironic now. It’s almost ridiculous.

Alright, let’s get a rundown of this week.

Another big realization

Because it seems like I can’t go a day without having one.

My big thing, my big trigger, is shame. I mean, I kind of knew that, part of me knew that, but I never really got it until this morning.

Last night, I had a meltdown moment on Jesse. I was all freaking out over some stuff, and sulking and just generally being completely incomprehensible, and it was all because of this trigger. And that trigger, I realized this morning, is shame.

Something happens, something is said, and my shame says, “You failed! You fell down! You did something wrong! You are not perfect!”

That’s it. I am instantly teleported to Planet Shame and there ain’t no going back. It overwhelms me, filling up my spaces, and my holes, filling up my heart and my mouth, and after that I’m completely unintelligible. It sits in my stomach and clutches at my heart, making me almost physically ill.

And I turn into a blubbering mess on the ground. It’s rather embarrassingly really. Also, incredibly frustrating for the person attempting to make sense of my ramblings. So I crawl off to my room, hide in my bed, and generally feel like crap.

But sometimes, the hate comes out. That vitriolic, vicious, burning self-hate. I’m not proud of this part of myself, a relic of a time when depression ruled my life. Usually it lies dormant, but when I’m especially tired and especially ashamed, my defenses are down, and it comes out to play.

I won’t describe exactly how it goes, because it’s pretty awful and pretty self abusive. It’s definitely not pretty. But what it boils down to is part of me is so angry at myself and my pain and my feelings for messing things up, for getting upset, for falling down, for crying, for making someone frustrated or angry, or just generally not being perfect, that it boils over into hate.

It’s just a whole bunch of hard, and complicated and I still haven’t made sense of it all, so don’t mind me if none of this makes any sense.

I’m tired

Completely freaking exhausted. This whole healing process thing is driving me nuts. Some days, you really start to wish that you could take a vacation from yourself.

I feel like I’m bipolar – one second, I’m so happy because I’ve made a breakthrough, and some thing inside of me has been resolved, and there’s a little more space, some more room to breathe, and I’m just so happy about that peace and spaciousness.

But like they say, nature abhors a vacuum.

Suddenly that newly formed hole is rushing full of all this other pain and fear that wants to be listened to and heard and healed. It’s pouring into it, like a made a hole in a dam, and now the whole crazy thing is coming apart on me.

I feel like I’m stuck on a pendulum, swinging back and forth between peaceful and chaotic, healing and painful.

I am desperate for peace. I am desperate for everything to just stop moving for two freaking seconds so I can catch my breath.

I am tired of freaking out, of feeling overwhelmed. of just everything.

On a somewhat lighter note

I have given myself permission to be a complete mess for a whole month and get absolutely nothing done. Which may in the end, turn into me getting lots done because the pressure I’ve been putting on myself for a whole year will be gone, and I’ll be able to work with joy instead of belly aching dread.

I’ve cleared up some of the shame this week as well, and bits and pieces of me are slowly being glued back together. So it’s not like I’ve made no progress at all.

I mean, I had a really great conversation with my fear on Sunday, and I had a dance party with Joely and Charlie on Twitter on Tuesday, so life hasn’t been all bad, ya know? There’s been some really great stuff, and the Kitchen Table has been this amazing place of support and joy and love through all of this, and Jesse’s been simply saintly, so I’ve still got lots to be thankful for.

And I don’t get me wrong – I am completely grateful for them all.

It’s just that when you’re sitting on the floor crying your eyes out because dear sweet smoking Jesus, there’s something else that needs to be addressed, it’s really, really hard to remember all the good stuff.

Also, I made Daniel want to cuddle puppies with yesterday’s post, so life truly cannot be all bad.

And I have a money fairy now as well, which also rocks. Her name is Fiona, in case you missed Monday’s post. And we are going to be the bestest of friends. I’m going to build her a home and bake her little pies and cakes and cookies.

I’ll also help her eat them, ’cause I’m nice like that.

Another great thing – my oldest friend is back in the city this weekend and that makes me so happy. I need to see her, to hang out with her, to do something that is completely unrelated to pulling my mind apart and gluing it back together like some kind of freakish soul/brain Frankenstein.

I also need to nap.

Ikea!

Oh how much I love Ikea. Admittedly most of their furniture is crap, but hell, I’m broke and will soon need things like a bed, and bookshelves, and uhh…some other stuff I’m sure. (These are the only things that seem relevant right now.)

It was mostly just a day of fantasizing about what I would buy if I had boatloads of money and also pretending that I’m going to be living in my apartment by the sea tomorrow, and not in 6 months.

It is also now officially called my “Apartment By The Sea” even though 1) it doesn’t exist yet and 2)it may not be exactly near the sea, but it’s an island the size of the Niagara Peninsula, so seriously, you’re never actually gonna be really far away from the sea, now are you?

Well I think that’s it.

I may go nap now. I’ll probably feel cheerier after napping. Sorry this wasn’t exactly cheery again. You may have to tolerate mopey me for a bit longer. I’m working on it.

Updated: A random piece of awesomeness. A fellow secret angel and genuinely lovely person, Amy Mommaerts just sent me a gift to go towards buying a new easel, after hearing about my intense frustration with my work space. Can we all just sit for a minute and bask in the beauty of the soul that reaches out like that, with no other want except to be kind to someone who needs help?

My whole day has been turned around. It really is Happy Hour Friday right now.

Tags: cranky, Emotional healing, exhaustion, guilt, irritated, shame, tired