A Series on Struggles: Hyperactive Emotions

Number Three:

Hyperactive Emotions

Since I was little I've been a very emotional person. If something made me a little sad, I'd probably cry. If I thought something was a little mean, I'd probably get angry. If something was the least bit happy, I'd probably get really excited.

This can be good and it can be very, very bad. As I get older, I'm leaning more toward it being a very bad thing most of the time. I mean, is it good that I can be happy for people easily? Yes! But more often than not, I get my feelings hurt, I react poorly to something someone says or does, or I misinterpret things and react with my emotions before my head can catch up and it causes pain to either myself or the person I'm interacting with.

I'm starting to hate being this emotional and this sensitive. I keep asking myself why I'm like this. I don't want to be like this. Rather, I want to be able to take a joke and roll with it. I want to be able to brush off insults (imagined or real). I want to be able to be in an exciting or happy situation and not act like a moron. I don't want to cry all the time. I don't want to be this emotional roller coaster, because frankly, it's starting to make me nauseated. All the ups and downs and loop-de-loops are starting to wear on me in a very real way. I'm constantly afraid that I'm going to react to something someone says in the wrong way, and that makes me more tense, which makes my emotional sensitivity that much stronger. It's cliche, but it's a vicious cycle that I can't seem to find my way out of.

I like that I can experience emotions...but I feel like, more and more, I don't just experience them, I let them take me over.

When I was a teenager, I got dumped a few times. Every teenager gets dumped, but I felt like I was dying. I was told a few times that I was acting insane. In retrospect, I was. I was definitely experiencing those emotions fully, but should I have felt them so strongly? Should I have let them have such control over my body? My mind? My interactions with others? That was a decade ago, and I still let my emotions control me that much, if not more.

When Vince and I argue, again, it often feels like I physically won't survive it. Our arguments aren't generally that bad, but if I let the reins on my emotions loose, even a little bit, it's all over. I feel like it's the end. I'm aware of how crazy that sounds, but in those moments, those emotions are true.
Are they valid?
No.
Are they reasonable?
No.
But are they there? Are they almost tangible for me in those times?
Yes.

It all just makes me very tired. Ninety percent of the time none of this is an issue, but those times in the ten percent range--where my emotions pour out of me like lava spewing from a volcano--are so overwhelming and uncontrollable (even the good times) that I know it has to stop.

Recently I've been able to calm myself sometimes by using breathing techniques I learned in yoga. I sometimes practice my ocean breath (ujjayi pranayama) and my equal ratio breath (sami vritti) during times when I feel like sadness, or anger, or panic threaten to overtake me, but a lot of the time my emotional reaction takes me by surprise and causes upset and turmoil in my life.

I hope to use some things I'm learning in yoga (to help calm me down) as well as prayer and creative outlets to help offset these emotional time bombs ticking away in my head. Writing about it helps a lot, even if you all think I'm nutso now. Maybe, now that this too is out there in digital limbo, I can start working toward being a calmer, more rational human being.

A Series on Struggles: Holding on and Letting Go

I have a really hard time letting go of my past. I don't know why I can't just move on from things. They stick in my brain like boots stuck in thick, goopy mud. I could get the boots out if I pulled really hard, but then I'd have to carry them far, far away from the mud to sit them down. Every now and again, I succeed in pulling the boots out and feel victorious, but I never carry them far enough from the mud, and they always sink back down into the sticky abyss.

I've mentioned in a previous blog how I sometimes make up facts and then choose to believe them, or I let my imagination go a little crazy, and the stories that I invent become reality for a few moments. This also applies to "my past." I like to think I remember things accurately, but more often than not, I'll remember an event, and then remember the emotional reaction I had to that event, which is always coupled with the "story" I add to the event (of what could have happened to cause the event, of what I don't know that really happened, etc.). Because of this, past events are generally more potent than they should be in my brain. This causes the mud to be stickier. Goopier. Harder to break away from.

I've struggled with this my entire life (or at least as long as I can remember). Generally, the struggles revolve around whatever is most important to me. I constantly worry that whatever it is that I love (my husband, my family, my friends, my pup, my writing, my knitting, etc.) will somehow reject me. Now, I know that writing and knitting, things I have control over, can't reject me, but I can really, really suck at doing them, which in my brain is a form of rejection. I'm always second-guessing the love of others toward me. Because of that, I'm always second-guessing their intentions, their words, their actions. I want to hold on to the things I love SO tightly, because I'm scared they'll vanish.

So, I hold on to things I love and the things that cause me pain (past things, silly things, imaginary things, misunderstood things), yet, I need to let go of those things that cause me pain, and I need to, if not let go of, loosen my hold a bit on the things I love. You know that old saying: "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were." (Richard Bach)

I need to learn to trust that the people I love, who love me back, aren't going to fly away if I let them go. I need to trust that I don't have to be perfect, that I don't have to apologize for every imagined slight, that I don't have to try so hard to make them love, because they already do.

By that same token, I need to learn to let go of things that don't need to be held on to. I need to rip my proverbial boots out of the mud and take them far, far, far away. Then I need to wash them, dry them, and wear them only on solid ground.

I think it's important to remember your past. I think it's important to know your limitations and the things that set you off, but it's just as important not to let those things have power over you. I want to be able to look at the things that make me feel bad, make me feel powerless, make me feel like I won't ever amount to anything, and walk away, because I want to know that those things aren't truths.

Tomorrow begins a new year. I want to begin that year walking away from the mud. I want to walk beside the people and things I love, and trust that, just because I'm not holding on to them as tightly as I can, when I turn to look, they'll all still be there.