Saturday Meltdown

Saturday was what we in the childcare and education fields call a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day." It started out well enough, I suppose. And really, nothing really awful happened. And yet by 3 o’clock, I was in tears and struggling with the desire to throw myself repeatedly against the wall.

It was just a thousand little things. Mild irritants. And suddenly I’m hurling my keys down the hall.

Ah… the joys of the holiday season.

I don’t know if it was the sun glittering evilly through the snow-induced fog, creating an eye-watering effect akin to trying to stare at a frosted light bulb for several hours or perhaps the fact that it was my second trip all the way across town in two days. Or maybe it’s the fact that while Colorado Springs drivers are perfectly comfortable on snowy roads, they’re so unfamiliar with wet roads that they start behaving like complete lunatics once the snow starts melting.

So when I finally got the last few presents and the groceries upstairs and the car parked, I was hanging by a thread. And apparently, the effort of trying to explain my irritation to my sympathetic husband was enough to snap that thread.

I screamed. I cried. I hit the wall. Literally. I actually pounded the wall with my fists. I pulled and tore at my hair. I kicked and lashed out.

It was really fucking ugly.

And I can’t even explain why. I just lost it somehow. And all the "good days" since I’ve been off the medication just dissolved in a torrent of tears.

The weirdest part of the whole thing is that I’m otherwise completely fine. I haven’t had any trouble sleeping. My appetite is normal (aside from craving cheese for some reason). I’m not manic. I’m not depressed. I’m not hallucinating. I feel 100% myself.

Except that I cry every damn time I see that Folger’s ad where the brother comes home from Africa and his sister tells him that he’s her present this year. Gets me every single time I see it.

~Liz

(This is also cross-posted in my blog, which I’ve been neglecting the last few months.)