While I know that my moods have an effect on those around me, this isn’t just about them. I know that the outpouring of my occasional mental anguish can be a burden to others and I hate that and I’m endlessly sorry about it, this isn’t just about being a ‘handful’ to others. This is about being a handful to myself.
That right there is a handful of nuts.
‘Cause while I’m often cheery and positive and bright, sometimes – just sometimes – I’m really, really not. Sometimes my hormones or my brain chemistry or whatever controls my mood just backfires or malfunctions or stops or sends the wrong junk to the wrong place and all my good work falls utterly to pieces. And it feels like my foul emotions can’t be contained within the nice little vault I’ve made for them – they come spilling out, overflowing all over the joint. A big, bursting handful of them.
I try to keep these black days to myself. And that’s the worst part – if I opened up I might get through it more easily. But that sense of not wanting to burden others is overwhelming. I’ve spent a lot of my life thrusting my emotions onto everyone and forcing them to help me cope with them. I’ve been more than a handful to certain folks: friends and family and lovers. I don’t want to be that person who fills the room with their misery and pain. But in not wanting to be a handful to anyone else, I become a burden to myself.
I’ve had a couple of these days recently. I’m not sure what causes them, but it seems that when I’m mired in one, all the stuff I can usually deal with becomes intolerable. I seethe. I burst into tears on railway platforms for no reason at all. I throw my clothes about in despair as I attempt to get dressed in the morning. I say the most utterly vicious things to myself and I don’t know why. Usually, after several hours of utterly unjustified rage and sadness and anger, I blank out and resort to staring off into space, almost switching my emotions off as they become too much to bear.
Can anyone tell me where the original is from? I found this on Tumblr.
While these temperquakes aren’t pleasant to live through or to look at, but the one thing that brings me comfort is that they don’t last long. Soon I’ll be back to myself again, and this notion sustains me while I’m curled up in my miserable mood. I was going to write a funny little post today about how hard it is to be a ‘loveable nutcase’, but my sense of humour lacks while I’m in these lame-ass, bleak-as moods. Instead, I opted for honesty. No te-he, no blather about positivity and doing all the helpful shit that would make me feel better – because in these ‘handful’ moods, all of that flies out the window. I just gotta hold on and wait it out.
So there it is: I feel like shit for no good reason and I wish I didn’t.
Don’t worry, I’ll feel better soon.
I have to give you a great deal of credit for the ability to self-diagnose and do your best to work through it!
Insight man: I have bucketfuls of the shit. It doesn’t matter how much I can see into it, I still gotta wade through these lame emotions anyway. Ha! Thanks for the encouragement, though.
insight–same deal here. I hear ya. That’s why I liked your post. I like to yell at imaginary people.
Yep, me too – I yell all the things I’ve always wanted to yell and been to scared to say. I’m more eloquent when the argument is imaginary.
Imaginary eloquence. We coined a phrase here tonight, Molly. We are really cool people.
I come from a long line of nutcases and would easily be a bigger one myself if I had not learned the simple skill of riding it out. Like you, I know it will be short-lived. I try really hard not to be harsh or unkind to myself. I say “it’s okay” a lot, as if I’m soothing a child. It makes those times less extreme and less strange to come back from. I used to live on the mood swing, followed by rounds of apology and overcompensation with friends and family. It’s unnecessary once you start cutting yourself a little slack. Accept it as part of who you are, ride it out gently and breathe a sigh of relief when better comes.
“I used to live on the mood swing, followed by rounds of apology…”
Exactly this!
I feel like I’m pretty close to just accepting it is just a part of my makeup and learning to go with it, rather than raging against it. Which is maybe why these little spells only last a little while now. Fighting it just draws it out…