How do you figure out what you're reacting to when you have delays in emotional processing? I think I'm a really, really slow processor on this front. I'm just starting to become aware of emotional stuff that has been locked up for 51 years.
I am one of those people who functions well in a crisis, then can have a hard time later. I did it this morning when I arrived home to find the fire department about to break down my kitchen door because smoke was coming out of the house. I was calm, let them in, sorted the freaked out dog, helped them open windows after the situation was under control. I even stayed home for a while attempting to feel my feelings about it all. Thought I was fine. Now I am at work. I'm shaking and having difficulty focusing and wanting so desperately to go crawl into some warm safe space and sleep. Similar to how I often feel. Scared. I just don't get what I'm scared of.
So...is it from the fire this morning? from the spill I took on the ice last night? from my embarrassing dissociative episode in my psychiatrist's waiting room yesterday? the sum of last week's wildly activating events and memory integrations? Emotional flashbacks to something else? Or just some new form of torture my fragmented self is visiting upon me.
And...how do you know what to do to take care of yourself when stuff like this happens? I want to go curl up somewhere and try to feel safe, but I also have a really important meeting in 8 minutes and another after that...both of which have already been rescheduled to accommodate for the days I missed work last week and yesterday. So I will push through. I always seem to be able to do that, but I'm not so sure anymore whether it is the right thing to do.
But then when I think about leaving work, the guilties attack (you can't do that to your family financially), and the disbellievers (you're just making all this up anyway...none of it is real...yes, a sort of self-gaslighting) and the self-hater (you are worthless and lazy and weak, weak, weak).
Agh. What a mess. Internal chaos and external chaos. Perfect storm.
I am one of those people who functions well in a crisis, then can have a hard time later. I did it this morning when I arrived home to find the fire department about to break down my kitchen door because smoke was coming out of the house. I was calm, let them in, sorted the freaked out dog, helped them open windows after the situation was under control. I even stayed home for a while attempting to feel my feelings about it all. Thought I was fine. Now I am at work. I'm shaking and having difficulty focusing and wanting so desperately to go crawl into some warm safe space and sleep. Similar to how I often feel. Scared. I just don't get what I'm scared of.
So...is it from the fire this morning? from the spill I took on the ice last night? from my embarrassing dissociative episode in my psychiatrist's waiting room yesterday? the sum of last week's wildly activating events and memory integrations? Emotional flashbacks to something else? Or just some new form of torture my fragmented self is visiting upon me.
And...how do you know what to do to take care of yourself when stuff like this happens? I want to go curl up somewhere and try to feel safe, but I also have a really important meeting in 8 minutes and another after that...both of which have already been rescheduled to accommodate for the days I missed work last week and yesterday. So I will push through. I always seem to be able to do that, but I'm not so sure anymore whether it is the right thing to do.
But then when I think about leaving work, the guilties attack (you can't do that to your family financially), and the disbellievers (you're just making all this up anyway...none of it is real...yes, a sort of self-gaslighting) and the self-hater (you are worthless and lazy and weak, weak, weak).
Agh. What a mess. Internal chaos and external chaos. Perfect storm.
