I spoke too soon

I spoke too soon.

I think it was the day after my post last week that I fell into a depressive funk. Thankfully(?), it was only for a few hours. I was at an evening staff meeting and got triggered* by a video we had to watch about how to plan for survival in the event of an active shooter in the building. Being a mother of two children, one of whom just started school this year, this upset me deeply. And I just could not shake it for the rest of the evening.

(*Can we talk about how I hate what’s happened to this word? People misuse it and poke fun at it, and it’s practically lost all meaning.)

And it made me realize just how intense my emotions are. I can be euphoric when I’m happy and hit rock bottom when I’m sad. I can’t just “be sad.” Well, I guess I can as of the last couple of weeks, but prior to that, being sad meant that everything was ruined and I needed to stop existing. And that night was similar. I felt so bad that I told my husband, “I want to hurt myself.” To my credit, I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to cease being. I just wanted to hurt a little differently. I told him that I wanted the inside pain to be on the outside. That was the best way that I could explain it. And the only thing I could do was call it a night.

Then I was totally fine the following morning. Not euphoric, but fine. Like it didn’t happen. And it’s hard to tell if my feelings are normal sometimes. Maybe the self-harm thoughts are a bit much, but that’s a matter of mental habit, at least in part. But to feel so bad? For the rest of the night? And to spiral into self-belittlement? I dunno. Where is the line between normal human emotions and too far? My psychiatrist said that my sadness appeared to be a normal response to an abnormal situation (he didn’t use those words, but yeah). He didn’t speak to the self-harming thoughts because I didn’t tell him. And I didn’t tell him because I’m still getting to know him. But it was helpful to get a professional opinion that I’m kind of normal.

I guess I need to remind myself that it’s okay to not be okay sometimes.