emotional tmi

There is no such thing as emotional TMI as far as i'm concerned. All of favorite people are those who will share anything. The more you share, the more others can know and appreciate you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjbie1O1jxc

I think I'm getting better at this!

I like that! What have you been doing that felt partic. triumphant?

Hmmm, it's kinda hard to say. I think part of it is being a little less stressed out than I have been over the last year? It's like, everyone has their breaking point, and I had mine. Now I have been through it, know what it feels like, and know how to identify/survive it. Also trying to just be as me as I can without annoying/scaring people.

meta: ^^writing this toooootally felt like emotional tmi, but i am going to post it anyway

Annoy me annoy me!! I'm glad for you, tho sorry about the circs of the last year that made it so stressful. But yeah, getting your boundaries re-set by hardship can be really powerful and make you feel really powerful in the longer view.

Hold onto that perspective power-up -- my problem is that it lasts for a while and then I lose it and get back to normal life/emotional upheaval/caring about dumb shit again.

this is way too much work

?

sorry
i've been experiencing rather extreme mood swings lately and it's exhausting
really i can't even blame work anymore -- it's just me

could be worse, i suppose

<3 to you, LL. I veer between being massively over-emotional in public and bottling everything up for periods of time, so adding mood swings into the mix is totally not fun for my brain.

Yeah that's it p much. Going up down up down just makes me feel tired and I just want to turn the feelings machine off.

This is why I drink!

I wish I had any emotions these days

laurel otm

That was lengua-in-cheek but still...feeling things is hard and that's what vices and vacations are for?

If it were only that easy. It is not that easy.

I'm sorry. Don't know what to tell ya. My daily life and the boredome of a desk job have p much numbed a lot of that, I think? But as yesterday reminded me, I do not deal well with emotional disruptions to that humdrum existence.

It's ok -- I don't expect you to be Fix-it Laurel :)

The other day I was talking with one of my coworkers and she described me as "approachable" and I realized two things:

1) wow, what a nice thing to say. it made me feel like i have a personal quality that goes beyond professional expertise to make me effective at what i do. that is to say that i felt like maybe i am not 100% broken in this regard.

2) still, this problem is not solved because i clearly still do not feel comfortable expressing my own emotions; i can comfortably and easily carry a lot of other people's emotional weight, but when coupled with my own WOW who ever thought I would grow up to be a carriage horse?!?

btw every time i post something to this thread that is more than one sentence long, i am rather deeply embarrassed. why am i even talking about this at all? shouldn't i have irl friends or a therapist or a blog or a fucking notebook or something inanimate to talk to about my stupid ridiculous worthless pointless feelings? <-- meta question: is this type of reaction typical under these circumstances?

btw every time i post something to this thread that is more than one sentence long, i am rather deeply embarrassed. why am i even talking about this at all? shouldn't i have irl friends or a therapist or a blog or a fucking notebook or something inanimate to talk to about my stupid ridiculous worthless pointless feelings? <-- meta question: is this type of reaction typical under these circumstances?

no I feel like this all the time which is why I rarely post on the what's happening thread or post too much about my personal life. I don't know if that's healthy or not.

are you embarrassed about posting that post

I don't feel that way at all, myself. I'd rather talk to you guys than anyone in RL. (You are the only people a know who offer sympathy, rather than coldly telling me how badly I fucked up.)

It strikes me that the embarrassment and anxiety you have about having/showing the feelings might be making them a lot more work?

xp to LL

some feelings are more embarrassing to have/show than others

my stupid ridiculous worthless pointless feelings

Ahem.

are you embarrassed about posting that post

a little bit, yes :-/

i knew it!

AMANDAAAAAA

come online

i clearly still do not feel comfortable expressing my own emotions

it's okay to not, you know! i mean if you're seething about something you should probably let it out, but you needn't be an open book.

if you are 'approachable' then ppl obviously do not perceive you as remote or emotionless.

i know!

I do not deal well with emotional disruptions to that humdrum existence.

this. which came in the form of a long email from my mom received yesterday after spending the weekend together that was this incredibly distorted picture she has of me from going through my phone/drawers when i wasn't looking. apparently i am a complete mess and failure and also badly need to hit the gym and nobody is ever going to love me "like this".

we had an awful fight about it, and she called me crying at 7 this morning apologizing, but gee, the holidays are going to be a treat.

your mother said that to you? that's horrible!

omg that is way ott

What could she POSSIBLY have found in your drawers that gives her any insight whatsoever? Don't answer that because there IS no answer. Also, THAT IS WHAT SHE GETS FOR GOING THROUGH YOUR PHONE/DRAWERS OMG why is she a spy???

she saw: condoms, vibrator, psych meds. all of which i had carefully tucked away in the back of a drawer before she visited so she wouldn't see them. never mind that I AM 32 AND ALLOWED TO HAVE ALL OF THESE THINGS.

in her distorted view of the world she thought she was being "helpful". i love her, but she is nuts, and i wish i could stop feeling smothered by her at 32. i am not even doing that badly, and i don't know why she is jumping to these conclusions about me! like for example, she said that i need to stop acting desperate because that scares men away which is like...i don't talk to her about my love life EVER and i don't know where she is getting that i act "desperate" as i am actually extremely laissez-faire in that department and "finding a man" is very low on my list of priorities in life!

i'm just really not looking forward to spending thanksgiving with her for thanksgiving. and also i have to tell my therapist today i can't see her until january because i've run out of visits on my insurance.

otoh, you are 32 and are allowed to not have to spend thanksgiving with emotionally damaged family members.

that's true, but it would also stop me from seeing the family members i DO like, and that is kind of not worth it :/

shouldn't i have irl friends . . . to talk to about my stupid ridiculous worthless pointless feelings?

You do, FYI. xoxo

:/ otm

bugger. just saw this thread. hugs to you all, from another person who feels the same damn way.

there were several years where almost every significant conversation w/my mom involved her asking me some variant of "when are you going to get a real job?" And eventually it got to the point where I would say, "if we're going to get on that topic again, this conversation is over." or, if it was in person, i would say that i was going to go home. And it took a bit of that (maybe a year's worth) for her to approach the issue in a more respectful manner.

fuck the holidays

so glad to not be going anywhere for holidays (force me to make solid plans jenny!)

parents can come here if they want to see me

geez, the Occupy movement is a major blessing in the family holiday relations department. We can discuss and argue politics rather than facing embarrassing and vaguely humiliating questions about personal life stuff.

allowed to not have to spend thanksgiving with emotionally damaged family members

if this were true thanksgiving wouldn't exist

nah, my family is pretty un-emotionally damaged ... they are just well-meaningly nosey.

lol POLITICS is the like the last thing i want to talk about instead of my personal life with family xp

it's kinda lol actually, because my mom and my cousins' moms will do pre-emptive damage control with the other relatives, like, "don't ask (cousin A) about (personal topic x), it is still a very sensitive subject!"

And eventually it got to the point where I would say, "if we're going to get on that topic again, this conversation is over." or, if it was in person, i would say that i was going to go home.

This is what I did about the "Why haven't you found a church to join?/Your life will never work out until you give it to God in prayer" conversation.