What the fuck is wrong with me?

Why did I just have to close my door at work because I could not physically stand to listen to a conversation about who has the most rights to a communal conference room?
Why can't I just come to work, put my head down, get shit done and leave?
Why does it hurt my soul so fucking much?
Why, if I know deep down that there is something more for me, have I not figured out what it is?
Why, suddenly, is the comfort I felt in security and routine my biggest trigger?
Why am I so bored. ALL. THE. TIME?
Why don't I trust that I am smart, fun, interesting, creative (insert other random judgmental adjective here) ENOUGH?

The problem is totally me, right? 

I'm sick (in the head)

I'm having a sick-in-the-head weekend. It started yesterday morning at yoga, I put my mat down next to a self-important couple who talked about watching videos of people doing difficult yoga sequences at 3 a.m., and then showed off their headstands. I could have ignored them. I could have gone inside and gotten my Zen on. But instead I hated them. And that hatred then transformed into judgment of myself and all the other perfectly nice women and men who were there to enjoy yoga on the dock.

I reaped no benefits from that class. In fact, I kept my eyes closed most of the time so as not to look at the self-important assholes. And in the process I deprived myself of the gorgeous view. I was so annoyed by the sound of construction going on about 500 feet away that I couldn't even focus on the physical practice. I essentially did aggro yoga. Might as well have had a Linkin Park playlist running in the background.

I arrived home, wolfed down my leftovers from spontaneous North Hampton dinner, and decided to take a nap. I told myself that it was my boyfriend's mattress' fault. The springs dig into my rib cage. So I settled in for a 10 a.m. nap.  I slept til 2. Got up, stared blankly at the TV, and conked out for another two hours. That was entire day and evening. Napping like a cat, In and out of consciousness. Telling myself my body must need the insane amount of sleep I was allowing it. Then, worried that I wouldn't sleep through the night, I took a quarter of a trazadone (since that's all my body can handle) and went to bed for real.

I woke up Sunday morning just as tired. I meditated. I finished re-reading The Four Agreements. I read the terrible news about another mass shooting. I went back to sleep at 10:30 am. When I woke up again at noon, I had the weird sparkles in my field of vision that are indicative of an ocular migraine. It was then that I realized that this Snow White act was most likely hormone induced. What I was experiencing was not just exhaustion...it was PMS. It was depression.

I've dealt with this combo since I was 12. But as I've gotten older and more self-aware, it's ironically become harder to decipher. It used to come with extreme sadness and lack of rationality so it was hard to miss. I'm a grown-ass woman now with almost 20 years of therapy under her belt, so those extremes happen less often. It's amusing to me that without them I just think: Those mattress springs really did a number on me. It took nearly 24 hours for me to be all: DUDE, THIS IS WHAT YOUR DEPRESSION LOOKS LIKE NOW.

The good news is that instead of judging myself for all the things I planned to do this weekend but didn't, I accepted it. A couple of hours ago I took a shower. I did it to feel better, in hopes that maybe it would motivate me to be productive. I did feel better, but still not productive. And that's ok. Instead of getting mad at myself, I put on a nightgown, grabbed a book and sat on the porch where, after reading for 45 minutes, I decided that the most helpful thing for me to do was blog it out.

Because I allowed myself this space, I will feel better tomorrow. I know this from experience. These lows are time limited. When I process them and understand what is going on with my body and mind, I can move forward with clarity. And I have this in writing so when it happens again next month, I'll have proof.

I'm too sensitive

When I was a kid, there was a gypsy moth caterpillar infestation in Massachusetts. I remember them covering the blacktop at my nursery school. And they terrified me. To the point where I got pleasure from stepping on them and watching their green, gooey guts ooze on to the cement. That was the only time in my life I've ever willingly, knowingly hurt another living thing.

A few weeks ago a carpenter ant crawled on to my boyfriend's bed and my heart hurt when he smacked it with a book. Then I made him switch sides with me so I didn't have to sleep on the dead ant remnants.

I think this aversion to hurting living things comes from my own highly sensitive nature. I look at that ant invading our sleeping space and I think about his little ant family and how sad they will be when he doesn't come home. Because: crazy person.

But I've been on the side of that ant family -- wondering where my loved one went and what I did to make them go away . I don't which came first -- the sensitivity or the constant hurt. But they surely fed each other. The person who hurt me most was my dad. He disappeared. He'd often reappear months or years later, full of apologies and promises to do better. He would for a while, then he'd disappear again.

This made me feel extremely unimportant. Like I wasn't special enough to keep the attention of the person I was supposed to matter most to. The pattern absolutely gutted me. Every. Fucking. Time. As a 40-year-old woman, I have laid in my bed and sobbed just thinking about times when my dad disappointed me. And, not surprisingly, this experience has colored my relationships with men.

In my 20s, I stuck to what I knew and dated men just like my dad. Did they love me? Would they stay? The push and pull was normal to me. It's what all the relationships I observed as a kid looked like. My grandparents. My mom and my stepfather. They all had this tension. By the time I hit 30, I was over it. I did a 180 and dated only the safest of the safe.

Now, at 40, I'm trying to find balance with someone who has just the right amount of unpredictability to keep me engaged, but is also committed and kind. I've felt really safe. Until last night when something trivial triggered those feelings that I wasn't special enough to keep the attention of the person who's supposed to love me the most. I told him I was hurting and he ignored me. And now I am convinced that he's going to disappear.

It's a slippery slope. And completely irrational. But I am so damaged that it's where I go. I honestly don't know if I'm overreacting or being "too sensitive;" I very well could be. But the feelings are real as fuck. There's a boulder on my chest and a tornado in my belly as I wait to find out if he still loves me. And for the first time in years, I am allowing the uncertainty to wash over me.