Don't Poke The Bear

So I had a full blown mental breakdown the other day that no one knew about.

I've admitted before on here that I suffer from PTSD, but by the way that I act, you would never know that I had it. The way that I walk and carry myself, and the way that I smile each and every single day, you would never even for a second guess that I have my moments and bouts with depression. I mean it's not like I go home at night and cry in a corner or something, it's pretty manageable because I have a strong support system and medicine readily available for my use when I feel overwhelmed or experience anxiety attacks. So to say living with PTSD isn't bad because I can manage it the way I'm supposed to and it's a lot of work to do, but I'm doing it the best that I can with that. But there are some days where it's just like my brain overloads and it just all comes crashing down around me, I'm human, PTSD just makes it a little harder to function when those bouts happen.

Before I explain what happened, let me give you a little insight into how my mind works. I process a lot of information and thoughts a day, and I mean a lot. I literally think of ten different blog topics a day and I write down about three of them due to the fact that I can't get to a pen and piece of paper before the next thought comes through. With that same ability comes the fact that I think about a million and one things that I should be doing to maximize my time so that I can prepare for the next step of the plan, and there's always the next step of the plan. So between always thinking about writing and my life, while learning stuff for my career, my mind is always working nonstop. In my opinion, it works way too much lol.

But what that much thinking and always planning and what not, it comes that time where you crash, it's inevitable. It happens to everyone that goes out and tries to do too much. I actually JUST read a blog by @eversoRoco entitled Never Give Your All, which is a great read by the way, and she went through the same exact thing that happened to me a week and some change later. I'm really hoping that wasn't foreshadowing because I really told her to watch out for herself and to make time to relax, words I needed to tell myself lol. But any who, basically what happened was that I had a moment where everything just jumped on me at worse and I just felt myself on the brink of just bursting out of my shell, and I just started feeling sick out of nowhere and with nausea and all of that good stuff.

I'm going to spare you the details of what exactly happened, but it resulted in a trip to the ER and subsequent hospital stay for like two and a half days. I didn't tell anyone that I knew because I felt ashamed at what let up to me getting put in there and the fact that I was in the hospital period. I see myself in the light of being the strong one, with the head on my shoulders all of the time, readily able to give great life advice for those that need it. I really forgot that I need the same thing and I need people to be there for me when I need help, because the one thing that I actually had to teach myself recently believe it or not, was the fact that I don't have all of the answers. No matter how much I plan, no matter how much I research and devise strategies and what not, I simply can't do every single thing alone.

I let people get the better of me, and I let people take advantage of my caring nature and willingness to help. Now I'm not one to say turn down people when they need help, there just gets to a point where they need to do their own thing and stand on their own two feet. By me not being able to do what I needed to for me, and always exerting myself, I was not only putting pressure on myself, but also to those that actually have been helping me. In lamest terms, I've been slacking all around, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. Now when I went in and I was lying there, the hospital psychiatrist actually came in to talk to me, per regulations, and it was funny because they saw that I was receiving counseling there, all of this was at the VA, and he knew my actual therapist. He told me that he knew that she wouldn't have liked to see me in there and that she would've probably hit me if she did, which is true lol.

At the end of the day he basically told me what I already knew, stop stressing myself out for no apparent reason, I'm not Superman. He said that while it's nice to do the things that I do for others, I need to do more for myself and be more of a me type of person. I always thought those kind of people were in the wrong for having that mentality but he quickly pointed out that I could never be one of those people per say, just merely a happier person when I'm focusing on my goals and current life placement. He also reminded me to stop necessarily always worrying about the next step and tomorrow, and to just focus on doing what I need to do for today and worry about building up towards tomorrow. He said that not every day was a game seven, and not every day I had to make the winning shot to make it to the next round. That analogy made sense, in part of us watching the highlights from the game winning shots that were on ESPN at the time.

All in all I have to sit down and be me for a while as I've said the past couple of weeks and this whole being hospitalized and being set back a couple weeks because of it really shows me that I need to be more in control of my life and stop supporting others. I practically drove myself into sickness worrying about what I can and can't do for others and then thinking about all of the things that I have to do, and my emotions and brain just couldn't take it. I'm still learning how PTSD really works and the lengths it goes to in trying to sabotage someone's life and make them lesser of a person. I'm just glad that God gave me enough sense to slap me in the head in the form of this trip to quiet time, and show me more than ever that it's about me and me only.