Two discoveries
About my physical reactions to extreme emotions:
Well, this first one is not so much a discovery as it is a realization or observation that I made earlier when reflecting on something someone had said to me. When an argument causes me to become intensely angry--like, gripped by pure rage after being insulted or attacked or just mistreated in general--... in fact, it's even if I'm just incredibly frightened, sometimes just frightened that I'm going to become angry. The anticipation of whatever it is that I feel is going to punch this emotion into me. What I do is I shake. I shake bad. Or, uncontrollable trembling is more like it. It doesn't really happen in real life arguments, but through technological means of communication: the phone, with both talking and texting, and the internet. It starts in my stomach, too. That entire organ just starts quivering until the outside is too, and then the tremors from my core slither into my limbs and soon I am shaking like a paranoid inbred poodle. And really, I can't stop it; it only goes away as soon as the situation is resolved--or at least by as much as it can be in that moment, usually being me just walking away in order to preserve the rest of my feebly intact emotions--or it leaves as soon as I start crying the shaking out. The last time I shook was July 31st, when I was texting Jordi and I knew he was hiding something from me. I was sitting there daring my phone to bring me bad news. It took the bait. I got the bad news I'd been trembling over.
This other reaction is a discovery, but a very new one, since even though this is the second time this has happened, I only now consider it a discovery because this second time confirms that it wasn't a one-time thing and is indeed a reaction. I start off laughing, and then all of a sudden before I know it my heart is sinking and I don't even know why the fuck I'm so sad but I am and I just start bawling and sobbing. But I just feel so crazy, because it came so out of nowhere, and so while I'm bawling I'm also laughing at myself hysterically and saying things like "I don't know why I'm crying I don't know why I'm crying this is so stupid I feel psychotic YOU GUYS STOP IT I FEEL PSYCHOTIC." And the "you guys stop it" is directed at my brother and father, because they're the ones next to me, saying, "Ashley what the fuck is wrong with you?" Which, surprisingly, doesn't help. The first time this happened I was suffering two major symptoms of illness, being a really really bad cold/flu and the even more deadly and painful ailment known as Finals Week. So this first time, I'd attributed the incident to those two things, and also the state of total exhaustion I was in.
What had happened is that we were sitting at dinner and I don't even remember what we were talking about, but I said in a response to something my father said, "It's not." But he kept teasing me, saying the way I had said it sounded like I had said "It snot." And so I kept saying "It's not" over and over with the intention of proving him wrong, but I too was hearing "It snot It snot It snot It snot" and they were laughing and laughing and I started laughing in frustration and then I was CRYING SO HARD. Then commences the "wtf is your problem" comments and it took a good long amount of bawling and feeling so incredibly helpless and mentally disabled before my father finally understood that he was not helping anything. So he hugged me and in his machismo fatherly way of comforting said, "Stop being so loony you're scaring us. Calm down. Calm down."
And then it's like, as fast as it snowballed down into delirium the veil is lifted and suddenly I'm sitting there with very stained cheeks but wide eyes and thinking only one thought: "I am so tired and I never want that to happen ever again."
Tonight was that ever again I never wanted to happen. Again, I am exhausted--I am stressed about college now, and terrified that my friends are replacing me, and I have to have a biopsy on a fucking lump in my breast, and I'm sad that things are changing so quickly, and I'm realizing how much I still need to grow up and how behind I still fucking am, and I thought about Jordi half the day and keep having dreams about him, and Im scared for my grandmother who's near hurricane Ike, and I'm so fucking tired because I got like six hours of sleep and then I went car shopping at frustrating dealerships all day. ...Anyway: again, we were eating dinner, me between my father and brother, and we were watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. This new contestant came on who, to be bluntly mean, looked like the creepy guy living in his mother's basement who usually peruses the 7-11 at 3 a.m. for snacks to horde in his dungeon while he plays World of Warcraft (though, nothing wrong with the World of Warcraft I have like six friends who play it, I'm just painting a picture here guys, work with me). That's kind of what I thought he looked like. My father did not think so. He said, "he looks like Herbie from Rudolph." And then I just went "WHO'S HERBIE? I DON'T KNOW WHO HERBIE IS. WHY DON'T I KNOW WHO HERBIE IS" and I was laughing because I was realizing how worked up I was about Not Knowing Herbie and then, THEN came the MENTAL TEARS.
Again, they thought I was faking or something, or just laughing uncontrollably, and for a while I couldn't even tell either. I knew it was exactly what had happened before and yet I was hoping what my brother was: that it was just laughter. And it wasn't. I was crying and crying and I felt so sad and so heartbroken and so frightened and so disappointed. I felt bad. Bad. I can't even describe it--all you're reading is adjectives, right? Yes. It's just adjectives. Because I can't find any word the encapsulates how awful it was, how terrible. It was like... It was like some sort of evil manifestation was entering me. Literally like my body was being possessed. Like my heart just split open and dark things came out to show me how incredibly broken my subconscious perspective is
--But that last part I can only hypothesize on though. I can only guess that the reason this happens is that suddenly I am just snapping and the feelings I keep pushing down are finally rushing to the surface, as if the pressurized cage they've been in underwater has just cracked open at the sea floor.
I don't know. I don't know. Talking about it kind of helps, even though it doesn't make any more sense of it. I came online and started to search to see if it was some sort of syndrome, but then I decided I actually didn't really want to know. That's all I need.
It was just really scary.
And it was just an incredibly intense reaction. It surprised me. I mean, I would actually describe myself and a woman who feels her emotions at such extremes... but this is just... this is just... like so extreme that it cancels out extreme. It goes to such a high degree of insanity that it's like attaining the craziest kind of sanity...
I don't know. Now I'm probably just grasping at crazy things I've read in books (mostly like... out of body monk experiences or something I guess).
...just two discoveries, I guess.
Well, this first one is not so much a discovery as it is a realization or observation that I made earlier when reflecting on something someone had said to me. When an argument causes me to become intensely angry--like, gripped by pure rage after being insulted or attacked or just mistreated in general--... in fact, it's even if I'm just incredibly frightened, sometimes just frightened that I'm going to become angry. The anticipation of whatever it is that I feel is going to punch this emotion into me. What I do is I shake. I shake bad. Or, uncontrollable trembling is more like it. It doesn't really happen in real life arguments, but through technological means of communication: the phone, with both talking and texting, and the internet. It starts in my stomach, too. That entire organ just starts quivering until the outside is too, and then the tremors from my core slither into my limbs and soon I am shaking like a paranoid inbred poodle. And really, I can't stop it; it only goes away as soon as the situation is resolved--or at least by as much as it can be in that moment, usually being me just walking away in order to preserve the rest of my feebly intact emotions--or it leaves as soon as I start crying the shaking out. The last time I shook was July 31st, when I was texting Jordi and I knew he was hiding something from me. I was sitting there daring my phone to bring me bad news. It took the bait. I got the bad news I'd been trembling over.
This other reaction is a discovery, but a very new one, since even though this is the second time this has happened, I only now consider it a discovery because this second time confirms that it wasn't a one-time thing and is indeed a reaction. I start off laughing, and then all of a sudden before I know it my heart is sinking and I don't even know why the fuck I'm so sad but I am and I just start bawling and sobbing. But I just feel so crazy, because it came so out of nowhere, and so while I'm bawling I'm also laughing at myself hysterically and saying things like "I don't know why I'm crying I don't know why I'm crying this is so stupid I feel psychotic YOU GUYS STOP IT I FEEL PSYCHOTIC." And the "you guys stop it" is directed at my brother and father, because they're the ones next to me, saying, "Ashley what the fuck is wrong with you?" Which, surprisingly, doesn't help. The first time this happened I was suffering two major symptoms of illness, being a really really bad cold/flu and the even more deadly and painful ailment known as Finals Week. So this first time, I'd attributed the incident to those two things, and also the state of total exhaustion I was in.
What had happened is that we were sitting at dinner and I don't even remember what we were talking about, but I said in a response to something my father said, "It's not." But he kept teasing me, saying the way I had said it sounded like I had said "It snot." And so I kept saying "It's not" over and over with the intention of proving him wrong, but I too was hearing "It snot It snot It snot It snot" and they were laughing and laughing and I started laughing in frustration and then I was CRYING SO HARD. Then commences the "wtf is your problem" comments and it took a good long amount of bawling and feeling so incredibly helpless and mentally disabled before my father finally understood that he was not helping anything. So he hugged me and in his machismo fatherly way of comforting said, "Stop being so loony you're scaring us. Calm down. Calm down."
And then it's like, as fast as it snowballed down into delirium the veil is lifted and suddenly I'm sitting there with very stained cheeks but wide eyes and thinking only one thought: "I am so tired and I never want that to happen ever again."
Tonight was that ever again I never wanted to happen. Again, I am exhausted--I am stressed about college now, and terrified that my friends are replacing me, and I have to have a biopsy on a fucking lump in my breast, and I'm sad that things are changing so quickly, and I'm realizing how much I still need to grow up and how behind I still fucking am, and I thought about Jordi half the day and keep having dreams about him, and Im scared for my grandmother who's near hurricane Ike, and I'm so fucking tired because I got like six hours of sleep and then I went car shopping at frustrating dealerships all day. ...Anyway: again, we were eating dinner, me between my father and brother, and we were watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. This new contestant came on who, to be bluntly mean, looked like the creepy guy living in his mother's basement who usually peruses the 7-11 at 3 a.m. for snacks to horde in his dungeon while he plays World of Warcraft (though, nothing wrong with the World of Warcraft I have like six friends who play it, I'm just painting a picture here guys, work with me). That's kind of what I thought he looked like. My father did not think so. He said, "he looks like Herbie from Rudolph." And then I just went "WHO'S HERBIE? I DON'T KNOW WHO HERBIE IS. WHY DON'T I KNOW WHO HERBIE IS" and I was laughing because I was realizing how worked up I was about Not Knowing Herbie and then, THEN came the MENTAL TEARS.
Again, they thought I was faking or something, or just laughing uncontrollably, and for a while I couldn't even tell either. I knew it was exactly what had happened before and yet I was hoping what my brother was: that it was just laughter. And it wasn't. I was crying and crying and I felt so sad and so heartbroken and so frightened and so disappointed. I felt bad. Bad. I can't even describe it--all you're reading is adjectives, right? Yes. It's just adjectives. Because I can't find any word the encapsulates how awful it was, how terrible. It was like... It was like some sort of evil manifestation was entering me. Literally like my body was being possessed. Like my heart just split open and dark things came out to show me how incredibly broken my subconscious perspective is
--But that last part I can only hypothesize on though. I can only guess that the reason this happens is that suddenly I am just snapping and the feelings I keep pushing down are finally rushing to the surface, as if the pressurized cage they've been in underwater has just cracked open at the sea floor.
I don't know. I don't know. Talking about it kind of helps, even though it doesn't make any more sense of it. I came online and started to search to see if it was some sort of syndrome, but then I decided I actually didn't really want to know. That's all I need.
It was just really scary.
And it was just an incredibly intense reaction. It surprised me. I mean, I would actually describe myself and a woman who feels her emotions at such extremes... but this is just... this is just... like so extreme that it cancels out extreme. It goes to such a high degree of insanity that it's like attaining the craziest kind of sanity...
I don't know. Now I'm probably just grasping at crazy things I've read in books (mostly like... out of body monk experiences or something I guess).
...just two discoveries, I guess.