#30daysofdresses - day 10
In where I lose my shit...I look pretty put together in this pic, but this is the day I hit a wall.Yesterday I mentioned feeling like crap and turning to the women who I admire for support.After I took this photo, I drove across town for a meeting. The kind of meeting where you wonder why it was planned b/c the people in attendance don't seem to care much. Or forgot you were coming. Or have to leave early.It's hot, and you're sweating through your dress. Again. And you're wondering when you get to go back home, but the drive home is a whole other story, because now it's sweltering in your car, and there's traffic and you're gonna sit in some pretty blazing sun traveling west.---I planned to take myself out for lunch after the meeting. Take advantage of the void moon. Try to fill the well.Found parking, ordered food, took a table. And found I'd made the mistake I often do in public places - I sat near the LOUD TALKER.Now you could argue that everyone has the right to speak to their table-mate in public places. That I am just being sensitive and overreacting.And you would be right.Because I sat there - still completely overheated from the weather and the car ride, a headache pressing on my temples (didn't realize it then, but I hadn't had any caffeine the whole day), and now extra on fire from the chili I ordered - steaming with anxiety, trying to read a book...The woman next to me blab on and on about how she "cried for two weeks when they had to turn down a house in Malibu". #killme. I texted Stephanie to try and make a joke out of it: accidentally sat next to the quintessential 40 year old Santa Monica mom who won't shut up about primrose water and full moon yoga.I moved tables. And then I gave up and left.Before I even got to my car, the hot tears began streaming down my face behind my sunglasses.---I cried the whole 1/2 mile home, in the garage in my car after I turned it off, in the house on the couch with the dog, and then finally upstairs in my bed. I cried like a torrential rain, a tidal wave. I cried the way toddlers cry when you get the trifecta of a meltdown - hungry, hot and tired.And I felt sorry for myself. My head was killing me, the day felt like a waste, the $11 I spent on lunch sure was, and why couldn't I stop crying? Why do I always feel like such shit some days?I was mad myself. Mad for being sensitive, for not being able to adapt, for exhaustion and emotions and feeling so raw and overwhelmed by the simplest things.And then I remembered. Highly sensitive person.Heidi and I chatted about being an HSP - did I identify as one? I had said no, that the term felt weak and a bit much, and I wasn't that sensitive actually. I was resourceful, practical, tough. None of this needing special treatment BS.---But again, I turned to books and downloaded The Highly Sensitive Person and felt myself come home a little:
"The biggest cost to us of being highly sensitive, however, is that our nervous system can become overloaded... We simply reach that point sooner than others.""HSPs simply process everything more, relating and comparing what they notice to their past experience with other similar things. They do it whether they are aware of it or not.""If you are going to notice every little thing in a situation, and if the situation is complicated (many things to remember), intense (noisy, cluttered, etc.), or goes on too long (a two-hour commute), it seems obvious that you will also tend to wear out sooner from having to process so much."
Page after page, I could feel the grip I had on myself loosen. Here was someone telling me, assuring me that what I was feeling had a cause, that it was manageable, and the best piece: "To sum it up again, you pick up on the subtleties that others miss and so naturally you also arrive quickly at the level of arousal past which you are no longer comfortable. That first fact about you could not be true without the second being true as well. It’s a package deal, and a very good package"I can look back over the past few weeks and note many causes - mercury retrograde, the lead up to the full moon, the eclipse that evening, work, events, hormones. And I can list all the reasons why I maybe started to feel better - the release of emotions from crying, the rest I kept taking finally being enough, talking to my therapist, my friends, H...But whatever the cause of the down cycle and whatever the cause of the upswing... that evening, I finally started feeling normal again.And thank goodness for that.---Dress is Forever 21. Shoes are Mudd, and no surprise here, think I bought them Kohl's.Note: I wrote this on Thursday about my experience on Wednesday. Currently, I am feeling better and I hope you're having a good weekend. xo