Having a meltdown

I've been having a meltdown for last 24 hrs, and feeling inadequate about that. Then I was chatting to a new friend who was supportive, and I figured out that I take on so much in my life that it's inevitable that very occasionally I am going to explode.

We were talking about managing men on projects, and how men procrastinate. I said that I'm learning how to be firm without nagging, but main problem at the moment is managing my own emotions.

It suddenly occurred to me that women do this all the time. We expect to manage our emotions (and other people's emotions) at the same time as managing other people's bs and a zillion of practical details. We expect it.

I know very few men who hold themselves accountable for managing other people's emotions and other people's mess in the same way. I do realise that men have other stressors - financially supporting a family is a huge deal - but women expect to do it all simultaneously, and often we can.

I was reading a book last night about a women suffering from terminal cancer who was still organising her family, but whose husband called her when she had a meltdown on the floor because it scared the children. She was saying "this is real life": facing up to big challenges is part of learning to live fully while we still can."

What does your meltdown look like? Is it yelling, crying, something else?

Do you feel resentment toward men and the differences between how society views men and women?

The thing about trying to manage other people's lives is that it is an impossible job because their lives belong to them, not us. And any advice we would give or decisions we would make come from our perspective, would work for us but would probably not work for them. It is rare that anyone takes my advice on anything anyway! Sometimes they ask for it and I offer something up but generally they do something entirely different :-)

Anyway, that is where the frustration lies ... trying to manage something that isn't possible or ours to do in the first place! Been there ... many times ...

P.S. This isn't supposed to start a women vs men rant please!!! Just a reflection about how I automatically take on managing a dozen different levels in my own and other people's lives - getting it right 95% of the time - and then I have always wondered why I have moments of feeling overwhelmed and inadequate.

In some ways psychotherapy has raised up awareness of the emotional side of life - but it doesn't solve the juggling act, or the guilt when once in a while all the balls go flying out of the circus ring onto some innocent bystander???

I just listened to Bo Burnham talking about anxiety - he's not well known here in EU but his 8th Grade film is on distribution. He was talking about being terrified by his panic attacks, but fearing to name what was going on in case that made them more real.

Despite, or because of, the psychologisation of everything, my self-expectations are to be "on task" and able to keep others on task whenever necessary. I like that about myself. The balance to that class act - occasional messy meltdowns - feels like a catastrophe. I'm not naturally an acting-out person - tend to take the long view of conflict and to internalise.

Please could you contribute reflections, rather than ranting ??? My humble thanks...

A meltdown for me involves shutting off the phone, and going to bed for 48 hours with a packet of chocolate biscuits. "Don't speak to me". Self-hatred. Not cooking or cleaning. Isolation.

Oh yeah, very rarely is my advice or opinion heeded. I’ve gotten used to that feeling of being discounted. If that person who didn’t take my good advice then made a big mistake, that’s on them.

The worst was recently how my mother chose a surgery we (having medical experts weigh in) told her not to do. It was a huge mistake and she loss the use of her hand. But Mom knows best. She took the advice of my sister, with no medical knowledge. That’s Mom being Mom.

Yes, Little Lulu - agree that the meltdown trigger for me is usually FRUSTRATION. But I've had heap (a big heap) ongoing of practical negotiations to do about renovations and moving home - and in our egalitarian society, plumbers, builders, electricians still seem to be predominantly the male gender - they have their own priorities and you have to manage them!!! Commercial transactions are handled by people who if not male gender are obsessed by competition and conflict rather than respect or nurturing. Hence tending towards burn-out.

While the respect and nurturing remains an invisible struggle internally (like mental illness), or in the home???

Actually having another woman's support made me realise how much of a burden it can all become. I expect to do it all with a dynamic attitude and a big smile, at all times. I have always expected that, but it's impossible. Or is it?

I think it’s frustration that causes the meltdowns. It all comes down to control, the frustration over inability to control; ourselves, others, and even our own emotions.

I’ve been suffering meltdowns for many years now; which I never did before then (not childhood, teens, and 20’s). My meltdowns are crying fits, then embarrassment and depression, take to bed and withdraw. But I always still have to do the cooking and cleaning.

Thank you very much for your kind reply Tisha Buv!!!

Yes exactly - frustration over inability to control ourselves, others, and even our own emotions!!! You hit the nail on the head. (Sometimes it's also not knowing how to drive in the nail when mending the holes in my garden shed in my case!!)

What is wrong with a crying fit??? Isn't it inevitable in some challenging life situations? Raging also?

I suppose that I'm old enough know how to control my relationships with other people - have figured what is and isn't a productive way to behave - but internally there is another script happening.

What is wrong with a crying fit??? Isn't it inevitable in some challenging life situations? Raging also?
It broke me down physically and emotionally from chronic incidents. It made others look upon me poorly. It didn’t get me what I wanted anyway. It made me afraid to take on new, stressful situations for fear of it happening. It ruined others day.

Evidently, it is not inevitable. It seems emotionally healthy people don’t have meltdowns. They stay calm, zen, and use their words effectively.

"Evidently, it is not inevitable. It seems emotionally healthy people don’t have meltdowns. They stay calm, zen, and use their words effectively. "

Oh boy!

I am thinking it's about emotional needs.
One good thing from being challenged so much lately has been reflecting compassionately on my childhood. When my dad remarried, taking a packet of biscuits and going off on my bike for the whole evening was required for physical survival. Or else his new wife would complain to him and he would beat me within an inch of my life.
I had no conscious understanding of my own emotional needs or anyone else's.

The exigencies of physical survival were all I had learned. Now much later in life, my emotional need to shut down completely when overwhelmed - or occasionally calling other people to account when they don't wish to be accountable... or don't have the same idea of being accountable as I have. Dealing with other people is actually about so much more than competing for physical survival... Negotiating different ideas, opinions, habitual behaviours... Sigh. I expect to be able to positively negotiate the differing habits of self and others, but it's all too much for me.

We can express ourselves to people in a calm conversation. When they don’t heed us, we can try to not get worked up about it, as we cannot control them. (I know how frustrating this can be!). We can learn (with therapy?) to not fall down the abyss of emotion to debilitation. This is a work in progress.

My mother is emotionally/verbally abusive. She’s also been very loving, so it’s a mixed bag for my feelings toward her. She caused crying fits in me as a small child, then over the course of the rest of my life, just a few other times.

It was my husband (yes, it was a man) who caused the major crying fits/meltdowns in our marriage. Yes, it is my frustration from not being able to get cooperation from him to meet my needs for love and affection, literally for sexual gratification to meet my libido (even though he claims his libido is the same frequency). Yes, it was a man who drove me to this hysteria.

I had not have these meltdowns from anyone else man or woman. I have been in very stressful situations and have dealt with extremely difficult people. Except, recently I have a real nervous breakdown and had no therapist at all, just coping by myself, because my entire FOO turned on me and was callous and horrid, abandonment and slander from Mom and sister brought on by the stupidest, meaningless incident. I’m pretty sure there is undiagnosed NPD in Mom and family fallout all around, dysfunction as a result.

A thing Bo Burnham said that he learned from owning his anxiety, is that everyone goes around looking as if they are ok. He could watch videos of his performances when he knows he was exploding internally with a panic attack, but watching the video even his own family couldn't tell that he wasn't ok. Everyone looks ok, but everyone has a complicated emotional script going on inside them whether they own it or not.

Polarising a relationship into people who control and people who emote doesn't solve anything.

"We can express ourselves to people in a calm conversation. When they don’t heed us, we can try to not get worked up about it, as we cannot control them. (I know how frustrating this can be!). We can learn (with therapy?) to not fall down the abyss of emotion to debilitation. This is a work in progress.


Yes.

We can't control other people. I can accept that there are a lot of hidden agendas going on beneath apparently calm conversations. That's human. Managing people who I employ while managing myself means to me recognising that there is relational mess and there is the need to co-operate, and knowing when the moment is right to co-operate. If there is no co-operation then get rid of them.

It's an awareness that I work with. Sometimes give in so as to co-operate, sometimes the other person has to give in.

But underneath that awareness is aaaaargh, can't you cut me some slack and just do what I ask with a sense of good will for once! That's a control move on my part. I get to define what is "good" will. Please mum, do what I need. Please care.

So I have to keep an inner smile in place at how silly I am, and how silly human beings are - stop taking it so intensely.

But.... I have a ruthless side in me which says that in order to achieve what I want I need to force myself onwards when I'm sick or not ok. The control-emote conflict inside of me. And then I want to force others onwards when they are sick or not ok.

It's exhausting: this need for "good" in people coming from different internal realities!

Quote:

It suddenly occurred to me that women do this all the time. We expect to manage our emotions (and other people's emotions) at the same time as managing other people's bs and a zillion of practical details. We expect it. I know very few men who hold themselves accountable for managing other people's emotions and other people's mess in the same way. I do realise that men have other stressors - financially supporting a family is a huge deal - but women expect to do it all simultaneously, and often we can.

I believe its a double edge sword with us... when our families hurt or struggle-we hold down the fort. We try and be the glue and keep everyone happy while neglecting ourselves. Then we snap and its held against us- how dare we blow up like that? Or we go on dealing with stress and go to the doctor because we are in physical pain for something and the tears well up...many doctors group us into the "hysterical woman" category as if we are poor self evaluators or are overexaggertating our issues. Its really unfair. Especially if you cry easily- joy makes me tear up just as much as pain and I know people do not take me seriously sometimes.

What is wrong with a crying fit??? Isn't it inevitable in some challenging life situations? Raging also?

There is nothing wrong with crying, but crying needs to lead to resolution.

What happens for me in meltdown isn't crying but complete dissociation. Only under extreme pressure these days, I clock out and spiral into the emotional pit. Perhaps how we express the emotional pit is different between people - for TishaBuv it was hysterical crying, for me it was isolating and being frozen.
Yet self hatred seems to be the end result for both of us.

My friend wrote to me: . we go into this survival mode too and the more we do that, the harder it is to connect and find ourselves again. so allow yourself to heal. and be. in the moment.

TishaBuv says : We can learn (with therapy?) to not fall down the abyss of emotion to debilitation. This is a work in progress.

I think that's different to the sort of crying that you are posting about @sarahsweets. Perhaps for me it's when I suppress the possibility of normal crying or raging that I go into this unhealthy spiral state of "debilitation".

I’ve been doing a lot better lately. I started taking (less than prescribed) dose of Buspar for anxiety and CBD oil. I feel it has stopped the waterworks and lifted depression.

Today, I called a family meeting with my youngest son and husband. Son has been struggling in his science, math, and english while he excels in music and leadership. In the past, just getting both of them to the table would most likely end in such a struggle and me losing it and giving up. Today, I approached it like a board meeting. I said “Here are the items on the agenda we want to discuss. Do you have anything to add, son, like telling me to go jump in the lake before we even begin?” Lol. He was ok to proceed.

Then I had to focus him and husband, trying to stay calm, like herding cats. I successfully discussed the problem in each class one thing at a time and we found easy solutions. Then we looked on college websites for his possible goals and what he needs to be eligible.

I assured my son we are proud of him, he is not dumb (he said he felt dumb), he had ADHD, it’s not his fault, and we are all feeling quite good from the meeting. Yay me and proper meds!

Hang in there, saidso. It’s herding cats! Lol

I just had this happen at the doctor’s. He said to my and my h’s face, that the last time he saw me, I was a “basket case”. He is a typical machismo guy and I could see his attitude toward me was strange, as I was a hysterical patient at the last appointment; which I was as the shyt hit the fan with my skeletal system. Grrrrrrrr