Hissy Fit

I was supposed to be on vacation. I WAS on vacation. It was the most relaxing vacation I’d ever been on. I began to wonder if I was actually naturally a Type-A personality or had just been raised that way. I did almost nothing all day. A little bit of writing. A little bit of reading. A little bit of swimming. Chatting with friends. Cooking. Watching Netflix.

But one thing about my Type-A personality did not change. I brought a yoga mat, some ankle weights, a resistance band, and found some rocks to lift. I went on a two hour walk every day. And on some days, I also did some running. Not a lot of running. Not intense running. But still, probably not what my physical therapist wanted me to do.

And then I came home limping and in pain. And went to my physical therapy appointment, where I found out (to no one’s surprise, not even my own) that I had reversed a good chunk of the progress I’d made over the last two months of work on my left Achilles. I was angry. I was especially angry at anyone who suggested that it was my *own fault* that I was in a lot of pain again. I insisted that physical therapy never works. And that there was no way that my Achilles injury was ever going to get better. I argued with a couple of friends who were probably trying to help. I had, in short, a giant hissy fit.

I knew that I was over-reacting. I wanted to stop feeling the anger and the frustration I was feeling. But I couldn’t. They consumed me and turned me into a person I don’t much like. I am, as it turns out, still an extreme perfectionist and I am the LAST person on the planet that I can forgive for making mistakes, no matter what variety. I am supposed to be letting myself accept my own emotions. But I don’t like these ones and I wanted to chop them out and throw them away. Which meant that I wanted to throw part of myself away.

I am trying to lean into this experience instead of pushing it away and insisting it wasn’t the “real me.” This was the real me, maybe the realest me ever. And me hating myself for being so emotional triggered a renewed bout of suicidal ideation (not as bad as previously). I know that this is the underlying problem behind my depression, this insistence in my brain that I must be perfect and that there is no forgiveness for being even a little less than perfect. I can see it while it's happening, as if from a distance. But so far, being aware of it doesn’t stop me from the self-hatred.

At some point, I hope to figure this out. Maybe it was a backlash precisely from taking nearly a whole week off and doing nothing. Many friends have told me “just forgive yourself” or “you need to be nicer to yourself.” One friend even offered me a workbook on it, which I dutifully worked through (almost perfectly, you might say). I hope it’s getting better, but I’m not counting on it. I think what I’m going to try to do is try to love myself through this nasty, messiness and try not to hate it quite so much, try not to push it away.

Yes, I’m human. I’m aware of this. It is a mantra to remind myself. It still doesn’t fix it. But maybe the idea of fixing it isn’t the point. I guess crying isn’t abnormal. Feeling like I must be unfit company for any other human isn’t exactly productive. I did find a couple of friends (not the ones I’d raged at) to talk to about this. I discovered that my guilt over my daughter’s death had been triggered, which is also often connected to my SI. It is a journey, right? I’m on a journey and sometimes I fall down and the pain is so, so bad. I keep kicking myself to get up and start running again. Because that’s what I do. It has always worked before. Why can’t it work now? Why can’t I just make myself keep doing what I did when I didn’t feel like shit?