Let the floods come in

There's a snap that happens. Maybe it's just me, but I doubt it's only me. My snaps just ring silently under the skin until they leak out.
This is the peak when overwhelmed greets anxious.
It's these times when I wonder how something so loud can be so silent.
These are the days where the last stone finally slips out of place and the floods race in.
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This snap is very familiar to me and I've experienced it since I was a child. It's the snap of anxiety when it finally takes your breath away. As a former friend once said, it can reduce me to "a crying ball of useless-ness on the floor". Yeah, I'll forever remember those words as a warning to stay away from a person who I once considered a dear friend.

As much as I try to manage my anxiety, yesterday was the breaking point.

I'd been seeing my warning signs written on the walls, but I had been trying to ignore them. I've been too forgetful. I'd walk into rooms and not even know why I was there and forgetting important things. My appetite has been non-existent while leaving me with a nausea feeling. Bruises have once again randomly appeared because I have not been paying enough attention to my body and I don't always realize something is wrong physically. And then there's the emotions which just cap off the everything.

My overwhelm sessions don't scare me any more because I know what they mean now.

Some people come home from a stressful day and they take a hot bath or have a drink to unwind. I don't do that. I just keep going. I process my stress and anxiety internally so it affects me physically. This leads to the number one thing I've heard for my entire life and I heard it again yesterday.

"This seemed to come out of no where. One minute you were fine and the next you were crying."

THIS is anxiety on the spectrum. It's not just that there is a difficulty separating ourselves from anxiety, we literally get stuck in an anxiety loop. It's a real thing and terribly ironic that I had to grade an assignment on it this morning.

I've stopped looking at my crashes as a negative thing or as if there is something wrong with me. The jerk who thought he could make me feel worse about my own mental health issues underestimated me. I am vulnerable, but not useless. I am fragile, but not delicate. I am strong and I am also weak. Unfortunately, I need to reach my crash point when enough things aren't working in my life. For me, this is just a sign to rebuild and make things stronger.

I've been slipping into 'unhealthy' the past few months and it's time for a bit of a reboot. I'm not ashamed of my struggles because I know other people face them. When I posted the poetry/reality at the top of the page, 3 of the 4 people who responded with messages are on the spectrum. This type of anxiety and meltdown is something we know all too well.