A School of Ourselves
where we never stop learning.
I’ve had my whole lifetime to conquer my moodiness and yet I still haven’t figured out how to do so consistently. I sometimes feel like my moods hound me, rule me. When I’m in a good mood and the sun is shining and it’s a beautiful, temperate day I tend to feel optimistic and happy. I want to do things, I want to help, I want to accomplish. This is when I volunteer for things impulsively then later regret signing on for too many things which leads to either feeling stressed about it or cancelling which leaves me feeling badly which makes my moodiness worse. I know this about myself. Sometimes I ignore that ding ding ding when I’m about to say yes to a thing. Sometimes I heed it. It always works out better when I heed the ding, think about whether the thing is actually doable and make a considered decision.
When I’m in a bad mood I wallow, I snipe, I growl, I see subterfuge where there is none. I say things I don’t mean and I know it when I say it but sometimes I can’t stop myself. Often, this happens on dreary days, overcast days, humid hot or humid wet days. Occasionally, I will be in a writing mood on days that are grey and that seems to keep the meanness in check. It’s only lately, after all these decades, that I realize I might have a kind of Seasonal Affective Disorder, except my moods change with weather instead of the season, so it’s Daily Weather Affective Disorder? Oh, I don’t have extreme highs and extreme lows. I do have some control over my emotions. I can, for instance, stop myself from posting a snarky tweet, or not say out loud what I’m thinking during a disagreement. But other times I just want to release control. I want to feel my feelings. The trick is not to hurt someone else when I do.
Numbing feelings with drugs, alcohol, or sex is not good for the body or psyche. I was always afraid of drugs and never wanted to try anything beyond weed. I was never willing to let go of my control, give it to a substance. One day in the early aughts I collapsed, surprisingly and unexpectedly. Two discs in my back compressed, a doctor later diagnosed. The pain was incredible and I lived on the floor of my family room for almost two weeks while my husband fed me and tended to my bodily needs. I was afraid to take pain killers because I was afraid it might be the beginning of an addiction I didn’t want. I survived and learned how to manage my back pain on subsequent flare ups. It’s been years since I’ve had a flare up because I do back support exercises every night. I survived and I learned some things about myself.
I went through a period of time, though, where I drank too much. I was aware enough at the time to know why I was drinking but I chose to do it anyway. It was an escape. I never drank to the point of losing all control or blacking out but alcohol affected my moods and my thought processes in a big way. I began to realize I was sick of it. Sick of how I felt when I drank, sick of feeling wiped out, foggy-headed, and just sad. So I quit. I haven’t had any alcohol now for years and I don’t miss it at all.
We are always and forever a work in progress, aren’t we? We are never done learning and growing and adapting. We are in a life-long school of ourselves.