Reactive

I stayed up too late last night and Sir had to step in. I got about twenty swats with the light paddle, which… is generally not a very severe punishment. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting like fuck. Adding the fact that I was over tired (and haven’t slept well for two weeks), and my ADHD meds had worn off completely, I didn’t respond well to being punished, or being told to get in bed (reasonably because it was late). I toed VERY close to the line in being defiant to Sir (not quite over the line, but as close as I come without jumping it with both feet…) Then I immediately broke down into tears and literally acted like a toddler for ten minutes. Which is incredibly embarrassing to admit.

Today I missed my afternoon dose of Adderall. I came online tonight and saw a post that a friend’s friend’s loved one died unexpectedly. I don’t know the friend’s friend. I definitely don’t know the friend’s friend’s friend. Yet, I literally sat on the couch and messy cried for twenty minutes. And all evening I’ve been teary and feel sad and raw.

When I’m in public, when I’ve had enough food and sleep (and meds don’t hurt), when I have to maintain some semblance of being a normal person, I can mostly maintain that cover at least for short periods of time. But really, underneath it all, I am wildly emotionally reactive.

I lived a good portion of my life with a bipolar diagnosis that explained my childhood of tantrums that lasted long past my twos. It explained my fits of rage when I would hurt myself (never others) and scream until my throat was raw. It explained why I would cry at provocation no one else seemed to understand.

I’ve always felt like I lived life, at best, bewildering the people around me with my emotional responses. And that’s even considering how much I try to hide and manage until I can be in private.

But worse than that, I always feel guilty for my emotional reactivity. I feel as if other people will see it as manipulative – trying to make Sir feel guilty for punishing me, trying to get attention. Sometimes I even worry that I’m… emotionally appropriating (totally a thing I’ve made up to describe this) such as with the friend’s friend thing. It isn’t a person I know, at all, I didn’t even know they existed in the abstract until I read the post. What right do I have to cry over their loss?

Of course, it’s only partly for their loss, it’s largely the empathy triggering my own understanding of loss in my life. It’s remembering my best friend who shot himself on Valentine’s Day which the entire country was kind enough to celebrate again two days ago. It’s losing T when we just started to hope for recovery. It’s losing J, even though I knew it was inevitable, that letter saying that he was gone was a blindside.

Tonight I just told C a bunch of crap that probably made them think I’m a crazy person. But it’s probably better they know and can jump ship now instead of getting attached and then finding out who I really am.

I don’t know why everything is so hard right now.

Sir says it’s a fucking pandemic.