Processing Overloaded...Human Function Disabled

    I'm sure all of us have been in the situation in which a lot of things were happening at once, and generally all the things that were happening should have caused a storm of feelings. Then, for whatever reason, the storm of feelings just didn't happen. We realized that we felt...fine? Then suddenly we're asked to make one small decision, or one small thing goes awry, and that really small thing seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Then we're left feeling like we're having some kind of breakdown because of something small like we lost our favorite pen, ripped our favorite shirt, or maybe we couldn't decide what to make for dinner. 

    I recently found myself in that situation. As I mentioned before, I spaced out my therapy appointment for five weeks instead of two. I was dealing with holidays and the emotions the holidays tend to bring up for me. I decided to try going back to church. In addition to all the things that I mentioned before, someone dear to me passed away suddenly. I had also recently found out something that made me feel hopeless. I expected an uptick in my anxiety and to possibly have a panic attack as well as a storm of emotions as I was suddenly buried under all these things, but the anxiety and the rest of the storm didn't happen. Then a few days later, I was trying to choose what I wanted for dinner, and I ended up just crying in the car because that small decision was just TOO MUCH. 

    It felt like my brain was at capacity. It felt like my brain was saying, "Still processing request number one. Please wait until all other requests have processed before submitting another request to the incoming stack. Warning: adding more thoughts and/or decisions at this time may result in a meltdown of the human functions." 

    Since I hadn't taken the time to process all the things that were happening, having to make a decision about dinner felt like the last drop into an overfilled glass that caused everything else to slosh out and make a mess. It wasn't about the dinner itself. It was that I didn't have the mental space left in that moment to do even a simple thing without overloading the processing function. 

    Instead of being able to choose what I wanted to eat, I cried because that was the only option my brain left me with, and the crying turned into an anxiety attack. I cried on the way home, and then I cried for nearly an hour at home until I medicated. I spent the next three days medicated and binge-watching Marvel movies and series while I allowed everything time to process. I cycled through all of my emotions: the anxiety, the sadness, the anger, the grief, the hopelessness, and then I took a nap because all that was exhausting.

    After I took the time I needed to process and I allowed myself to feel all the things, I felt human again. My emotions no longer felt extreme and out of my control. I felt like I was able to think and make decisions again. It was a rough two weeks, and then because I didn't take the time to check in with myself about how all the stress and emotions were processing, it was an even worse three days.

    I sometimes forget, that after something stressful or emotional happens, just because I feel fine doesn't mean that I'm actually fine. I forget that the emotions and stress are still there, just under the surface of my conscious awareness, and that I still need to allow them their time to come up to my awareness and move along. That is, I forget until my brain says, "We have reached capacity. Disable the Human Function. Activate extreme emotional response. These feelings need to go somewhere, NOW." 

    I'll end with this: When we have a lot of stressful, emotional things going on in our lives, whether we live with a mental health condition or not, it's so important to remember that just because we feel fine at the surface level, that doesn't mean we're completely fine. Even if we feel completely fine, it would be a good idea just to go a little deeper and check in with how we're feeling and processing everything that is happening. If we don't check in, we run the risk of our brain forcing us to take a break to process everything whether or not we have the time or desire to do so.