I Don’t Know What It IS Called, but I Know I Am Not Well in the Head

Breathe. Close your eyes. Everything is OK. Stop thinking. Now go to sleep.

Breathe. Close your eyes. Everything is OK. Stop thinking. Now go to sleep.

This used to be what I would tell myself whenever I felt it coming. I always thought it was just normal emotions until they started coming more frequently and each time more intense than the previous. So I suspected it was anxiety attack—the more, if not the most commonly known mental illness. But over the years, it has managed to evolve into something more scheming and controlling. It always builds up discreetly over a period of weeks, and before I know it, it can trigger off a migraine suddenly, kick my heart into a race where I have to struggle to catch my breath, and worst of all, it can make me feel like all the bad emotions in me are swelling up together at once, so much that it is like imploding and gushing out of my temples with such forceful grip.

At those moments, I would lose control over my thoughts, my words and actions. All I could feel was my piercing temples, the huge void inside my being, and the torrents of anger / sadness / guilt / hate / resentment sweeping over me.

Normally after such episodes, I would be completely drained. And I mean completely. I would have no energy to fight or to think, and would just drift into a deep sleep. The funny thing is, most of the time I would wake up with such changed and almost positive mindset to start the day that is almost comical. There is nothing in me but determination to compensate all the bad that had just happened the night before with whole new purpose and drive.

Such behaviors have been putting a strain in my relationship. My partner has to put up with my occasion outburst, and that is just so much he can take. On the other hand, there were times that I wanted to let him know that he had upset me, but I couldn’t be sure if it was my objective judgment or just these episode working me. So I chose to keep it in, not knowing that that would actually breed on to more of these negative pressure in me, drawing the date of outburst one step closer.

Each time it happened, I learned a little more about the triggers and how to control the outburst better. Usual culprits are lack of quality sleep, prolonged bottling up of emotions, lack of quality communication with close ones, and most recently discovered and also most unexpected– strong dose of caffeine and lack of sex. I know the key to control the outburst is to find my calm and so far it seems yoga has been great for me to do that. The issue is consistency and learning to do it with my mind and not just the body.

Of course, these will not be enough as they are not addressing the root of the problem. To do that, I would need professional help to analyze and fix my mental state. I tried googling but there is too much overlap of symptoms across the many different mental illnesses. Sometimes I even feel envious when I see someone could name their mental illness out so surely: “Hi everyone, I have schizophrenia/ bipolar disorder / borderline personality disorder / depression…” At the end of the day, everyone has had mental health issues at one point of their lives and I just wish people would talk and share more about it, cos you never know who you will be helping with yours words.