My youngest daughter introduced me to the concept of mini meltdowns a couple of years ago. Of course I had been having them for all of my life, but the label really helps. I think we all recognize a mini meltdown, that feeling of the blood leaving your head, that weird feeling in the stomach, and most importantly, that feeling that life will ALWAYS feel that bad. UGH. It’s like the black hole of forever.
Daniel Golbberg, Stumbling on Happiness, discusses the fact that as humans we have an almost IMPOSSIBLE time at predicting how we will feel in the future. So, if we are feeling blue now, imagining we will feel anything but blue is not part of our wiring.
Following any loss I have experienced, be it death, loss of a job, children leaving home I never thought I would ever manage to move beyond that endless emptiness. And of course, that would be when I would choose to journal. Life sucks, I have no friends, I will never be happy again. So, when happiness hits I frequently “forget” what the mini meltdown felt like…I certainly didn’t journal about being happy.
I have a friend who has challenged herself to a year of taking photos and creating a digital scrapbook. Not being a forever or even a yearly girl, I decided for “right now” to take a picture daily of something I am grateful for. I am going to build my journal around those photos. It’s kinda neat to look beyond what is and find something, anything, that warms me up.
It’s 19 degrees here. Four months following my late husband’s death and following the first Christmas my three girls and I spent without him, we came home to a very cold house. Long story short, the furnace went out. Busted. So for what seemed like months I had no heat, except for a space heater in the back room. It was a crazy time, but a friend brought me an electric blanket, friends came and cleaned up the flood created by the breaking of the frozen pipes. People were good to me.
The new furnace was expensive. Really expensive, but I had never bought a furnace before. I was furious at my late husband (it happens, that’s ok) because there was a bucket in the furnace room and I thought….hmmm he knew that thing was gonna blow. After all it was really old.
Yesterday when it was 9 degrees I went out and took a picture of my now “not new” furnace. And, instead of slumping into the awful feelings I remember having at the time of one of many MAJOR MELTDOWNS I got warm inside. I remembered the incredible kindness of people teaching me how to use a wet vac, the coziness of a borrowed electric blanket, the generosity of people cheering me up.
But, what I remember most of all was the lesson I learned during that period, and it’s a lesson I have to learn again and again during major or mini meltdowns. I really believed I was the only person in this town with a broken furnace, flooded carpet, and ruined sheetrock. The only one experiencing pain and discomfort. My “teacher” was the great young man working for a carpet restoration company who came out with industrial fans to dry the carpets. He told me the story of a family he had to go help after he left my house. Not only did their pipes freeze and break, but the septic or sewer system had backed up and they had septic and sewer waste throughout the home they had just finished building.
So, not that that made my meltdown any less horrible to me, it did remind me, we are never alone. There is always someone out there who is our companion as we survive yet another meltdown. Reaching out, lending a hand is sometimes the very best path to getting over your own mini meltdown
So, don’t go it alone.
Beth
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
dear beth,
i am new to this blog, but wanted to tell you that what you wrote was an inspiration to me. and today i needed it. thank you.
This is great info to know.
yup so sorry to hear of your loss, but inspired by your message. Nanci Griffith sings, “It’s a Hard Life, It’s a Very Hard Life” Have a great trip.