When life floods, taking it one step at a time
Emotional overwhelm rises, peaks and hangs out, then recedes.
Space and grace help get through.
Even after gobs of inner work to get unstuck from despair and build my tolerance to handle difficult situations, I can still feel flooded (completely overwhelmed) and find myself heading toward shutdown. It's sometimes called being activated or triggered, but I've been experimenting with the word flooded. That's how it feels, and activated sounds a bit vague, while triggered makes me think of being shot by a gun.
So, I'm trying out flooded.
A few weeks ago, I was flooded. System overload. System shutdown.
When it happens, you usually know that something is terribly wrong. You might have the urge to flee. Or fight. If you can't do one of those, you might freeze, shut down, or react with pleasing. You probably already know all this.
Knowing it kind of helps when it's happening, but kind of doesn't. I still end up a confused mess struggling to function in a bowl of chaos.
Here's what I’ve re-learned in the last few weeks:
You never know when it will happen.
You never know what, why, who, where, or how it will happen.
It feels like you're not in reality, which is strange because you are, in fact, operating in reality.
Everything is confusing: thinking, feeling, sensing.
Panic sets in. How long will this last—forever? What will this ruin? How will I get through this? Will I make it through this?
In my confused state, this question helped: What do I need?
This helped me take small steps—one at a time—to move through it.
For me, the flooding doesn't happen all at once. It builds up over time. Here's what it looks like.
Years ago, I didn't realize all this flooding was even happening to me; I just knew I didn't feel like myself. It might last for days or weeks. I would eventually recover, and then, too soon, it would happen again. The episodes piled together, making it seem like life was always that way.
Unknowingly during the personal flood a few weeks ago, I was trying to figure out what happened and why. About 24 hours into it, I thought of this:
Years ago, I would have stayed in that situation. Now, I had the capability to make choices about what I needed, and I had left.
Then I thought of this:
This article I wrote a few months ago, and how I didn't need to know why I was flooded. I write to help even one person, and here it was helping me.
Instantly I felt better. Slightly more relaxed. Slightly more clarity. The flooding started to recede.
It's easy to say now, of course, that a flood won't last forever. It took a couple more weeks to feel like myself again. But I got through it.
One step at a time.
Complement with Sometimes Asking “Why?” Makes Things Worse