Dealing with a break-down

I went out with some friends yesterday. Everything was great, but sometime during the evening, my act took control. I didn't even realize when that happened. All I knew was that I was feeling miserable, uncomfortable & and a bit afraid. And as hard as I tried then, I was not able to deal with the breakdown. I couldn't even think. All I could hear was my inner voice shouting at the top of it's volume. It was going berserk. All I could think about was my opinions & judgments about others and what they must be thinking about me. There was no reason to panic. But it was a turmoil inside me. I couldn't even understand what was going on then. Of course I felt 'stupid' .. my act was in control, and we have not been the best of pals lately. :)

So I was feeling even more miserable today morning. Everything that happened yesterday seemed to point out that what a fool I had made of myself, even though nothing like that had happened. My act was shouting out loud: "now you know why you need me?", "I am your best friend", "no life without me", "you need me", "that landmark thing can't make you look cool, it makes you look like a complete idiot", "we used to never fucking lose before. And look at you now ..", "I ... am .. your best fucking friend". I was at my wits end. I didn't know how to end that voice. So I just thought how I dealt with break-downs before.

I tried to re-read the blog. But this blog helps only when I am writing it. When I am writing each post, I am just writing whatever comes to my mind. That increases the clarity in my mind. But when I re-read it, my act makes it unreal. It makes it look like a story (plus it points out all the typos as well). So after each post I re-read .. I would hear in my mind "not helping is it? Nothing will .. you cannot live like this ..".

So here's what I did (like the last few times):

I started recounting the previous day's events. I started from the time I felt the first breakdown. But my act won't let me remember anything. Again the same conversation. Again the same forgetfulness and the enveloping hopelessness. So I concentrated more and somehow arrived at the first event I remembered from the day. Then I began recounting how I felt at that time. Finally I arrived at the exact moment the first breakdown happened. And then in each scene of the story, I began to see how my act ("you are stupid") changed the occurrence of the event. Just doing this exercise automatically separated the 'what happened' from the 'story'. When I opened my eyes again, I felt much better. There was a final try from my act (to avoid remembering the rest of the day's events), but I overcame that and recounted all the events.

I caused a breakthrough. I feel great again!

And now I am confident that I can cause breakthroughs again & again. Time to develop some muscle in this area now.