I'm melting...

I'll start out by linking to this article called "What a meltdown feels like for an autistic person" that was linked from Unstrange Mind on Facebook.  You can read that first if you like, it's pretty good.

"It’s never just a sandwich."

Lately I've been having more and more difficulty maintaining my emotional equilibrium.  I've found myself having not-quite-meltdowns dozens of times a day, snapping at people, ranting uncontrollably about whatever the new "outrage of the day" is, flipping off drivers on the highway and being rude and obnoxious to everyone around me from work to home and in-between.  

So what in the world is going on?  

"It’s never just a sandwich."

 I'm right on the edge of a full blown embarrassing meltdown.  I can feel it out there lurking on the fringes of my mind, just waiting for the final trigger, the last straw, the one last little drop of water to start the flood the last pebble to begin the landslide.  I'm hanging on with my fingers, but my fingers are getting tired and I'm afraid I'm going to lose my grip any minute.

"It's never just a sandwich."

 The truth is the world is out of control.  My personal world and the world around us all as well.  I look at the news and I see lunatics running the planet!  The police are shooting civilians right and left for no plausible reason and now some crazy people are shooting the police in the same insane way, random violence with no purpose is everywhere on all sides of the blue line.  It's insane.

My personal world is full of stress as well.  There are all sorts of little issues, and big ones too, at home and at work that are starting to get under my skin a lot.  These are on top of the regular chaos of living with many people and working in a city I hate.  Noise!  Noise!  Noise!  Noise!  Noise!  Noise! 
Flickering lights.  Smells.  But it's mostly the Noise!  Noise!  Noise!  Noise!  Noise!  Noise!  Noise! 

Cars and trucks and horns and sirens and fans and clicking of switches and talking and yelling and screaming and clanking of hand-trucks over the threshold of the doors, bells on elevators, the punching of keys on the phone in the adjoining lobby, motorcycles roaring by...  All have begun to crash around inside my skull bashing my attention into a pulp... Every sound around me is equal in demanding attention and I can't filter them out and I'm getting very edgy day after day.

I think I need a time-out.  :-)  I need a couple of days all by myself, in a quiet place.  Of course there is no longer any quiet place, I've been miles out in the wilderness and heard and seen planes flying high overhead.  There is no quiet left on earth.  Maybe I need to find a cave.  Yes, that would be the ticket right there. 

So far I've been hiding my impending meltdown behind a veil of anti-government rants and borderline crazy pontificating about Turks and Police and Trump and Hillary. 

 "It's never just a sandwich."

The tears are just behind my eyes, waiting to flow, being held back by sheer bull-headed stubbornness and desperation.  The screams and flinging of shit into the air is right there under the surface. 

But I'm OK if you ask, yes, I'm fine, it's all good.  God has everything under control, don't you know?  But it doesn't feel like it to me at all, it's like He's gone and the whole world is spinning into chaos...

So, if I explode into tears and rage and a puddle of undignified sobbing... "It's never just a sandwich."

I don't need advice on what to do about it.  I know what I need to do about it.  It's a matter of making the things happen that need to happen without triggering the flood in the process.  I'll be fine... really it's all good.  "It's never just a sandwich."