Meltdown!

About a month ago, I went off of my medicine in anticipation of getting pregnant.  I had learned enough anxiety-coping techniques to get by, right?  How wrong I was!  I could feel anxiety creeping back into my mind, and even with my coping techniques, it wasn't backing down.  The straw that broke the camel's back was when I went to take care of my tadpoles and saw two of them were dead!  Something had killed them!  I don't know exactly what happened, but I...SNAPPED!  I scooped the remaining tadpoles out of the tank and dumped out the water (I still don't know how that was supposed to help.)  I realized after the fact that I had no spring water to replace it with, so I rushed off to Walmart to buy some more, my mind abuzz with anxiety and irritability.  Walking through the store, I probably looked like this:

What people didn't see (and I'm sure glad they couldn't) was the internal conflict between my True Self and my Anxiety-Ridden Self:

"Get out of my way, dumb people!  My tadpoles - a summer's worth of sweat and tears - are dying as we speak!  Grrrrrr!  Get out of my way!"
 "Please, calm down!  You can't treat people like that.  Everything is going to be all right."
"Shut up, you!"

 
I was so angry about my tadpoles dying ("They can't die after all the hard work I put into them!") and distraught that they would all die ("See? I'm worthless at everything I do!") I proceeded to fill my cart with over $100 worth of fish supplies to start from scratch.  The internal conflict continued:

"What are you thinking?  Don't buy all that stuff!  You don't need it!  You are just being anxious."
"No, I have to buy this stuff NOW!  It's the only way to save my tadpoles!  Grrrrrrr!"

I then proceed to the checkout, like this:

The moment of truth had come.  I was just about to checkout and buy all this fish stuff that I didn't really need, fueled by anxiety and rage.  Finally, one thought rose above the others: "What will Ben (my husband) think when he sees all this stuff, and finds out how much money I spent?"  It was in that moment that I came to my senses.  I slowly looked down at all of the stuff in my cart, and said:

 "What am I doing?"

I slowly, and calmly, returned all of the fish supplies, bought the spring water I originally went for, and left Walmart.  I went home and refilled the tank and replaced the tadpoles.  The anxiety madness had passed, and left me feeling stupid and ashamed.  I shared the story with Ben and my mom, and they both thought it was pretty funny.  I realized that, really, it was.  Anxiety made it feel like such a big deal in the moment, but it was all very comical.  The next day, I could smile and laugh at my meltdown, and blog about it, too.  :)    Why am I sharing this?  Because maybe there's someone out there who has gone through a similar experience.  In my case, my meltdown was centered on my tadpoles, but it could have been anything.  Cleaning the house, exercising, remodeling, anything that could cause someone to rush off and spend lots of money to start over again.  If you have gone through something like this, please know that you are not alone.  Meltdowns are a part of life, and once survived, can give us a good laugh afterwards.