Why I Almost Cried at Work Yesterday

[This Story is inspired by this awesome thought process idea from Kate]

Let me backtrack for a moment.
As you may have read somewhere, I tend to be a perfectionist.
No where is this truer than in my assimilation of information.
I hold the opinion [mainly from large reinforcement from my teachers and family]
that I am a fairly well read and intellectual individual.
Ever since this discovery was made,
(early childhood as far back as I can remember)
I've always been pushed for greatness.
No this isn't one of those times I'm going to blame society for making me an overly neurotic freak.
I'm just sharing a bit of back story.

So with this expectation clutched close to my delicate formulative psyche,
I developed the expectation that I should learn and grasp and excel
at all information/new learning I was given the first time around.
And you know what?
Most times I did.
I was fortunate that way.
But another problem arose;
When I didn't? I suffered an immense meltdown.


source

My mom got calls even.
Calls that I was sobbing uncontrollably and nearly hysterical.
Why?
Because I didn't understand something.
I think this was the bare bones of my anxiety that I carry around with me began.
It wasn't pressure from everyone else,
it was pressure from myself and my perpetual need to please.
My need to make everyone happy and proud,
to ensure my intelligence and ability were never doubted.
As time passed, I began to learn more and better ways to cope with this.
And I thought I had moved past that time in my adult life.

Cue yesterday.

Yesterday wasn't my brightest shining moment.
I held it together, but I felt like I was in school all over again.
Presented with an overwhelming tidal wave of information,
I could just feel it seeping into my brain,
but my brain was already an over-saturated sponge,
and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to keep that information in.
And as I felt it dripping back away out of my memory and retention,
I felt that heavy riptide of emotion and down right panic beginning to well up.
Though luckily, I fought it from my eyes.

My supervisor is a lovely lady,
who puts no pressure on me whatsoever.
She tells me I'm doing well all the time.
But she knew something was wrong. Said I was giving her 'serious face'.
I quietly assured her it was fine, and was determined not to show her my 'sobbing like a four year old child' face.
After reassuring me [again] that I didn't need to pick up on this all right now,
we sat down to take some notes on what we'd just went over.

But I just felt helpless. Hopeless. Lost.
I knew the rest of my day wasn't going to go over well until I'd had myself a cry.
But I refused to be the girl who was crying on her fourth day.
GAH!
She asked me what was wrong,
and I just assured her I was trying to make sure I was learning everything,
said I was fine for about the millionth time,
and luckily my boss came along to check on us and I had a moment to reel it in.
My supervisor, not so easily fooled, told me to take a break afterwards and to
'come back when I wasn't frustrated anymore'.
She's a saint, really.

So, I went out to what I have mentally deemed as my quiet bench.
It's a bench that resides outside the hospital,
and is typically unoccupied and it's not too busy in front of it.
It's outside, and it's usually quiet.
A place already I use to unwind a bit if I need to.


source

Unwinding yesterday included calling my mom and shedding a few tears.
I sniffled and told her how overwhelmed I was feeling,
and let it out for a moment.
I'm not afraid to be honest with my supervisor,
I usually tell her when I'm feeling overwhelmed and we're fine.
But today I just had that overwhelming emotional panic,
and I couldn't 'unleash the whole crazy train' on her after four days.
An actual quote I told her yesterday.
I'm glad I did, and it allowed me to set it aside and try to move on for the rest of my day.

Needless to say, my main problem with this whole situation
is that I thought I had moved past this overreaching perfectionism to learn something instantly.
Maybe I just haven't had to learn anything in a while.
I have no idea. I'm still feeling a bit drained.
Maybe I'll have an epiphany later.
I guess I just wanted to share one of those moments of my reality,
where my life isn't quite so sunshiney.
"Tell the story of your “ordinary.” "

Am I the only one?