Meltdowns come in a variety of forms and permutations. Children have them because they cannot articulate their needs in appropriate ways. Teens and young adults have them because they’re riddled with confusing hormones and conflicting needs. We adults have them too. In my case, it was because there were a million little things that build up over time. Eventually I get to the breaking point and I lose my shit. I end up yelling and crying, usually at my husband. Sometimes he’s the catalyst, and sometimes he isn’t, but more often than not he’s the target of the explosion.

I’ve gotten a lot better as I’ve gotten older. My meltdowns used to be MUCH worse for the person that ended up getting the full force of my wrath. What’s worse is that I used to be a “stuffer”. I’d stuff my feelings down and swallow them until there was just no room left inside me to stuff another feeling, until I exploded over someone. Too many times my roommate or boyfriend would be the sad soul to get the brunt of it. However, in many cases my then-boyfriend was the cause of much of my frustration.

These days my meltdowns are fewer and less devastating to both me and the other person. I’ve learned to try and communicate my feelings about situations as they arise and in a more constructive manner. Of course, we are all human, and I’m certainly not perfect. I’m a work in progress just as any other. So when I say I had a pretty gnarly meltdown yesterday, trust me, it was not pretty.

I’ve been harboring some feelings in the hopes that they would somehow subside, or that I could mentally deal with them and move on. Unfortunately, that just hasn’t been the case. Instead, there have just been more and more things to pile up on top of the heap. Of course the final straw was something that really shouldn’t have been as big as it was, but once I started yelling, it was all over.

Dinner was that final straw.

I was hungry, tired, frustrated, and still had not dealt with some underlying feelings and when I tried to talk about it, I got some arguing back and that was it. But really, what made me snap was about dinner.

So obviously, I’ve got a lot to work on as days go on. It was good that I was finally able to speak my piece though, albeit loudly with some tears. I feel a little lighter and that we can go forward from where we have been spinning. I don’t know that my husband feels exactly the same way, but I know he was able to say how he’s been feeling about certain things, and I hope we’ve come to a space of understanding.