Today I was having a chill day off, and then I had a negative spiral of thoughts. I was watching a YouTube video about implicit bias in Zootopia, which made me feel a bit uneasy because I have complicated views on equality apparently. And then I saw another comedic video on birth control, and that one really made me uncomfortable and brought up complicated feelings on sexism for me. So I was feeling anger and sadness and such. Given my previous experience, I would not really benefit from continuing to mull over my thoughts in a journal, and I didn’t seem interested in a distraction like a movie or a video game.
So I called my boyfriend, who was just getting home from an errand, and I met him for a walk. I was telling him about feeling uneasy and not being sure whether I should just be trying to focus on distractions to calm down or to actually vent to him about my thoughts and seek empathy. Ultimately, we went back home and just hung out, talking about other random things. By focusing more on what I’m grateful for with him, the worrying thoughts became less important.
I am pleased with this small victory today because this time of me having a pretty disproportionate emotional reaction to an innocuous video could have gone worse. I may have just started getting overwhelmed and crying whilst my boyfriend did his own thing and had to deal with a sad me. In the past, I’ve wanted my boyfriend to comfort me in a way he is not used to and then we’ve gotten distressed about the state of our communication and relationship. I just feel a lot of annoyance when it comes to my reactions and emotions, so being able to take a positive step when my head is feeling like spaghetti to live my life anyway is wonderful to me. I practiced the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy idea of still enjoying my party, even though the annoying guest I didn’t want or invite showed up. I know I’m a pretty sensitive person, and I feel overwhelmed a lot. So yeah, I thought today there was some progress.
