I wonder if I'm the only one that isn't just reminded of how I felt at a certain point of time (by a certain event or song, or just by how someone is reacting to me), but I feel it all over again as if it is physically happening to me at that exact time. So many songs have such strong emotions attached to them that I can't even listen to them. Even if the emotion is a good one, sometimes, it's actually too strong and I just can't handle it when I'm not in that mind-frame.
Weather is huge for me. That's one of the reasons I love summer so much is because of the emotions that it holds me for me. I've been through some pretty rough times during the colder seasons (besides your average case of SAD, but that never helps much). Anniversaries come easy to me because there is a direct emotion attached to dates and seasons. It's one of those weird things that I can just kind of feel. Of course, this leaves me with reminders for anniversaries of things you wouldn't even think to mark, but it leads me to rock at birthdays and vet appointments. The anniversary of my accident is May 24th and the anniversary of bringing home my baby boy (of the feline variety) is October 12th.
Three days ago was the anniversary of my last day at PortraitSimple, before I took medical leave. I had such an absurd panic attack about the fact that I could possibly - accidentally - kill myself that my mom had to bring me to the ER so I could be reassured I wasn't on the verge of a heart attack. There, of course, was no way of getting out of that one without a little extra hospital time. I called my manager and told her I wouldn't be coming back for a while. My next anniversary is in three days.
The emotions attached to this time of year are confusing for me. The past 3 years, I've been in treatment around this time, or at least was approaching it. Last year is the time that really stuck and everything that came with that is rushing back to me, now: how it felt to want to starve myself (for the record, I can feel the emotion; it doesn't mean I feel the urge to do so), how it felt to know that I was going to be forced to drop my whole life, my job, my education that I was so close to finishing, how it felt to know that I was letting everyone down that I loved, how embarrassing it would be to tell my friends that I'm going to have to go back to treatment. At the same time, the weather is frighteningly similar right now as it is to the end of the winter when I was finishing up my treatment cycle at Walden. Fuck, that felt good, but it's confusing to feel that emotion at the same time as those that came with the beginning of the process.
This is going to be an interesting winter for me.
1 comment:
You're certainly not the only one who has strong emotions attached to seasons and anniversaries. With seasons, for me, it's fall. Though I love fall, it leaves me in conflict as there is always a lot of nostalgia in relation to the ED, a bad car accident, and other health and mental issues.
With anniversaries, I will probably always have some association with my birthday and my father almost dying. I spent my 24th birthday there in the ICU. But on the other hand, I remember joyous occasions like all my dogs' birthdays and the date I was naturalized as a US citizen.
I think it is sometimes good to be able to feel the emotion so strongly, because it gives us perspective on where we've been and how far we've come.
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