On Being Irrational.

I freak out quite easily when it comes to guys. I think I'm great at calming down friends when they have irrational moments, but I'm like an inconsolable hurricane when I am freaking out about a particular situation concerning a particular guy.

It can be the most minor incident, but I will overanalyze and jump to conclusions; message or call a flurry of friends (though I'm getting better at this); and be adamant about my crazy steps forward.

Sometimes crazy is just crazy, and irrational is just irrational. I think, as friends, we want to be there for our girls. Support them during times of need, with the understanding that not everything is black and white, and sometimes we need to have our moment in order to feel better. The problem is when those moments spill over into our relationships, and affect the ones we claim to love/like/whatever. When we pull them into our vortex and try to rattle them as much as we have been rattled. I fortunately have not done this very often (rarely, in fact), but I have come close. Sometimes it's not enough to just let my wild emotions out into the open. Sometimes I need to sleep on them. Sometimes I need to be slapped and told that I'm out of line or taking a situation way too far. Sometimes black and white is right, and grey is bullshit.

I've spent a good deal of my life pent up. I was also a late bloomer, and considering my daddy issues, I think a lot of my pent up emotions had to do with him. When it comes to men, I have a very sensitive trigger. I'm very hard on them. Too hard on them. I expect failure. I expect them to hurt me, and with those expectations my reactions to various behaviors or events tend to be very disproportionate to the perceived wrong. Sometimes I need to be told I'm wrong.

I always come around, but somehow I don't really think that's good enough. I need a way to manage my expectations - both positive and negative - so that I do not ultimately sabotage my relationships.

After being impenetrable for so long with my steely armor, I seem to have gone on an emotional binge, and while I think it's good in one respect (it acts as a much needed release), it is absolutely bad in another.

I'll spend the rest of the year (and onward) finding my middle ground.