Day 5 - Freak outs (or The keys, The clock, and The apartment house)

My first freak out of the year was yesterday. Freak outs, for me personally, and for the whole family are simultaneously frightening, embarrassing, tragic, sad, tumultuous and cathartic. If this seems overly dramatic, I assure you, I exaggerate only slightly. I wouldn’t want to get too detailed on what happens when I actually have a freak out, I just couldn’t handle it. But I do have a kind of mental picture I can draw, which is both reasonably accurate, but not so pathetic as it really is. The picture is basically the three stooges on crystal meth. Except the three stooges are only one person, like they’re kind of fused together  - Larry, Curly and Mo – all just kind of buzzing around in their own special tizzy. Hopefully that paints a picture, or at the very least lends itself to the general direction of a freak out event in our house.

Freak outs are almost 100% brought on by misplacing a fairly basic, but essential item, typically house keys. It can also be eye glasses, a favorite tee-shirt or sock, a magazine article, the remote (goodness don’t we all know that one!), or a receipts for a bottle of wine I drank on my flight home which I’m contemplating whether or not to claim on my next expense report. In this particular case it was the company’s wireless adaptor and memory stick I needed to return to my local office before transferring to my new assignment. By returning these items I would successfully receive a signature on a special form called the “leavers checklist”. And subsequently, by completely the leaver’s checklist, would be entitled to receive the outstanding balance of salary, vacation and expenses. Which in turn are equally intertwined with household bills, holiday shopping, the new grill, and the recently considered spring vacation in a warm sunny destination. In one brief, but very swift moment a misplaced “computer accessory” became the equivalent a month and-a-half's salary being flushed down the toilet - then the circuits break and I blow a fuse.

It’s a regular pattern since my earliest days and I’m still trying to figure it out. The closet I’ve gotten is an Austrian hypnotist (not exactly, but that is the best way I can describe it for now) who has gotten me to anchor these feelings with a simple symbol – my house keys. When I have them, which is most of the time I feel calm. Because I almost always have them, I am in fact a calm person. But sometimes I don’t, and I feel otherwise. That otherwise in my case is ‘unacceptable’. If I can relieve my feelings of being ‘unacceptable’, and anchor my reality of being calm, something changes. This is where I am at the moment. I also have two other “emotional pairs” and corresponding symbols. These are feelings of bitterness vs. being secure, symbolized by “home” or a house; and feelings of being overwrought vs. being prepared and willing, symbolized by a clock. (reminder _ attach lost keys scene from another happy day)