What am I feeling?? Help

[pamcake1220]

I hope I don't bore you to death with my detail here. d:

Hi I'm Michele and I'm in highschool. I've always been "the overachiever" among everyone who knows me and I do a lot of personal thinking and prefer to stick with a few friends rather then a lot. I've had a great boyfriend for two years now (we are really just loving best friends who have intimate interaction and hold hands) and he is very supportive and kind to me. I used to live with my dad, who was controlling and threatened to do extreme things (i.e. shave my head of hair which I love so dearly) if I didn't live up to his expectations, make good grades, and STAY AWAY FROM BOYS. Now I live with my mom, who really likes my boyfriend and works to facilitate our relationship. My mom is also very kind, loving, and easygoing but sometimes I feel like she doesn't listen to me when I talk. We fight sometimes, really just over "teenager stuff."

My whole life, I've been very self aware and contemplative about my feelings and actions. I realize that I have irrational jealously and sudden bouts of rage (not anger, rage) for no apparent reason. I VERY frequently lash out at whoever will listen (usually my boyfriend) if something small is bothering me, but I always end up in tears shortly after because I know what I did was wrong and feel bad for attacking the person. I have wild mood swings and unintentionally pick fights a lot with people I love. I also have odd anxiety in social settings where I feel very uncomfortable with meeting new people, especially when I don't know anyone in the room.

Lately, after a very close uncle of mine died in a horrific car accident in August (leaving his wife and two-year-old son), I've been feeling... sad. And hopeless. And futile. Like my life, and everyone's lives, really don't matter because we'll all die anyway.

I have very specific recurring nightmares about witnessing plane crashes near my house; home invasions; mass shootings; and watching my family being tortured and slaughtered as I watch, powerless, then I too am killed. I wake up crying, shaking, and sweating at least 4-5 days a week. The "impending doom" feeling lurks at the back of my mind every day at school and in public places; I have to go to the nurse's office or my gifted counselor at least 3 times a week to help cope with it.

All these negative outbursts and thoughts have decreased my motivation and productivity school-wise and domestically. My grades have fallen by about 7-10 points per class (whole letter grades!) whereas I've always done my absolute best to stay a straight-A student. I don't feel like I should care, because I'll only get let down and discouraged over and over again. I've almost stopped cleaning my room altogether whereas I've ALWAYS been a "brink-of-OCD clean freak" about the tidiness of where I live, sleep, and eat.

I also have acne, extreme PMS (mood swings, bloating, cramps, and headaches so bad I stay home from school some days), and I'm always ravenously hungry. I guess I eat decently and I climb stairs at home and at school everyday though because I'm 5'1" and weigh about 110lbs. Although I have gained weight, which also makes me demotivated.

What is all this horrible crap I'm feeling?? None of my tried-and-true coping strategies work anymore and this has been the case for about 4 months... What do you all suggest?

[cloudy black]

hello pamcake1220 welcome to the forum. have you had any counseling to help with your mood swings? is that available at your high school? sometimes when we have so much on our mind it is difficult cope. and that is no reflection on you. the fact that you are aware of your mood swings is helpful albeit a nuisance for you and others is a good start and i know that it certainly doesnt feel like that right now and thats why maybe counseling might be worth considering to talk through and make sense of these impulses that are due to your mood swings.

[Snakeadelic]

Like my life, and everyone's lives, really don't matter because we'll all die anyway.

Here's my theory: Yup, the one true certainty of life is that we have not found a way to extend it indefinitely. To quote a favorite movie (Godzilla: Tokyo SOS): "Life must be lived in the time nature allows". (Yes, that's really from a Godzilla movie. Grandpa Chujo is awesome! :)) I find my existential dilemmas and the torment of nightmares like yours have both been greatly reduced since I came to believe that whatever comes after the life we know now, we will be judged on how we met the challenges placed in our lives. I do believe there is true evil in the world and in some people, and that those people will be held accountable and made to suffer for their wrongs. I have my limits, but until I find them I lock horns with my challenges as often and as powerfully as I can make happen. The hardest thing for me to do, most times, is reach out to a stranger for help--strangers, especially in crowds, are a HUGE panic-attack trigger for me. The one weird exception, for a ray of levity in a serious conversation, is small-venue concerts, particularly surprising considering I have appalling taste in music :D. 80s hair metal, 70s "album-oriented radio" paleo-rock, and psychobilly. Really. I think the lack of panic comes from the sense of anonymity when the house lights are down...although annoying bass players can start making me antsy; for some reason they're always the ones who notice and hate the little red light on the front of my camera.

One thing I cannot stress enough to young women is get your thyroid and ovarian hormone levels checked. Because no one ever checked my thyroid when I was a teenager, I have permanent hand tremors and a heart arrhythmia! Doctors kept putting me on birth control, from the time I was 13, and my mom had to have me yanked off it 3 times before I was even IN high school because it made me psychotic. The real problem turned out to be two-pronged: I had undiagnosed Graves' Disease and I'd been essentially dipped in Agent Orange (seriously) from the ages of 11-14. Once the thyroid imbalance was corrected, the birth control stopped making me worse. I'm VERY lucky that my thyroid normalized itself after about 5 years on Synthroid, but I'm 45 now and my hands still shake and my heart still gets wonky when I'm over-stressed.

[Ponder]

I think there would be less evil if people were more accountable in their waking states as opposed too fobbing off such responsibility until after death. Such is as convenient of the Second Coming of yadda yadda. Then masses of "can do no wrong" align streets praising the destruction of some other form unlike them. The so called evil in this world is no more than a self fulfilling prophesy that passes the buck with both punishment and reward after death.

... it's almost laughable if not so sad, that they dare to call others fools.

Of course that is only one of "many" stories, although very similar to those at least a hundred thousand years before the rehashed version of Jesus,Mohammed bla bla blaaa, take a pick. We now have Hollywood and a billion other forms of escape.

People typically deceive themselves in order to paint a better picture - Accountability takes place in this life, not some imagined next. Creating a next, is akin to fobbing off this life's problems, like those who are brainwashed into thinking they take up arms in the name of peace ... to rid us all of evil. The protagonists and story lines used in this pathetic world are so boooooaring. Same old shit.

Wake me up when there is a new script. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Ponder]

Pay less into what others think and start looking after yourself. Things could worse. I'm taking a page out of grandmas book on this one.