For a good part of my life, it has been hard to keep my emotions under control. Throughout time, constantly prompting, reminding and psychotherapy sessions, I have been able to continue to work at keeping my emotions under control. It has never been easy, but through hard work and dedication, it has gotten better. I have learned that it takes many things to keep my emotions in check and as much as I hated to do some things, within time I had learned that through my own trial and error, that some things just must be for me to manage my emotions.

If you knew me as I am today, you would not know that I could have feverish meltdowns that as of late consisted of a profanity-laced tirade because of the intolerable circumstances caused me to flare up into a horrific meltdown, partly because I had been fueling myself with constant sugar and caffeine. Last year, I had to make the tough decision of eliminating caffeine from my food intake and it has helped me control my emotions significantly. As much as I was a doubter that it would, it has helped me improve my emotions and my body in many ways from where it was back then.

Sometimes it is finding the right things to work. Sometimes it is those things that are proven to work and as much as I had denied it for the longest time, it took me to realize that what had been set in place for a long time has been proven to work for a reason and that I just needed to do what I needed to do to ensure that I stayed on track, otherwise I would not have had the relapses that I had in the past six years.

When I was not myself and others had raised concerns to my treatment team, I had believed that they were gaining up on me because they did not like the way I was acting. It took me to reach a moment that I needed to look at myself and realize that I was scaring people and that drastic things could happen if I did not reel it in. I could lose everything if I did not get everything under control. Sometimes the right things come into place and are said and for me that is what it finally took to get things right for me.

When I was unable to keep my emotions under control and I was lashing out at others, I was being someone that I did not want to be for those who valued me for who they knew me as. I felt ashamed of the way that I was acting and even toward those that I had feelings of anger towards, there is a part of me that wants to take responsibility for my actions that caused them to react negatively. That is not the person that I truly am. That was my emotions talking on a very reactive day on which I had reached my limit of tolerance.

 In the end, I am planning to end 2024 on a good note and work towards being better in 2025. Although nothing is perfect, striving to do better with more consistency is what I am looking to do with turning around the behaviors that I was having that were not valuable to me. I know that I have the potential to make things better for me and that is what I intend to do.