My Thanksgiving Meltdown

I had a complete and utter meltdown on Thanksgiving. If I'm being completely honest, I should have seen it coming.

It started innocently enough... I was trying a new recipe to bring to our family's Thanksgiving meal, a roasted butternut squash puree. I was supposed to roast the squash for 45 minutes. About 15 minutes in, my kitchen was filled with smoke as the butter and honey were running onto the bottom of the oven and burning. Nothing was on fire, just lots and lots of smoke. Smoke detector was going off, I couldn't breathe, and I had to open my back door and screen to my front door to get a draft through to air it out... and let the 30 degree weather inside my house. I left the oven on for another 15 minutes and then turned it off and left the squash in the oven, hoping that another 15 minutes with the oven off but still warm would be good enough.

Well, no surprise, it wasn't good enough and the squash was still pretty hard. By this time I'm on the phone with my mom and upset about the recipe not working, but not wanting to show up without anything. And so even though it's not her fault, I start yelling at her and saying I'm not coming to Thanksgiving dinner and they should just go without me. We get into a huge fight and then my mind really goes dark. I just keep thinking to myself, "I'm such a failure. I fail at everything. I failed out of school (not really, just didn't finish my Ph.D. after I received my master's, but that was little solace to the way I was feeling right then), I fail at all my relationships, I fail at being a good friend since I'm more jealous than happy for S and her engagement, I fail as a daughter since I just yelled at my mom for no reason, I fail at cooking, I fail at keeping my house clean..." Just on and on in my mind.

I finally opted to nuke the squash and it turned out pretty good, although I think more people didn't like it than liked it (mostly because I have a fairly close-minded family about trying new things). But we were about 45 minutes late for dinner and everyone had to wait for us. And truthfully I was in a funk the rest of the day.

As I said, I shouldn't have been surprised really. I had been in somewhat of a funk since the weekend before with the whole Juice thing and fighting with S. I had really closed in on myself. Hadn't really been eating and in fact lost like 5 pounds in as many days because of it. I think sometimes I fake being happy for too long and don't allow myself to really feel the pain of whatever I'm feeling and then when it finally bubbles to the surface it unleashes this whirlwind that I can't stop.

I really am better now. Having been a pysch major I know the signs of depression and I'm really not. It seems like it sometimes. Last week I was. This week, I'm better. I'm eating again and getting excited about Christmas. I'm determined not to have another meltdown during that day!

I'm not sure there's a point to this post. Just needed to get it out there I guess.