Dear Controlling Me: When Control Feels Safer Than Uncertainty

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Do you ever wonder which things you do are actually based on protecting yourself?

I do not mean the things that truly keep you safe.

I mean the things that make you feel protected, even when they do not really protect you at all.

For me, I control my surroundings.

I control my environment.

I overplan.

I overthink.

I like everything to have its own place.

I like things to fit inside the boxes I have created for them.

And when something does not fit inside the box, I do not become less controlling.

I become more controlling.

I become more anxious.

I start trying to fix everything around me because I do not know how to fix what is happening inside me.

When You Pretend You Are Not Bothered

Last night, I was talking to a friend.

I laughed.

I joked.

I acted like everything was fine.

But on the inside, I did not like the way the conversation was going.

Instead of saying that, I continued joking as though I was not bothered.

By the time I finally tried to correct it, I felt like I was bothering them.

Maybe if I had been able to regulate my emotions by myself, it would not have become such a big deal.

But last night, I could not do that.

Going to bed was difficult.

I was anxious.

I was picking at myself.

I was close to tears.

I knew I needed to calm down, but knowing what you need to do and being able to do it are not always the same thing.

It is simple when a thought comes and then leaves.

Rumination does not work that way.

The thought comes.

It stays.

Then it replays itself over and over again.

When Your Mind Never Shuts Off

Eventually, I fell asleep.

I woke up a few times, but I was able to go back to sleep.

I got up on time for work.

I took a shower.

And almost immediately, the thoughts returned.

Although I technically slept, my mind never stopped working.

I woke up exhausted.

All day, I replayed the conversation.

I went over every word.

Every pause.

Every change in tone.

Every possible meaning.

What should have been a simple conversation became a mess in my head.

I questioned what was said.

I questioned how it was said.

I questioned whether I understood it correctly.

I questioned whether the other person understood me correctly.

I questioned what they meant, what I meant, and whether either of us meant what the other person heard.

That is exhausting.

Sometimes emotional exhaustion has nothing to do with how much sleep you got.

Sometimes you are tired because your brain has been running a marathon while the rest of your body was lying still.

I Wanted Everything to Be Perfect

Today, I wanted all the schedules.

I wanted everything organized.

I wanted everything to be perfect.

But I did not know how to make that happen.

I wished I could clean my life the way I clean a chalkboard.

Just wipe everything away.

Erase the mess.

Start over with a clean surface.

Yesterday, I talked about rewriting your story.

I talked about starting a new page and choosing to do something differently.

I still believe that.

But last night, I could not do it.

I do not pretend that I am perfect.

I do not pretend that I have all the answers.

And I definitely do not pretend that the answers I have always work for me.

Knowing the right thing does not mean you will always be emotionally capable of doing it.

Doing the Journal Early

Today was hard.

All I wanted to do was crawl into bed, pull the blankets over my head, and cry.

I was fighting the urge to do that, but I did not know how well I was fighting it.

Normally, I record my journal podcast at night.

Today, there was still light outside the window.

It was a little after four in the afternoon, and I was already sitting down to record because I was not sure I would have the mindset to do it later.

It was important for me to show up.

Not only because I made a commitment to do this every day.

I needed to journal because this is one of the ways I process my feelings.

Sometimes showing up early, differently, or imperfectly is still showing up.

I Did Not Know What Was Real

In that moment, I felt unbelievably sad.

I felt scared.

And I did not know which parts of what I was thinking were real and which parts had been amplified by my emotions.

I understand things through emotion.

That is how my brain makes sense of the world.

When someone says they love me, those are not just words.

The words carry weight.

But I also have to remember that the words may not carry the same meaning to someone else that they carry to me.

My definition may not be their definition.

When someone says they choose me, I hear:

You are important.

If you were lined up beside everyone else, I would still choose you.

But maybe that is not exactly what they mean.

And when the meaning does not match what I expected, my brain does not question one small thing.

It questions everything.

When One Moment Becomes Everything

When something goes wrong, everything feels wrong.

I can take one small moment and turn it into something much bigger.

I do not want to do that.

I do not choose to do it.

But I know I do it.

In therapy, we call it catastrophizing.

I am extremely good at that.

The thought starts small:

You said it depends on what you would choose me for.

Then my brain turns it into:

That means you would not choose me.

You have excuses not to choose me.

If you have excuses not to choose me, then you do not want me.

If you do not want me, then you do not love me.

If you do not love me, then you do not care.

And if you do not care, then maybe I do not matter.

That is how quickly the spiral happens.

One sentence becomes an entire story.

One feeling becomes proof.

One uncertain moment becomes a permanent conclusion.

But I can feel something deeply and still be wrong about what it means.

Feelings Are Real, but They Are Not Always Facts

I recognize that I can feel unwanted without actually being unwanted.

I can feel unloved without being unloved.

I can feel abandoned without anyone leaving me.

The feeling is still real.

The pain is still real.

But the conclusion my brain reaches may not be true.

Sometimes I am my own biggest enemy because I hear these thoughts and immediately want to make decisions based on them.

Life-changing decisions.

I want to cut everyone off.

I want to disappear.

I want to isolate myself.

I decide I cannot trust anyone.

And in the moment, those decisions feel logical.

That is why I have to slow down.

A painful feeling does not always require an immediate action.

When You Do Not Know How to Explain It

A friend asked how I was doing today.

I told her I felt off.

She asked whether I wanted to talk about it.

I said no.

Not really.

Not at the moment.

It was not that I did not want to talk.

I did not know how.

How do you explain that someone said one thing, but you heard ten other things underneath it?

How do you explain that nothing terrible may have happened, but your body and mind are reacting as though everything has fallen apart?

I was trying to process it.

I was trying to talk myself through it logically.

I knew what I was supposed to do.

But I was still struggling.

And typical me, instead of talking to someone, I tried to deal with it by myself.

Why I Control the Small Things

My husband often tells me that I control everything.

In my mind, I do not control everything.

I control lots of small things.

I do not get to control the big things.

I cannot control how other people feel.

I cannot control whether someone disappoints me.

I cannot control whether someone leaves.

I cannot control whether I am chosen.

But controlling small things feels safe.

If I make the decision, I cannot be surprised.

If I never give someone the opportunity to disappoint me, then I cannot be disappointed.

If I control it, I already know how it will turn out.

I do not have to wait.

I do not have to wonder.

I do not have to trust.

Control becomes a shield against uncertainty.

It is not always a good shield.

But it is one I know how to hold.

My Emotional-Support Pens

I think this is one reason I collect the things I collect.

I collect pens and notebooks.

I do not always use them.

I like to keep them pristine.

I like to keep them in their boxes.

I like seeing the colors displayed neatly.

They have to stay perfect.

Something about their perfection makes me feel better.

They are something I can control.

If one stops working, I can buy another one.

They can be replaced.

Do I actually replace my pens?

Not really.

I keep telling myself I will donate some to someone who needs them.

Apparently, I am the person who needs them.

I saw someone online call them emotional-support pens.

They were probably joking.

But my pens are absolutely emotional-support pens.

When I go to work, I take the things I truly need.

My tablet.

My charger.

Then I also take a bag of pens.

A bag of notebooks.

And several books I know I probably will not touch.

They may never leave the car.

But I know they are there.

That makes me feel better.

Safety Does Not Always Look Logical

A bag of pens and notebooks does not actually protect me from anything.

I know that.

But it is tactile.

I can touch it.

I can see it.

I can know it is there.

When everything inside me feels wrong, having one thing that feels right matters.

Sometimes our safety items do not make logical sense to anyone else.

Maybe it is a notebook.

A blanket.

A familiar cup.

A specific routine.

A song.

A collection.

The object may not solve the problem.

But sometimes it reminds your nervous system that something is still familiar.

Something is still where you left it.

Something has not changed.

Today I Felt Wrong

I have been taught many times that everything is not right or wrong.

Everything is not good or bad.

There are spaces in between.

I know that.

But today, I felt bad.

I felt wrong.

Days like that are difficult.

I could have gotten on camera and pretended I had a wonderful day.

I could have made something up.

I could have acted like everything was fine.

But I do not want to do that.

What you see is what you get.

And today, what you got was someone who felt defeated.

Unwanted.

Unloved.

Someone who believed she had somebody in her corner.

Someone who believed she was important to another person.

And for a moment, it felt like maybe that was not true.

No one actually told me that.

No one hinted at it.

But it was how I felt.

When Your Worth Depends on Other People

Today, I felt like I was losing my best friend.

And in feeling like I was losing my best friend, I felt like I was losing myself.

My self-worth is often tied to what other people think of me.

That is something I cannot control.

So when I cannot control how someone feels about me, I control something else.

I make lists.

I make plans.

I organize.

I clean.

I do laundry when it is not laundry day.

And I have a laundry day.

I walk the dogs.

I find physical tasks that keep my hands busy.

Sometimes I am doing things because they need to be done.

Sometimes I am doing them because I do not want to feel.

I do not want to think.

I want the motion to become louder than the thoughts.

Fighting an Invisible War

Sometimes it works.

Sometimes life still gets the best of me.

The difficult thing about fighting an internal battle is that no one else can hear it.

No one knows what is happening inside your head.

No one hears the conversations.

They do not hear the arguments.

They do not hear the cruel comments.

Today, the voices in my head were loud.

They were hurtful.

And I knew that hiding alone in my room was not what I needed.

So I sat down and wrote in my journal instead.

Sometimes we have to do the hard things.

Today, the hard thing was feeling my feelings without letting them decide what I did next.

A Bad Moment Is Not Always a Bad Day

My bite of pie today was recognizing that something felt wrong and still doing the hard things.

I wanted to lie in bed and hide.

But I knew that was not what I needed.

I got up.

I went to work.

I had a good day with my client.

I took myself to brunch.

I had coffee.

The entire day was not bad.

I was having a bad moment.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of the difference.

I may feel bad right now.

I may feel sad.

I may feel hurt.

But right now is not forever.

This is not an everyday feeling.

It is a feeling I am having today, in this moment.

That matters.

I Do Not Pretend It Is Easy

Tomorrow, I get to write a new page.

I can start over if I need to.

I will never tell you that it is easy.

I will never pretend that I always have everything together.

I will not pretend that every coping skill works every time.

Sometimes the advice is good and the tool is helpful, but your brain is simply not ready to cooperate.

That does not mean the tool failed forever.

It means today was hard.

And I know I cannot be the only person who feels this way.

I cannot be the only person who drowns in the voices inside their head.

I cannot be the only person who feels deeply hurt when they do not hear something the way they needed to hear it.

You Never Know What Someone Is Fighting

We never truly know what is happening inside another person.

It is easy to dismiss their feelings because the problem seems small to us.

Someone else might look at my situation and decide it is not a big deal.

They may believe my problems are not serious.

They may think my trauma is not important because someone else has experienced worse.

Sometimes I do that to myself.

I convince myself that because another person is suffering more, I do not deserve to be heard.

So I hide.

I shrink.

I sink away.

But another person’s pain does not make your pain imaginary.

Someone else having a harder day does not mean your day is easy.

We can make space for more than one person to hurt.

I Want You to Feel Seen

Today, I hope you hear me.

I hope you see me.

Not only because I want to be heard and seen.

I want you to know that you deserve to be heard and seen too.

Maybe your internal battle does not make sense to anyone else.

Maybe you cannot find the words to explain it.

Maybe you know your feelings are not telling you the whole truth, but you still cannot make them stop.

You are not weak for struggling.

You are not bad because your mind became loud.

You are not failing because your coping skills did not work perfectly today.

Sometimes your job is not to solve everything.

Sometimes your job is simply to stay present long enough for the moment to pass.

Today is another page in the story. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

It just has to be written.

Before you close your journal tonight, ask yourself:

What was your bite of pie today?

Until tomorrow,

Love you loud.