Greetings fellow readers and welcome to my new blog series "Meltdown Triggers" where I share stories of my most embarrassing, cringe and laugh-worthy meltdowns (at least they are to me anyways). With the hope to destigmatise and normalise meltdowns. Anyway, let's dive in with my first story, about the time I thought I killed a butterfly.
I have always been terrified of moths. As a child, I suffered from sleep paralysis and night terrors, where I'd hallucinate moths on my wall that turned into the kind of creatures you see in "stranger things" therefore if I see a moth in my room, it has to die. I know that's kinda cruel but if they stay outside I will leave them alone. Butterflies on the other hand are one of my favourite insects.
So this one night in early September, I had returned to my bedroom intending to wind down for sleep. I turned off my big lights (aka ceiling lights) and turned on my lamps which give a soft candlelight glow and then I saw it, a moth. The moth was about the size of a 50c coin so it wasn't huge, but still big enough to make me say "nope". It was fluttering around like a maniac from the lights being turned off so I couldn't get a good look at it. I instantly dove onto my bed and got under the bedsheets because my brain defies all sense of logic when in fear and being under the bedsheets = safety.
I gave the moth some time to settle down before I even thought about getting out from the covers and when it landed on the wall above my air-conditioner, I knew it was time to strike. I grabbed my 'eco mist' (a brand of insect spray) and crept over to the air-con. It was quite dark on that stretch of the wall, so I still couldn't quite get a good look at it, I sprayed it twice and then sprayed it twice again for good measure, and then it started fluttering like a maniac again, so obviously I ended up back under the bedsheets. The moth landed on my lampshade (which is covered in flowers and butterflies), and I suddenly felt like I was shrivelling up from the inside out, what I thought was a moth had a strange likeness to the butterflies on the lampshade, I was convinced it was a butterfly by that point. That's when the meltdown started.
I started feeling intense regret and guilt over spraying the poor, innocent creature; the emotions just kept building up inside me like water travelling through a hose, waiting for someone to press the trigger. I started crying and pacing around my bedroom, feeling like I had committed some sort of crime. I knew that the feeling wouldn't go away until I talked to someone about it, so I walked out of my bedroom and went straight into my mum. I got to my mum's bedroom door, and in a slightly choked voice, I said, "Mummy," to which she replied, "What's wrong?" and in the loudest voice, cried out ", I killed a butterfly". That's when the hyperventilation started; I had gotten to my mum just in time because the meltdown had reached its climax. Mum knew instantly that I needed what we call a "pressure hug", where she wraps her arms around me so tightly that it almost cuts off my circulation because she knows it's the only way to calm me down when I'm in that state. After I had calmed down, I explained the story to her, which she couldn't help but giggle at because, in hindsight, it is quite amusing, but as I recounted the story to help, I kept getting choked up, and tears kept pouring out of my face. I eventually completely calmed down and chatted with my mum for a little while to help distract me from the situation. I went back to my room, almost forgetting the scenario. I tried to search for the butterfly because I didn't want my bunny to mistakenly eat it, but I couldn't find it. I decided ignorance was bliss at that point and finally went to bed.
The next morning, I had my support worker helping me clean my bedroom, and on the floor behind my bunny's bed was a dead moth. It really was a moth after all, the meltdown felt like a complete waste, I was so emotionally drained from it.
Looking back now, I laugh about the meltdown, and even though it seems a little melodramatic and embarrassing to me, it has also inspired me to talk about it to normalise meltdowns in general. It is important to remember that not all meltdowns come in the form of crying and shouting as this one did. Meltdowns, just like people, come in all different forms, but I will talk more about that in another post.
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