This is what happens when you end up stuck working the overnight shift last minute. Nevermind the fact that I already am incredibly stressed out about pretty much every other aspect of my life on a constant basis; this was just one more thing on top of it all. It had all the earmarks of turning into one of those nights. We all know "those nights"- the ones where one, seemingly innocent, random thought slips into your mind and next thing you know, you\'re spiraling out of control and into thoughts and scenarios that have almost no probability of happening and very little basis in reality- yet they seem incredibly real to you. You end up sitting at your desk desperately trying to hold it together and all the while mentally losing it. You sit there wondering how this happened (again!) and why the hell you couldn\'t stop it from happening (again!). The rational side of your mind is trying to yell above the irrtational noise; it tries to tell you that you have nothing to fear and your irrational thoughts mean nothing and you know that they\'re not real- yet all you can do is sit there and look forward the nearest moment where you\'ll be able to find some way to assauge your fears and give your mind the much-needed proof (no matter how many times you\'ve given it that proof before) that your fears were unnecessary to begin with.

So that\'s what led me to start wondering- how well am I really trying to cope with these feelings? Am I really a professional case here, or am I just not doing the right things to get over these feelings? Do I even know the right things? If I do know the right things, am I just giving myself excuses in order to keep right on falling into the same old (unhealthy) habits? If so, why would that be better than changing those habits and- finally- starting to feel better? Because, honestly, feeling better for more than a few days at a time would feel awesome.

I\'ve always kind of had the idea that blogs and things of that nature were silly and that online support groups weren\'t really anything more than a place for all the lonely people in the world to waste their late nights/early mornings in order to feel less lonely. And yet, here I am, feeling like I\'ve run out of options, feeling like I\'m crazy and hoping I\'m not, and finally trying to take advantage of anything that will help. My apologies for the preconceived notions.