Last night was bad. Real bad. And every bit of it was my fault. From beginning to end. Though it hasn’t really ended. Not completely. Not yet.

I guess most psychiatrists, females and smokers would say I have an excuse. But, regardless of the fact that my period has always made me insane or that I’ve gone over 24 hours without a cigarette, I refuse to push my bullshit off on that. When I try, I can usually control my insanity.

All He did was ask me what I wanted for dinner.

I still don’t remember being sarcastic. But I remember being irritated because I thought He was suggesting we spend the last of our money on eating out and I needed some form of feminine product. As in, I was completely out of them. So it’s within the realm of possibility that I was sarcastic. It’s even probable. It’s not excusable… but it’s possible.

I yelled “I’ll shut up!” at Him and both He and the people we were passing thought I told Him to shut up.

I wanted to. God, did I want to. I was off my rocker with fury by that point. Nothing He was saying made any sense to me and He kept repeating Himself. But that’s not what I said.

I was completely out of control. And the more He tried to rein me in, the worse I got. By the time we got home, He was ready to take my collar off. He’d had enough.

At some point, I finally realized how fucked up my behavior was. I started apologizing and meaning it. Trying to convince Him that I didn’t mean the things I said – or meant to say the things I didn’t, as the case may be.

I have got to get a handle on this telling Him when I’m losing control thing. Even a simple “I’m so far gone you’re making no sense.” would probably have put what was going on into perspective for both of us. Probably would have saved us both a lot of hurt.

Master said something last night that scared the shit out of me. Well… pretty much all of last night scared the shit out of me, but this was utterly bizarre.

About eleven years ago, the ex and I lived with friends we eventually moved to NY with. One afternoon, our kids were at a babysitter, the wife of the couple was out shopping with her son and the ex and I had just had a particularly bad argument. By that point, they were all particularly bad but this one was bad enough that he walked out with no indication as to when he’d be back – an unusual thing for him to do at that point. He was usually content to stand there and argue with me till we were both blue in the face and/or fists were flying, then, when it was over, act like nothing had happened. 

When the ex walked out, I sort of deflated onto the couch next to the husband of the couple. I put my head in my hands and just stared at the floor. For a long time. Then M (the husband) put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Hon… I think you need help.”

I asked him what he meant and he said this:

“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met. You wake up in the morning in the best of moods and go through your day like life is wonderful. When the kids are napping, you come out here and just stare off into space. Sometimes for hours. You give all the right responses to questions and occasionally attempt to hold a conversation if we push, but mostly you just stare.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking about. But when you come out of it, it’s like Jekyll and Hyde. Suddenly you’re scrappy and pissed. And no one’s done anything to you. If one of us takes the bait, and M2 (the ex) usually does, you fight with them for a couple hours, go back to staring off into space for an hour, and then it’s like nothing ever happened. I really think you need help.”

Last night, Master said something very similar. That I’ll stare off into space and think for a long time and suddenly I’m flipping out over every tiny thing that happens for the next hour or so.

Which wouldn’t scare me so much if I could be sure that it wasn’t the beginning of another foray into me being unable to control my mental disorders. Or if I could remember what I was thinking about that ruined my mood. Or even remember staring off into space for an hour.