ugly cry

I mentioned last night to Jason that I didn't know when the floodgates were going to open - I've been so stressed and felt like I never had an opportunity to be authentically, outwardly grieving (or that I missed the opportunity). Well, that question got answered today.

I've been stressing out about starting my acute mental health (aka psych) clinicals, and today was the start day. I had an exam in another class, then proceeded to finish that class completely in a daze, unable to concentrate while my professor (a really good one, too) explained all sorts of EKG readings, which is already sort of complicated and not easy to grasp on first hearing. Ran through a quick lunch, then went to the hospital, where we had about two hours of talks from case managers, social workers, and nurses on the types of patients we'd see, the really severe cases suffering from severe depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc. I think I was already dazed and stressed out... and then we went to orient to the actual floor itself. Now, our clinical instructor is a tiny, soft-spoken woman, and as she's trying to introduce us to the floor and the area, people in our group kept talking. It's a sore spot of mine, so I became, quite apparently, the villain and shushed in a general direction. One of my classmates (and someone I considered a friend) turned on me and said pointedly,"you know Anne, I am SO over you shushing me every day. Go stand up front or something."

I've seen the Seinfeld episode on shushers. I've heard them in class, at clinicals, even at the movie theater. I don't like them either, and I didn't think I'd morphed into one. And maybe on another day, in another situation, I might have had a handy smart remark to give back to her, or else extended grace to both of us since we're all so stressed, or whatever. But instead, I immediately wanted to cry, I felt like such a piece of shit. And this horrible, not-so-little voice in my head starts mocking me: "You are so hostile and mean that you kill life inside of you and alienate your friends." I know that sounds extreme and mean to myself and a pity party and whatever, but I felt so low, so at the end of my rope, at that very moment, that I looked at the patients around me and felt I should be right in there with them.

I ended up in the nurses' lounge area, waiting for the ladies room to come free, and the tears wouldn't stop no matter how hard I tried, and of course my instructor had to walk in at that moment, and I ended up sitting for 15 minutes with the "ugly cry", the kind where you gasp for air and snot runs down your face, and though I didn't get into everything - the baby, the shushing, the anxiety - I just said how stressed I was and how behind I felt. She was very sympathetic and sweet and just let me cry and reassured me that I would be fine in this clinical, that all students are apprehensive at the start. So I collected myself together enough to stop hyperventilating and got out on the floor, and it was fine, but I was so drained and exhausted that I think I just didn't care about anything that might happen with a patient!

I thought I would feel better after my ugly cry. I don't feel on the verge of tears anymore, but I don't feel any better, just drained. I want my stress to go away. I want an apology from my friend. I want to apologize to my friend. Most of all, I want some answers - especially the reasoning behind this loss I've faced when I already had a difficult load on my plate to start with.