Yesterday I got annoyed over something inconsequential: a reply, possibly made in good faith (unclear), but worded poorly, regarding something I'd already been feeling on edge about. It was truly nothing, but for some reason it aggravated me so much I stayed up two hours longer.

To try and calm myself down, I sent a message to my best friend, whose Discord DMs with me are always a safe place for shit-talking. They weren't around, but I left the messages for them to see later, hoping that the idea of waking up to their all-caps sympathetic rage would be reassuring enough, and I'd be able to go to sleep in peace.

No dice–I found myself still awake when they'd logged on an hour after I'd sent them the message.

It was only after we'd talked about it, after they validated my being annoyed by this trivial thing, that I was finally able to sleep.

This is a little embarrassing to post, because in my opinion, this is such... unwell behavior. This is the sign of a Mei Not Doing Well! I could have just gone to bed – and I was tired enough to do so – but I forced myself to stay awake, just trying to understand why this small thing bothered me so much. I could only relax once someone else told me I wasn't an insane person for being annoyed.

Although naturally impatient as a child, I've learned to recognize when I'm unreasonably bothered by something as I've gotten older. I temper my reactions, evaluate how best to respond, and train myself to be okay with more things. It's something I'm prepared to do my whole life to not be as high-maintenance or exhausting to be around as I could potentially be if left unchecked. For the most part, it makes a positive impact on how I live.

But man. How much energy would I have saved if I'd just – let myself be mad? I felt better today, but couldn't bring myself to take my dog out for a walk or do any work because of the sleep I lost waiting to feel like I wasn't the world's worst person. I didn't even express this annoyance to the (assumed well-meaning) person I was annoyed by, so all that guilt was over nothing that actually happened¹, and I exhausted myself for it.

In the process of trying to behave more reasonably, I've started a bad habit of always trying to feel more reasonably: second-guessing my negative emotions, assuming all of them were overreactions. I don't trust myself to judge whether a feeling is something I'm allowed to feel, so I need to have my emotions peer-reviewed. It's so silly – you can feel anything. You're a person. Sometimes things are annoying, and sometimes you're petty or inordinately bothered by something. So is everyone. You weren't a dick to that person because you knew they meant well, so what was your sin? Thought crime? I don't think it was worth losing sleep over.

I don't know. I think I'd just like to retrain the part of my brain that can definitively say, "yeah, just be mad, it's fine" – no need for peer review. I'd like to trust myself to feel everything, even the bad things, and make good decisions regardless. Is that fine for me to want? Is that reasonable?

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1. Although I suppose "not expressing it" brings about a different kind of guilt over the fact that I'd just ignored the annoyance instead of communicating like an adult.↩