"I'm Not Good Enough"

This is for those of you who know me pretty well. I’m blogging this here so next time this happens and you ask “Why?” or “What did I do?”, I can just point you here.

I sometimes go through this phase where I get overly emotional and, for lack of better words, collapse into a pile of tears. The phase usually lasts until I go to sleep and sleep it off, and then I’m okay the next day.

Since I can feel myself going through one right now, but no one else is here so I’m not distracted, I’m going to blog what happens. I don’t really think there’s a “fix” for it; I’ve had them for 10+ years. But perhaps blogging about it will lead to a better understanding on everyone’s part.

1) The first thing that has to happen is that I’m feeling overwhelmed and/or pressured to get something done on a deadline. This, in itself, will not cause it, but it has to be there first.
2) Something pushes me over the edge. I’ll be honest — about 99% of the time it’s a phone call. I have a seething hate for phone calls, especially when they wake me up in the morning. Today it happened to be a phone call from a grumpy client.
3) Once 2 is over, I’ve been pushed over my limit of stress for the day, and my brain shuts down. (I don’t know why it shuts down, but it does.) The stress hits me full-on and I feel nauseous. I’m unable to focus on anything except that there is way too much for me to do. I feel completely overwhelmed. My instincts tell me to run, so I do… this is when you’ll see me sleeping it off or playing a game — anything to get away from the stress.
4) I wake up totally exhausted and grudgingly get whatever work I need to do done.

I don’t know how to break this cycle, other than not feeling overwhelmed in the first place. Do any of you go through something like this? If you do, I am open to suggestions.