I Just Have To Let Out Some Frustration. Gluten Sucks.

[BelleVie]

Hi. This is really just me needing to let off some steam, and knowing that this is a place where I won't be judged...at least not too harshly.  I got glutened today by some cacao powder (that's my best guess), or it might have been from the kids at school grabbing me and trying to touch my face, or maybe by one of them coughing in my face after eating a cookie...who knows really? But my main symptoms are sudden depression, irritation, and really out of character anger and rage. It was already a stressful morning, with two of my fellow teachers talking to me about some issues in a less than ideal way, and that pushed a few buttons. And the kids were just crazy today, impossible to control. And the school that I work at has one big office where all of the teachers are crowded together and are constantly yelling across desks, phones ringing, kids crying or screaming in the hallway, and just a really chaotic environment in general. This is not ideal for me, as I'm an introvert and don't do well in noisy, stressful environments. So that put me on edge. Then about mid morning, I realized that I had been glutened, and one thing led to another and I found myself getting incredibly upset with my kids for just not listening or doing what I was asking them to do, so angry that I had to leave the class to keep them from seeing me cry. Several other (very minor) stressful things happened too, but I just could not deal with my emotions and went back and forth between really deep anger and awful sadness, and I had to go cry in the bathroom. 

 

My boyfriend (we work together) came out of his classroom and seemed upset, and I asked if he was angry with me, and he said no, he wasn't, but my mood had rubbed off on him. Well THAT hurt horribly, so back to the bathroom for me for more crying. 

 

I'm afraid that my co-workers think I'm crazy, because since I started working at this school, I've gone through a gluten challenge and trying to get started on recovery on my diet, and they've seen me extremely grouchy and crying in the bathroom more often than I care to admit (along with the migraines and other illnesses that come from gluten.) I feel embarrassed, but I'm really not good at hiding my emotions, or my physical condition when I feel horrible. I wear everything on my face. 

 

So, I guess I just felt really embarrassed today for seeming like I'm always on a roller coaster at work, and for wearing my emotions on my sleeve, and for letting people see me get really angry, and for letting people see me cry like that. And when I get gluten angry, I find it very hard to control myself and I can get very snappy and can say and do things that feel very impulsive, but that I later regret very much. And then I felt SO guilty for making my boyfriend feel angry and sad, because I felt angry and sad, and I dragged him into my mini-drama. 

 

Once the storm has passed, it feels so AWFUL because I realize that I've behaved like a bratty child, but it's so HARD to control how you feel when you get sick and upset like this from food. 

 

Sorry this was so long, I just really needed to let it out! I hate gluten. I HATE gluten. 

[eers03]

Que the music, maestro...  "Ya had a bad day".  All you can do is the best you can.  I'm sure your coworkers don't think you're crazy, just sensitive :-)  If it makes you feel any better I had an annual review last year in the midst of getting my diagnosis.  I am a pretty outgoing 33 year old male who works in sales.  I sit down to do this review with my manager who I don't care for (first bad boss I've ever had) and he makes mention of a friend of mine I used to work with who past away the year prior.  That coupled with his comments were more than I could handle in my 140 pound state.  He was mid sentence and I just put my hand up as if to stay stop and got up and walked off.

 

Fast forward one year, I took a week off from work to be with my girlfriend who had a minor procedure for a painful lymph node, and he gave me grief about it and was asking why I wasn't on one of his conference calls that week.  I politely told him off and resigned from my job 2 weeks later with a one sentence letter.  

 

My point is simple; I think most of us are anxious early in our recovery but time seems to heal.  Don't be too hard on yourself.  Some days we meet the perfect storm and it really gets to us.  For you, it was the students, the staff, and a distraught boyfriend all at once.

 

Hang in there...

[GF Lover]

BelleVie,

 

Hopefully today will go smoother for you.  I have a suggestion for getting yourself through these moments in the future.  It is a technique called "mindfulness". 

 

[Mindfulness] a kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is. 

 

A comprehensive 2013 meta-analysis of mindfulness-based therapy concluded that it was "an effective treatment for a variety of psychological problems, and is especially effective for reducing anxiety, depression, and stress.

 

This is the link for a full explanation. Open Original Shared Link)

 

This technique is NOT meditation, it is a state of mind.  It does take practice and is extremely effective.

 

Good luck.

 

Colleen

[NoGlutenCooties]

BelleVie -

 

I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that... getting emotional at work, for any reason, is always humiliating.  I'm no doctor, but just wanted to throw this out there... I was having weird spells of uncharacteristic anger and rage too.  I'd wake up ready to kill.  For no apparent reason.  This was before my celiac diagnosis, so I didn't even think to attribute it to that, but I have been getting pre-menapausal symptoms.  They're mild so far, but enough to know things are changing.  Anyhow... I attributed the anger to hormonal craziness and I started taking Relacore.  There is a variety that does not have any synthetic hormones in it.  It is basically a B-Complex vitamin with some additional herbs in it.  It has really worked for me.  I haven't gotten uncontrollably angry or had a crying fit for no good reason since I started taking it.  And I started taking it a long time before I cut gluten out of my diet.

[w8in4dave]

I remember thinking one time, everyone made PMS up just so they could be emotional or be a boitch , but then it happened to me. I acted just like you!! I was either crying at a drop of a hat or going off on someone. I am not saying you were not Glutened I am wondering if you should get your hormone levels checked. It calmed down for me when I started going thru menopause, then boom like over night it happened  again. It is horrible to have to go thru that! And I do bless anyone who works at a school!! I suggest going to get your hormone levels checked. At least talk to your Dr. About it.

[Pegleg84]

I also tend to get pretty emotional/anxious after getting glutened (or soyed, which is just as bad if not worse), and anxiety attacks were one of my main symptoms before going gluten free... Meltdowns at work are absolutely not fun. Meltdowns at home are no better, but at least you can cry and scream in your own space. I don't know how long you've been on the diet, but if it's gluten that triggers it, it will get better. My anxiety attacks have gone from weekly, to monthly, to a few times a year! I had a bit of a meltdown at home a few months ago, first time my boyfriend had seen me such a mess, and I told him I used to get like this all the time! so once a year we can handle.

 

Most important thing: don't beat yourself up over it. It's a chemical imbalance that can be fixed. (It might be a good idea to get hormone levels checked, just to be sure). It's not something you're trying to do, or want to be doing, it just happens and needs to get out of your system.

 

I have to second gluten-free Lover's suggestion of mindfulness practice. It is technically a form of meditation, but only in the sense that you're training yourself to be in the present moment and quiet all the chatter in your head. I've been meditating (on and off. I'm a terrible Buddhist) for several years and it really does help in daily life. It won't stop anxiety attacks from happening, but it's certainly helped me get through them a lot faster/easier. You recognise that it's happening, which seems to diffuse it somewhat. It takes practice, though, and certainly isn't a magic bullet, but worth looking into.

 

HUUUGS! Hope your day today is better. I always feel drained after those incidents, but you pick things up and keep going.

[BelleVie]

Thank you for your kind replies, everyone. I'm feeling much better today. YES, it was definitely a bad day on top of getting glutened, and probably on top of some PMS symptoms as well. I really hadn't considered getting my hormone levels checked, but it's something I will look into. I guess I would do that through my gynecologist? I think that I probably do have a history of hormone issues, since I had problems with acne for years and had an ovarian cyst at one point that had to be removed surgically. But those things seemed to straighten out mostly since I started adjusting my diet. But now that I think of it, my skin has been breaking out over the past week far more than it has in months, so yes, hormones probably did play a big role in Workplace Breakdown 2013.  

 

Colleen and Pegleg, thank you for the mindfulness suggestions! It's a technique that I've read about plenty of times, but I guess I've never learned how to use it effectively. Putting that one on my "learn to" list right now! 

 

Thanks everyone. Hope you all have a great day.