Only two bags of Milano cookies, Mary?

You don't know me at all!

Exactly. Feelings.

Especially when they're irrational, which for me

is all the freaking time.

I get angry over nothing.

Watch where you're going, fool!

I get sad way too easily.

Why do I have so many butter knives?

I don't even eat butter.

And really often, I just have unapologetically

contradictory feelings.

I just feel at peace with everything right now, you know?

I just have, like, such respect for every living thing.

And just, I feel like I'm one with the universe.

My feelings have a tendency to be very illogical,

intense, and overwhelming.

And it's really hard for me not to get consumed by them.

Before therapy and going on anti-depressants,

I had no idea that this was abnormal.

I thought everybody just felt so strongly about

everything and anything all the time.

And it wasn't until I was diagnosed that I realized

my feelings are fake news.

Mm..

Whenever I feel myself being overwhelmed with emotion,

the best thing that I've learned to do from my therapist,

is this breathing technique where you inhale through

your nose for four seconds, you hold it for four seconds,

and then you exhale out of your mouth for four seconds.

It really helps whenever you're just feeling all the feelings

and you need to calm your tits.

But the worst part about my feelings is

even though they're extreme, it takes me a long ass time

to really process them.

And figure out what is going on.

Because more often then not, by the time I have

a burst of emotion, it's just being triggered by something

really insignificant and the real problem is

something else that happened ages ago or

a bunch of different things that happened that

I never actually addressed.

And once I can actually know why I'm feeling

a certain way, it's so much easier to resolve it.

Actually, I'm sorry. I uhm...

I have a lot of back pain and posture problems right now.

And I'm not taking care of myself so...

It's totally my bad.

The best advice I have for anybody who is experiencing

mood swings or who just has really intense emotions overall

is to be very forgiving with yourself

while you're trying to figure it out.

Because you can breathe all you want but sometimes

you just feel so much that it gets the best of you.

Like, the other day I was on the phone with my friend

and we got into this screaming match about

something really innocuous that he said

and we both kind of realized we'd had

shitty days and we just let our emotions pent up

and we kind of just took it out on each other.

So you just got to be forgiving with yourself

as you try to figure it out.

And you live and you learn

and hopefully you do better 50% or more of the time.

I'm Anna Akana.

Stay Awesome Gotham.