OMG..."navel gazing" never heard that before...funny.
I realize my emotions get the best of me sometimes. When they become too much, I shut everyone out to get a handle on them. I basically just ask (probably not in a nice way) everyone to leave me alone and I sleep. That way I am ok the next morning. By then I am actually in good humor and start joking with everyone to ease the tension from the night before. My kids are used to it and they know when I get like that to leave me alone. However, a bf thought I broke up with him the first time he received the brunt end of it by text. Sometimes he and I don't talk for a week or so and by the time I realized he thought we broke up, it was too late. It took me forever to get him to understand and even then he still swears I did. I am always in a good mood and when I am not I can usually fake it. We all have to learn this to get a job and get along in society. But I pay for it dearly. I have xanax on hand from a psychiatrist I see about once a year. It helps me to sleep and if I take it when I get anxious, it helps to postpone it for a week or so.
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My whole life has been an exercise in original thinking. While I was looking in vain for the answers in books, I found them within myself.