I nearly mistook overstimulation for unhappiness

Dear Delyara, I do that sometimes. Everything feels too much and I start assuming something deeper is terribly wrong. Then later I realize the lights were too bright, the sounds too layered, the pace too quick, the emotional access too constant, the day too full of low-level human contact. Not unhappiness. Overstimulation. That distinction is so important for me and I still miss it more than I want to admit. Once I turned things down tonight, I felt a little less emotionally threatened by everything. It was not a solved mood. Just a more understandable one.