Expectations

How do I deal with expectations...really....anyone have any suggestions? How do I deal with with them and how on earth to I keep them from getting so strong that I no longer have control over my emotions and just go off on someone I really care about in a far off country who cannot have a decent face to face convo to make things right? First of all there has to be a way to walk through life without high expectations for oneself and for those around them. I am sure that it is ok to have high expectations on how to be treated by others, by friends and my loved ones, but how does one reign in those expectations when they get too high and ruin a night, a day, a week? There must be a way to walk through life with level expectations, to put people in correct light, loved ones in special position to be treated well. I should be allowed to have decent expectations on how I am treated by friends and how I treat them myself. I expect myself to be on time for a date with a friend and vice versa. I expect people to be open with me about how they feel about me and to not play mind games. I expect that the mind games I used to play are dead now and I can move freely in my skin without fear of losing it with a friend.

Before depression I was a high strung, and loaded, mind game filled person. I would become passionately frustrated with people for no apparent reason and dwell on my pain as if someone had killed a close relative of mine. I would toss and turn at night over words said and not said and make up emails in my mind of all the things I could have said that would have made things better. As I was laid up with depression, I had no expectations. Nothing got me mad, or made me upset. Nothing made me smile or brought anger to my face. I was just BLAH! I secretly hoped that the high strung, high expectation filled girl would have disappeared with the depression that sucked all the energy and life out of my body. I prayed that the anger that burned in me when an expectation was not fulfilled would be dead and that as I gained new life from this last bi polar episode, that I would be exactly that...new.

But alas...along with the personality that was swallowed by my depression that is now coming back, so has my high strung expectations and fears. There was a moment in my depression, right as I was coming out where I just felt this calm. This wondrous calm and a hope sprung up in my chest that I was changed. That hot passions were dead and I could now go forth and live a normal even keeled life. But alas here I am, writing to a bunch of friends...how do I deal with these high expectations? And how do I keep them from ruining my friendships and my own self esteem?