I just e-mailed my professor about the discussion on Thursday that went to crap (to my eyes), basically telling how her how I felt once said discussion got off on a tangent.  That feeling was this: For me, the break couldn't come soon enough the other day, and since that basically amouts to turning my brain off, nobody needs to tell me that this is not good.
I did not ask about clarifying anything regarding the first paper because for my purposes it is too late already; I'd already resigned myself to taking whatever the grade hit will be (and at 15% it won't be that hard), so the last 24 hours have gone to letting MeggieLizzie and others give me an outlet to let my feelings out privately.
I'm still really concerned about my reaction to it; it was catastrophic to say the least but I really just don't know how I'm going to reverse that.  I'm having the same qualification issues with good traits about me that I'm having with memories that ought to be happy...like my brain wants nothing more than to keep me in the depths forever.  I wish I knew how to outtalk it, but it feels so complicated that I could do any of a few dozen possible posts on the boards, and what good will that do me?  Not much.