strange mail behavior on my system

[shantec]

i have rebooted my redhat 7.2, after the system load went very high, at sendmail.
now my imap , pop3 and ssh won't work.although my ports, 110, 143,22 are all open , and all daemons are working

i get these errors st sendmail logs

pop3 service init from UNKNOWN
imap service init from UNKNOWN
MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection
to MTA
DSN: Local configuration error
config error: mail loops back to
me (MX problem?)
DSN: Data format error
------------------------
i canot connect through pop3
i cannot receive mail
i can connect with telnet but not with ssh.

any input will be appreciated,since i'm lost
shawn