Anger instead of Sadness
Mar. 12th, 2008 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingThe first part of the day, despite coffee and breakfast and getting to work early, I was in a mood most foul. I have been reminded that I am a maenad, but the taste of blood in my mouth is my own.
It's a funny family story that when I was four-five-six, I was theatrical about crying. My older sister Grace threw screaming tantrums. In contrast, I took myself off to my shared room and cast my small self onto my bed, weeping quietly into the pillows and blankets, or I sat in the bathroom, pulling single squares of toilet paper off to wipe my tears one at a time.
I've never liked having anyone witness. It's dreadful to be seen like that. Eventually, though, it became one of those things that happened and I couldn't stop, and on occasion I had to go about whatever needed to be done, even while in the throes of a crying jag. It's a normal enough thing for me, and like the song says, this is how it works - you cry until you laugh. It happens. I still prefer to do it when no one is looking.
But I'd rather not do it at all, so somewhere along the way when I needed a survival technique, I created one. Instead of letting something make me sad, I learned to get angry. In a practical, if not healthful, way of dealing with getting through the day (or the next breath), I decided that if I thought of myself as another person, someone that I loved, then I wouldn't let that person/me come to harm. Protective anger worked. It put a shield up where I didn't have one before. Things still got through, but the small ones burned to the shadow of feathery ash.
I've been angry for a couple of days.
I did not take it out on anyone, today, and I kept the swearing to one instance of f***, exclamations being kept along the lines of for-crying-out-loud. I only scolded one person, a coworker who was rude on the phone, but not doing anything different from usual. I even laughed it off, "wow, I'm in a bad mood this morning!". All the while, I knew that I was angry in that shifted over way, and looking at it, I don't think it's any better than being sad. I still felt like going home "sick". I still felt helpless and without answers.
I stuck out the day, because like hell am I going to let myself off that easy. Whiny little brat. Suck it up; life is pain.
Like coffee, anger can be an addictive habit. Like coffee dependence, something I curb when I feel it starting, my long-trained habit of anger has destructive aspects, and I've been mulling about undoing it. Would it be better for me to be sad? Less confusing, for those around, who could help in some way? More inclusive, less exclusive? About that last, I am not sure, though anger is about pushing away while sadness is more likely to be about feeling isolated.
That I'm noticing that I dislike it, getting angry, is enough reason for me to start breaking the habit - a process that I think has already started. I don't, actually, get angry-for-sad all that often anymore. Sure, I still get that little insanity of cringing when I hear a group laughing, or of feeling forgotten when I don't hear from someone, but since I recognize that it's craziness, it doesn't have so much power. And a lot of things just don't bother me, don't get me riled up.
A whole person accepts all parts of herself as present, not unchangeable, but component. It should be equal, whether I am sad, happy, angry, or any other basic emotional response. The important thing is not only to feel something, deeply, but to feel the one most true.
Right now, I feel weary. And from the peanut gallery, hungry.
It's a funny family story that when I was four-five-six, I was theatrical about crying. My older sister Grace threw screaming tantrums. In contrast, I took myself off to my shared room and cast my small self onto my bed, weeping quietly into the pillows and blankets, or I sat in the bathroom, pulling single squares of toilet paper off to wipe my tears one at a time.
I've never liked having anyone witness. It's dreadful to be seen like that. Eventually, though, it became one of those things that happened and I couldn't stop, and on occasion I had to go about whatever needed to be done, even while in the throes of a crying jag. It's a normal enough thing for me, and like the song says, this is how it works - you cry until you laugh. It happens. I still prefer to do it when no one is looking.
But I'd rather not do it at all, so somewhere along the way when I needed a survival technique, I created one. Instead of letting something make me sad, I learned to get angry. In a practical, if not healthful, way of dealing with getting through the day (or the next breath), I decided that if I thought of myself as another person, someone that I loved, then I wouldn't let that person/me come to harm. Protective anger worked. It put a shield up where I didn't have one before. Things still got through, but the small ones burned to the shadow of feathery ash.
I've been angry for a couple of days.
I did not take it out on anyone, today, and I kept the swearing to one instance of f***, exclamations being kept along the lines of for-crying-out-loud. I only scolded one person, a coworker who was rude on the phone, but not doing anything different from usual. I even laughed it off, "wow, I'm in a bad mood this morning!". All the while, I knew that I was angry in that shifted over way, and looking at it, I don't think it's any better than being sad. I still felt like going home "sick". I still felt helpless and without answers.
I stuck out the day, because like hell am I going to let myself off that easy. Whiny little brat. Suck it up; life is pain.
Like coffee, anger can be an addictive habit. Like coffee dependence, something I curb when I feel it starting, my long-trained habit of anger has destructive aspects, and I've been mulling about undoing it. Would it be better for me to be sad? Less confusing, for those around, who could help in some way? More inclusive, less exclusive? About that last, I am not sure, though anger is about pushing away while sadness is more likely to be about feeling isolated.
That I'm noticing that I dislike it, getting angry, is enough reason for me to start breaking the habit - a process that I think has already started. I don't, actually, get angry-for-sad all that often anymore. Sure, I still get that little insanity of cringing when I hear a group laughing, or of feeling forgotten when I don't hear from someone, but since I recognize that it's craziness, it doesn't have so much power. And a lot of things just don't bother me, don't get me riled up.
A whole person accepts all parts of herself as present, not unchangeable, but component. It should be equal, whether I am sad, happy, angry, or any other basic emotional response. The important thing is not only to feel something, deeply, but to feel the one most true.
Right now, I feel weary. And from the peanut gallery, hungry.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 03:17 am (UTC)I woke up from horrible dreams this morning, to feel that I'd never felt quite as much like calling in depressed as I did today.
That's a slippery slope, though; once you give yourself permission to do it just once, it's a looming danger.
In I went.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 03:55 am (UTC)And - I think negativity is to a certain extent something that grows and festers. I notice that too and I must break the pattern or it breeds in my outlook.
Lastly and this is the not related thing - I also realized I was in the midst of much nasty flu when you had the last get together and I missed out on meeting important people (in the sense of who they are in your life and you're important to me) and I am sorry!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 04:36 pm (UTC)*hugs* I find the best way to beat the negative cycle is to get out of my head a while. Dwell with others I know will support and make with the smiles. If my head is a big circle of suck, I'll leave it on spin cycle and watch a movie.
But really, just *glomp*