I’ve been angry for about two days now. I think today the anger has finally given way to depression (skipping right over bargaining), but I still do not feel optimal.
Growing up as a codependent, anger is a very real emotion that I have never had the luxury of owning. When the family around you is acting insane and all you want is for it to stop, you do a little dance, make a little distraction, and get sad later on. They say depression is anger turned inward and I believe it, because that is me to a tee.
I’ve thrown tons of tantrums in my life because I don’t get my way, or because I want something and I am not sure what but, hell, you better give it to me. But tantrums aren’t anger. Anger can have tantrums in it, but tantrums don’t always have anger in them. And tantrums, no matter how many I throw, do not actually let go of any real anger.
I think what I’m learning is that, though all my life my anger may have been turned inward, it was technically never released to the wild, and so has been piling up. And even as I feel like I’ve made so much progress with growth in sobriety, meaning, to me, that I don’t have to be angry, what it actually means is my growth has now put me in a position to experience all that anger.
Let me tell you: I hate the way anger feels. And I am not even talking about “getting mad at something” and yelling or venting. I am talking about deep, angry angriness that seems to have no immediate source and therefore no immediate resolution. I don’t like the way it feels in my body. I don’t like the way it manifests in in my attitude. I don’t like how it separates me from the people around me. I don’t like how stubborn and afraid it makes me. I don’t like how though I want to let it go, there’s some tiny baby self-righteous kid in there who won’t let it go, and this is understandable, considering she’s never had the opportunity to be angry, truly angry, ever before.
When I got sober, I started to do preemptive anti-angriness strikes, meaning I avoided potentially confrontational situations like the plague so I wouldn’t have to risk getting angry (since I hate it so much). I even got into a relationship that demanded absolutely nothing of me, as well as my job, so that I wouldn’t have any reason to ever be angry. I’d be bored, and terrifically lonely, but to me, that’s way better than ever having to get angry.
However, with the jobs and relationship I currently have this is impossible, and it would be stupid to do anyway: avoidance keeps others at bay, and if I want to be the best person I can be in these situations, I can’t avoid anything. I have to go through. And not power through, like a classic Fondakowski bulldozer ignoring all sensitivity along the way (mine, and others’). It means walking through, and paying attention when you do.
And poor L, the trigger. I suppose this is what happens in relationships: the one who is around you most is probably going to be the one who sets you off. And when anger popped out in response to some old, old sore L stuck her finger in without knowing it, I couldn’t shake it. It stayed, and I stayed mad.
Of course then, crap happened. Because that kind of anger draws shit toward it like, well, shit draws flies. I got a $40 parking ticket. I dropped my lunch on the sidewalk and it splattered everywhere. I bought cookies and put them on the front seat of my car and then someone slammed on their breaks in front of me so all the cookies went flying so I couldn’t eat them (I work at a farm, remember, and haven’t washed my car floor in quite some time). Then I went to an al anon meeting to try to assuage my pain and get a sponsor and this person started talking to me so I told her everything.
“Blah blah blah blah blah” I said. To which she nodded and when I was done, turned away. Guess I won’t be asking her to be my sponsor.
Sigh.
So what’s the point. Whenever I write I feel like there has to be a point. Why can’t the point just be to write? if so, then, why can’t the point just be anger? Have it, own it, then let it go?
I’ve never had it, I don’t know how to own it, and I imagine until I can do those two, I won’t be able do the last: let it go.
Tags: anger, codependence, sobriety
July 9, 2008 at 10:56 am |
This post brings up things about anger and avoidance (and their ties to me) I never thought about/knew before. I wish I could tell you how to own anger.
The point of writing is the writing itself, no matter what the subject is about.
July 9, 2008 at 4:29 pm |
You’re writing here and that counts for something, esp. when you channel your rage into posts like this.
July 10, 2008 at 5:58 pm |
You could be writing about me. I am so angry about everything, not flying off the handle kind of stuff but just a deep, simmering resentment. Back in the days when I toyed with being a punk (very unsuccessfully, I might add) I used to go on about being anti-establishment and how much life sucked as if it was cool to say so. Now I just feel that life does suck most of the time.
Anger and depression are very closely linked. I guess if I really admit it to myself, I’m angry for the years I’ve spent fighting depression as well as denying its existence to keep other people (and probably myself) happy. Does that make sense? Anyway, I know what you’re saying and I’m sorry you feel this way. Now let’s go and throw some stuff…..
July 11, 2008 at 4:31 am |
Anger can eat away at everything good in the self. Take care, Melissa. Keep writing your way through.
July 11, 2008 at 10:25 am |
Thanks everyone – for stopping by and sharing your experience!
Selma: next time I’m in your neck of the woods, let’s get some glass bottles and crash them on some rocks!
July 13, 2008 at 8:52 am |
Melissa,
It was such a revelation for me to read this. It speaks to me and helped me so much. I have been in such an angry place lately. Of course I can blame part of it on hormones, but that’s just the volume part not the baseline part. I am angry because, like you, I have not allowed myself to be. If I am honest it feels good to homicidial instead of suicidal. Of course, I know I cant’s stay at homicidal. Still, it feels oddly refreshing to know that I can let the anger off of my own body. But I too, do not like the way it makes me feel, the isolation the lack of acceptance the way it makes me feel better than. I also don’t like the way in which I experience the anger. It is always in situations with strangers and it happens in what I like to call an emotional blackout. I get angry in a nano second and it’s huge and red and then it’s over and I’m left wondering who just possessed my body for five minutes and why people now want to kill me. I am still or should I say finally dealing with how angry the wole thing with Michelle made me feel. I went through so much anxiety and fear and sadness over it and now I am furious. I think that has something to do with the fact that just as I was finally finishing my dealings with her regarding the motorcyle I stepped right into Mills. That took all or most of my mental energy and energy energy up into I left . So now, it’s just me and my fury about feeling that I was forced to watch and experience the kind of violence that I never wanted to be privy to. And now I find that when I even feel the hint of an unwelcome surprise or feel even a whisper of someone/a stranger trying to scare me or hurt me or trample on me, I freak out! So, the good times will be in Al-Anon for me. I am going Monday night. Are you? It was in reading your post that I finally put codpendency and anger together. For my of my co-dependent life, which, let’s face it, has been all of my life, I have often experienced my codependency as fear, anxiety, tears, groveling, obsessing but rarely if ever anger. This is new for me so I was not able to see the connection. But in reading this post of yours I was finally able to see what one has to do with the other, a friggin lot apparently. I don’t want to become this strident, angry bitch. I also find if I am honest, I like the power of anger before I hate the other part. I like the feeling of empowerment. I would like to find a way to stay in or get to the empowerment part without having to go all the way to the fury. I have found in going to Mills and, strange as this sounds, in working retail, a new brand of self confidence that I want to keep, keep without the anger. That part of me is good. I don’t have to go all the way to anger to get my courage up. So, thanks so much for this post. It meant the world to me. I am finally going back to al-anon which is where I started my journey and where I was going every monday night until i left s.f. But I don’t wanna kick my ass for leaving because that starts off a whole other string of events. Hope to see you soon.
xo
kelley
July 15, 2008 at 7:15 am |
Hi PWADJ! So glad I read this, though I am so sorry you are experiencing such harshness from within…Why am I glad to have read it? Something you said:
“…the one who is around you most is probably going to be the one who sets you off.”
is extremely edifying for me. It helps me understand the anger I often get thrown at me, by a loved one. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve helped me tremendously, by posting this. And hey–isn’t that part of why we all write? Not to just vent(though that’s worthwhile, too), but to connect? Thank you again, and PWADJ, I totally agree you must experience what you feel, truly allow yourself to feel…But feel better, soon. Much gratefulness. And Peace, kid.