Mad Woman

For reasons lost to the meanderings of my mind, it recently dawned on me that my anxiety isn’t really anxiety at all.

I am filled with submerged rage. I didn’t ask to be born to a bunch of emotional idiots. I struggle daily with the effects of their bullshit. To some degree, I’m still angry for every pointlessly mean thing, for every clueless utterance.

Because I never found a way to express my anger. I have been afraid of it, afraid of losing control of it. I don’t want to hurt myself or anyone else.

The difference between a tool and a weapon is sometimes very small!

So I tamp it down. I keep it contained as best I can but it rattles its cage and howls at night. It vibrates my nerves and keeps me agitated.

When you can’t fight and you can’t flee, and the danger is also what you rely on, emotional static builds up and sparks fly.

My anger is so big I can’t even really see it, it’s impossible to consider it all at once. Most of my negative experiences have become lessons or just forgotten. But my family dysfunction is so stupid and pernicious, my thoughts unconsciously shaped by it, and all because a couple of jerks couldn’t hold a relationship together.

Eventually the pebble in your shoe becomes a boulder!

I’m angry over the wasted potential – to be told I was “gifted” at eight, then moved around every year for six years and allowed to totally fall through the cracks. I literally was never taught to multiply. I was expected to understand long division without ever seeing a times table.

So now I have a shitty education and a shitty job, I’m just trying not to pass the shitty behavior on to my own children.

I have been using the manifest anxiety as a sort of buffer for the world. It’s a goddam defense mechanism just like so many others in my gene pool. Fortunately, I seem to be pretty smart. It’s basically fake, and now I’m furious with myself for perpetrating such cowardly garbage.

This heavy baggage just makes me sad!

For a moment. Then my vision comes into focus and I raise my head with a steady gaze. I mostly even had myself convinced and, as horrible as it is to see this, I know shining a light on it is the only way to eradicate it. It’s a habit of thought, and I have to remind myself over and over but it’s kind of amazing. If you can’t be honest with yourself, what do you have?

I am angry and I have reason to be. I’m done abdicating my feelings and driving myself half crazy. I’m ready to take ownership of my energy.

Not meaning that I want to, that I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. It’s something that I can’t unsee. And as I let myself feel my anger, accept that the anxiety is a dodge, the relief is intense.

Let the sunshine in!

I am a whole person, free from searching for validation. My mind buzzes with ideas but I feel less distracted.

Sometimes anger is exactly the right way to feel.

But I am afraid. What I’m afraid of is myself. 

When a feeling is so intense that it forces its way to the surface no matter what you do, there is a sense you don’t have control over yourself. If your emotions rule you, you lose your free will. But in avoiding dealing with it, that is exactly what has happened. It manifests as freak-outs and crying jags.

When I’m angry I don’t know how to express it so I just become upset. (Perversely, when I’m sad I will become angry as a defense mechanism. But that’s a different post. Emotional growth, yay!)

It looks like magic!

Lately I have started isolating myself and letting myself be angry. It works! I recover faster and figure out what is really going on and what to do about it. A lot of times, there’s nothing to do. But it feels amazing to step outside the loop I have been stuck in for 30 years. 

And I look forward to bringing it to bear on bigger things. Anger is a powerful motivator and there are many corners of the world that could benefit from the intervention of a mad woman.