I am angry, very angry right now. I can feel this fire burning in my heart and chest area, it feels painful and vibrating with intense energy. The rest of my body feels tense, my muscles contracting, my face and jaw tight. These are the physical sensations I am feeling right now and which are common for me to feel whenever I am angry. These physical sensations are accompanied by feelings of hatred, unfairness/indignation, humiliation and feeling inadequate and small. Some of these are directed at myself and some at others, but all suck and feel intense and painful. On top of that, thoughts are spiralling in my head around the reasons why I am (righteously) angry and why the person my anger is directed toward (and whose guts I hate right now!) is in the wrong and should be punished for how they made me feel. They fucking suck! They are so freaking selfish! How could they do this to me? I don't want to talk to them ever again! How can I punish them? How dare they talk to me like that!
What I usually try to do is understand why I am angry, what sensitive spot was triggered within me and then access the underlying feeling. This can be sadness, hurt, or fear. It has been quite a good tactic for me, because once I can feel these emotions, I manage to cry and release part of that painful energy. But most importantly, I don't have to feel angry anymore.
Why do I not want to feel angry? When I'm angry, I feel out of control. It feels like there is this energy within me that keeps feeding itself the longer I feel angry and think about all the reasons why. All I want is to release this intense energy and while I'm in it, the easiest way to do that seems to be lashing out at others. Depending on how high I am on the anger scale, this can feel a bit scary. When I feel fairly angry I could make mean, cold and sarcastic remarks which I know would hurt the person and this is exactly what I want at that moment. These comments feel calculated but I always regret saying them afterwards. It feels to me almost like a different person is saying them, or a detached shell of me that is not connected to my emotions, especially empathy. When I feel an intense amount of anger in an open argument with a person and they throw accusations back at me, I am sometimes unable to coherently respond. I would leave the room or hang up the phone because my brain is simply unable to make up a meaningful response. Today, I was so angered by a thing the person in the argument was saying to me that I hyperventilated and was scrambling to form a sentence in response. I hung up the phone. In that moment, I felt like I could not make myself be heard at all and that the argument was spiralling and I couldn't control where it was heading.
Today, I've felt (and am still feeling) angry and I want to explore this feeling instead of rationalising it.
The main points that triggered the feeling of anger today were:
- Disrespecting my boundaries (not consulting me or ignoring my input on decisions that affect me personally, intruding on my personal space/time)
- Implying that how I feel about something is not valid
- Saying that I make things difficult, I am rigid and being unfair (when I set my boundaries)
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