Sunday, November 3, 2013

Anger Management


I have been experiencing a lot of anger these past few weeks. More anger than I ever remember experiencing and I don't know what to do about it. It's not necessarily yelling and screaming anger, it's more like an unfamiliar side of anxiety and excessive internal criticism.

As a child, I developed a belief that angry people were bad people. Typically if my parents were angry with me then I would be punished and I knew I was in trouble. This resulted in my unhealthy people pleasing behaviors and a plastered on fake happy face. Regardless of how much I hated conforming and acting a certain way to fit in, it still beat having others become angry with me.

I also feared allowing others to see me get angry because then they would think I was a horrible person. Rather than finding outlets for my anger, all of those emotions were internalized leading me to bottle up and run from those uncomfortable feelings. This also explains why I am incredibly hard on myself; all of that pent up anger was not allowed to be expressed towards others, so I made myself believe everything was my fault.

When the constant negative self-talk became too much to handle, I did everything I could to numb out and avoid those emotions... Hello, eating disorder. When the body and brain are in a state of starvation, it is nearly impossible to focus on anything except food, which was a temporary escape from my anger.

It's been over a year since I left treatment and began working on the underlying issues involved in my eating disorder, but the anger is just now starting to surface and I don't like it. I'm angry at everything and everyone. Experiencing years of repressed anger has left me feeling edgy and apprehensive. My thoughts are racing more than ever, I can't concentrate, and I feel like a crazy person 98% of the time.

Last week a friend of mine suggested I start writing in those moments of intense anger, so I gave it a shot. As I began writing, I found it easier to write letters to specific situations or people in my past. Obviously I would never share these letters or actually send them, but I did find they helped me sort out my emotions. In addition to writing, I have read deep breathing, counting to ten, a good night's rest, exercise, and identifying anger triggers can all help cope in a healthy way.

That's the thing about recovering from an eating disorder - in order to continue progressing, I've learned I need to sit with and feel those uncomfortable emotions even though it's easier not to. Interestingly, I found after a few months of treatment, I began feeling the grief associated with a breakup in my life that had happened two years previously. Again, rather than actually going through the sadness, anger, and loneliness that comes with a breakup, I just numbed it out because in the moment that was better than feeling those things.

Anger is an emotion that I have never really allowed myself to experience. Learning to cope with this emotion in a healthy way will be a challenge, but I think this whole crazy-person stage is the first step. I never realized just how numb I had become to the world around me until recently. Although finally experiencing this ugly emotion has been irritating, it sure beats living in a lifeless, numb eating disordered world.

Progress.

13 comments:

  1. The best way to heal from any emotion, is to allow the emotion. Resisting against it makes it push back harder. This won't last forever. It's all apart of the journey to being able to live the life you have imagined for yourself! xox

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    1. Thanks, Kristi! Deep down I know that I need to just work my way through it, but like I said, it's easier not to haha.

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  2. I couldn't believe just how angry I can get these days. Our pasts are very similar -- from the childhood moments to people pleasing to numbing out for so long. And now, emotions hit stronger than ever. I laugh harder, cry incredibly easily, and get into a flurrying rage at the drop of a hat (which can also lead to tears). I'm having trouble accepting that feeling things this strongly is a good thing. But with every day that I let myself feel them, I understand a little more why they're necessary. It's okay to be upset and angry and happy and complacent. Keeping them bottled up will only create emotional turmoil. These feelings (all of them, anger included) are what keep us human. I'm sorry that it's been a challenge for you, but I know that you've grown because of it. Be true to you, hun. Always here for you. <3

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    1. This was really helpful, Chels. Thank you! I have also laughed harder, cried harder, ext. Someone once told me (probably a therapist or something) that we have to take the happy emotions with the angry ones and I'm learning just how true that is. No need to apologize! It's all part of the process. And I know the most difficult lessons always teach me the most! <3

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  3. Almost positive I am going through this stage of recovery right now too! I get super annoyed with people and the way they expect me to act... Because that's what they have expect for so long. It's strange for the people in my life to accept this new me and it makes me incredibly angry. Funny, I also feel like crazy person 98% of the time. Thanks for this post!!!

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    1. Well good, I'm glad my angry could help you in a positive way haha. Here's to the 2% of normalcy... It will get better! :)

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  4. I wish I could experience anger in a more constructive way - with me, it still ends up with me in tears and feeling that I have done something "wrong". It's particularly interesting right now, as I am co-facilitating an anger management group with my supervisor as part of my practicum. I feel like I'm learning as much as the paying clients!

    One thing we are talking about is ways of communication - passive, aggressive and assertive. Assertive is the ideal - owning our position and feelings and stating what we need. Unfortunately, I think those of us who have been prone to passivity and stamping down our emotions sometimes we boomerang back past the assertive mark and land in aggressive territory as we are trying to figure out how to express the emotions in a healthy manner. We need to keep trying though, in order to learn our "sweet spot" and settle in to owning our emotions without letting them own us.

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    1. Oh don't get me wrong here, most of my anger still ends up in tears! But I think before the tears the anger comes and I don't deal with it properly, so the anger is muted... Make sense?

      I am absolutely prone to passivity, so it makes sense that these emotions effect me on a deeper level. Assertiveness will be a lifelong learn process for me. Thanks for the reminder. That makes so much sense now that I think about it! <3

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  5. I can relate to you on this a lot again. I have a problem to express anger too. I transform it to "sadness", "depression" and etc... because "anger" to me is such a violent emotion and it is scary. I have learned to find where my resentments are in my recovery, and I am learning to express it too. I write a letter to people whom I am angry, tear up the papers, and throw them away... But sometimes, that's not enough. I stomp my feet on the the floor, and start to cry... I don't know how to express anger in other healthy way... Yeah, everybody says that feelings are ok, and we need to allow ourselves to feel... but it's not that easy when we even don't know we are actually suppressing some feelings... <3

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    1. Yup, I agree with everything you just said. Sometimes no matter how we express it, it isn't enough so we are forced to sit with it. Not always fun, is it? <3

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  6. Argh, I can really relate to this! Well, when I was in my ED I was a lot more irritable than I am now (mmm I guess starvation will do that to you), but I rarely got angry, because I turned it in on myself, or just numbed it with restriction or self-harming. But now in recovery I am definitely angry more often and at things that I never used to get angry about before! It is scary for me because I kind of despise myself for being angry, and I worry that others won't like me. But at the same time I think it is sort of a healthy thing, because before I was so passive and wouldn't get angry at things that by rights I should have been angry at. I realised recently that I mostly get angry these days at other people not treating me respectfully, or expecting me to be the same old passive compliant person I used to be. Maybe if I had experienced (and expressed) a healthy amount of anger at these things before, I wouldn't have gotten to a stage where I needed to suppress the anger with behaviours or take it out on myself...

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    1. Wow this sounds exactly like me. I rarely got in angry whiled I was sick either and I agree that it is really scary to feel that anger now. It's hard for me to accept that anger is a normal emotions and we're allowed to feel it, especially when people treat us disrespectfully, like you said.

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  7. Your article is very interesting & exceptionally effective this article is very helpful for our people your blog is wonderful, I am waiting for your next blog. anger management

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