Anger: More displaced or more real?

I went to my city's library this Saturday. Got there at about 3:40 p.m. or so; it closes at 4.

I grabbed one book from the new nonfiction rack, then went into the stacks to browse for more.

I lost track of time a bit.

Then, the lights on the back wall go off. From my experience in a town about the same size where I lived before, I figure I've got 10 minutes.

So, I browse about 2 minutes more. Then more lights go off, as in about all of them.

I stride up to the counter with books in hand. One clock was at 4; the other a minute or two earlier.

All lights were out. Back office doors were being closed. I was told staff computers were already shut down and I couldn't check out the three books I had.

I basically said nothing, but they could see my look of disgust.

And I emailed library staff when I got home.

That said, had I not been engaged in some self-distracting behavior online, I would have gotten there earlier.

So, how much of my anger was displaced?

Some of it ... yes.

No more than 50 percent, though, if that. The poor customer service would have happened even had I gotten to the library when I did for other reasons, "good" reason.

In fact, I don't think more than 20 percent was displaced.

And, I need to make sure that I'm not 12-stepping or something to do an "inventory" that isn't true.

On the flip said, I think my expression was good. No yelling. Minimal comment in general. Setting the books on the counter firmly, even forcefully, without slamming them.

I give myself credit for that.

Ten years later, and still angry at times

My dad would have been 85 yesterday.

That's if he hadn't died just over 10 years ago.

Having had my previous newspapers of publishing sold out from under me, albeit with landing on my feet again, now is as good a time as any to reflect on anger over my career of sorts and other things, and connect it to "dear old dad."

Trying to follow in his ministry footsteps, with him passively at times making sure I stayed focused on that, and actively at other times working to cut off other paths, like finding and tossing a partially filled out application to New Mexico Tech to study astrophysics ...

Then finally "escaping," and it being too late, realistically, to do other things academically, especially with a guilt-tripped brain, even as he let me move back in with him ...

I accept that this is where I am. I accept that I'm not poor, even though I hate being in a crumbling profession with anxiety over the future fueled by PTSD.

Yeah, I'm angry. Relative lack of job security at age 50-plus isn't fun. Neither is having a job that doesn't pay ... oh, not a lot, but, say, $5-10,000 more than I actually make. Neither is not having a job, and a career path, that I didn't more actively choose.

Above all is having a dad that steered me away from this — and a mom that allegedly divorced him because of this, but had no real post-divorce interventions.

A little DABDA

A little DABDA

A little DABDA will do ya,

Or so, the grieving are told.

But there’s no right way, or wrong way, to mourn

Even if there are more common, and less common, ways.

Sometimes, loss doesn’t involve denial.

A death, a divorce, or similar, has been long anticipated.

Likewise for anger; it’s been wrestled with

And exhausted,

Before the loss.

Likewise for bargaining.

Depression? More common, and more normal,

Even before acceptance, which may never fully come for some.

Sometimes, they overlap.

Emotions, after all, aren’t discrete.

Sometimes, one emotion is experienced

Two or more times, even if others aren’t.

And maybe, just maybe

A little DABDA will do ya,

For things besides loss.

Like depression, even if it’s a “D” itself.

Or anxiety.

Don’t we deny our own emotions at times,

Or longer moods,

Or more complex psychological states?

Of course, especially if there’s reason for us to do that.

Don’t we get angry at being depressed,

Or frustrated at being anxious?

Yes.

Unfortunately, bargaining aside,

Depression or anger don’t fully disappear.

A little DABDA

A little DABDA will do ya,

Or so, the grieving are told.

But there’s no right way, or wrong way, to mourn

Even if there are more common, and less common, ways.

Sometimes, loss doesn’t involve denial.

A death, a divorce, or similar, has been long anticipated.

Likewise for anger; it’s been wrestled with

And exhausted,

Before the loss.

Likewise for bargaining.

Depression? More common, and more normal,

Even before acceptance, which may never fully come for some.

Sometimes, they overlap.

Emotions, after all, aren’t discrete.

Sometimes, one emotion is experienced

Two or more times, even if others aren’t.

And maybe, just maybe

A little DABDA will do ya,

For things besides loss.

Like depression, even if it’s a “D” itself.

Or anxiety.

Don’t we deny our own emotions at times,

Or longer moods,

Or more complex psychological states?

Of course, especially if there’s reason for us to do that.

Don’t we get angry at being depressed,

Or frustrated at being anxious?

Yes.

Unfortunately, bargaining aside,

Depression or anger don’t fully disappear.

Emotions - the iron mask, part 1

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK PART I

I hate myself,

I tell myself at times,

But do I really?

I hate who I am,

I hate some of who I’ve become,

That much is true.

I feel a failure,

Lazy, weak, spineless, empty

A faker, to boot.

No adult inside;

Rather, a 16-year-old

Who’s not yet grown up.

And doesn’t want to be

So he says, “Leave me alone,”

Even to his ego-self.

He hates adult life;

Duties, decisions, stances,

And hates even more

Missed teenage life,

No wild oats sown, no fearless fun,

No adventurousness.

No bits of playboy

For the man in the iron mask

Of caged emotions.

Of course he’s angry

And angry beyond that, too

For all those reasons.

And now? He’s at

His emotional break point

Sans guarantees.

In the iron mask.

April 28, 2012

Anticipation, anger, anxiety and frustration-fear

What a mix of emotions, eh? But, it's where I'm at right now. Hoping for something to change externally within 24 hour, or I'll likely be dropping an email hint to that end.

Yes, yes, CBD and Buddhism ... the emotional control is all within.

Nonetheless, it's easier with certain external circumstances in play.

More later.

That said, it's better than feeling nothing, or than not recognizing what I am feeling.

===

One day later, having sent my email hint, I've received a response that the process on which I am waiting is muddling along. Well, I can only wait and try to control my impatience, since I can't figure why the hell the process is taking this long.

ANGER IN THE KEY OF C-SHARP MINOR

Minor keys often have melancholy, plaintive laments,
More so than jarring stridency,
Unless a sudden dissonance intrudes;
And, so it is with my anger.
Slow to form, with an undercurrent of counterpoint,
Spoken and developed in individual voices,
Like a late Beethoven quartet,
Or, maybe, even more, one by Shostakovich.
I don’t even realize that I am angry until the score plays out,
Usually about halfway through the third movement.
Then, a diminished seventh lingers, a four-part pedal point, if you will,
Until the cello transitions out, into a growling presto ostinato,
And I can no longer deny to my conscious self that I am angered,
As my emotions now move attacca, without pause,
Into a final movement,
Where resolution is supposed to be found,
But, per the style of musica moderna,
Is not guaranteed.
— Dec. 14, 2010

Loneliness, with a touch of anger

Occasionally, I get pangs of loneliness. I realize now how much I hid my own loneliness from myself as a kid. In some cases, it's almost as if the whole emotion was suppressed in a quasi-Freudian way. In other cases, it's like it was nearer the surface of consciousness and I didn't quite beat it down without the help of alcohol or other things.

I don't know how much of this is natural avoidance due to gene-based anxiety tendencies, how much of it was lack of family emotional interaction (at least "good" emotions), how much of it was noncommittalness in attempts to avoid put-downs, let-downs and rejections both inside and outside of the family, how much of it was due to abuse, or what.

But, I walled off a lot, with a lot of layers. A few people recognize that; I've told more people. In any case, not just women are psychologically, or emotionally complex. And, at least in the U.S., men like me who can be that way at times are probably more puzzling than women.

I'm feeling both the loneliness and aloneness more at times now.

And, currently, feeling a touch of anger over issues partially related to that, and partially independent.

Envy, anger, and more

I have been realizing in the past couple of weeks that I have a lot of repressed envy, not just repressed anger. My envy is more, but by no means entirely, on the nonmaterial side, i.e., of people's social skills, relationship skills, starting sexual relationship skills,job-hunting skills, etc.

That said, I do envy, to some degree, other people's material possessions. There, I envy them as much for the putative security of having a higher income than I do, having a house (especially if not overbuying a McMansion), etc. Some things, like the job skills, or job-hunting skills, are partially materialistic, in the degree that material means connect in part to immaterial ends.

And, I am beginning to wonder if repressed envy of others and repressed anger at myself don't go a bit hand in hand.

Anger, anger, anger

Just today, with about 20 minutes of journaling, after talking with a friend online on Yahoo Messenger and other things, I realized I have touched another layer of the onion in realizing I have serious anger repression.

That goes hand in hand with anger management, assertiveness management, working for my wants and desires and more.

The anger is at various other people, starting with parents. As an adult, it's also anger at me. The events are all passed, all water under the bridge. But, this river I call my life, a Humean stream, doesn't change, it is the same river, because I don't leave it. So, learning, learning, learning more about this anger is important.

Moving, new job and other anxieties

It's been a while since I wrote anything here.

Well, after two months of unemployment, I found a new job, and decided to take it. It's still in newspaper journalism, but I had to leave Dallas for Odessa, Texas. And, unlike three years ago, when I last lost my job, it (with the hindsight of that case) seems unlikely that I will get back to Dallas. (Yes, part of me has wanted to move on anyway, but I'd like somewhere further west yet, I think, if I'm going to sacrifice all the things I like[d] about Big D.)

I am also adjusting to night hours as a copy editor at an AM daily newspaper. That's been more difficult than straight job adjustment. I think I am fighting a low grade dysthymia as well as anxiety.

The first week here, I had no problems with acting out. I was too emotionally and physically tired. Since then, I am at about the level I was before I moved, though no worse.

On the plus side, though at times it may have added to short-term anxiety or dysthymia, I have increased my journaling, especially my structured journaling from Nathaniel Branden. And, I've learned more about just how much buried anger I have, and where some of it hides.

Anxiety — anger turned sideways

If the old cliché about depression being anger turned inward has any degree of truth, then anxiety can certainly be seen as anger turned sideways, at least to a degree.

Anxiety is, at bottom, far of the future. To the degree this fear is based on anger at my present state, status or condition, or the environment in which I am making my future look iffy to me, then anxiety is anger turned sideways.

Anger — felt, accepted, vented, appreciated, seen as a sign of growth

I felt ANGRY at myself, my situation, and a whole bunch of shit when I noticed a few spelling errors, including one on page 1, in this week’s paper, looking at my copy for the web. Angry enough to “journal” two pages of scrawl-like writing about how “I hate myself,” etc., gradually calming down after a page and a half, including some non-dominant hand writing. I mean, I can’t hardly read it.

And, you know, it felt good. Not just the venting, but the actual act of feeling more anger.

The “emotional body memories,” which I first saw as just being trapped anxiety or fear, that I got in my calves after I quit drinking and started getting emotional memories of the sexual and other abuse, I am recognizing more and more to be — at least in part and at times — repressed anger. Anyway, I felt them all the way up into my upper hamstrings after finishing that journaling and going for an abbreviated power walk.

Now, can I get more in tune with my inner power from that anger? Can I put that anger to work for me more?

And, this does give me something to talk about in counseling Thursday. So, too, does thinking about how dad’s more serious physical abuse of my one brother traumatized me, just as did his and my brothers’ and my mother’s abuse and other actions.

But, I can become “unshellshocked,” to take a PTSD look at things, or at least “less shellshocked.”

Sufficient unto the day is the anger thereof

A crappy press day at the weekly newspaper where I am presently, and I BEG quite temporarily, ensconced. I missed several spelling mistakes, which I didn’t notice until copying stories to upload for our website.

I feel that maybe I’m not such a “plodder” after all. Not in the mind-numbing way this job feels like.

And, I’ve realized a LOT of my “anxiety” about this place is really previously mislabeled anger. I so fucking do not want to be here, and I don’t always deal with it in the best of ways. Maybe I’ll get better at it as I “accept” my anger more. I want to, really want to, figure out how to put it to work.