I've been 'managing' a lot of anger lately. It has been surfacing like its my job to learn how to manage it for the first time. Not driven by any one thing in particular, the triggers and targets of my expressions often happen to be what is in front of me at the time, mainly my family, and unfortunately typically undeserving to those around me. I understand there is an element here of adjusting to going off my meds, and although it has been a month since I have weaned off completely, I am still adjusting to the changes in emotional intensity that I experience. But I know the anger to be rooted more deeply and perhaps a congestion of much more than present circumstances.
I recently became aware of how I shame and suppress anger, how it transforms into depression. This feels like a safer way to manage it, but I also now see the ways it does not benefit me. I envision it like a pop can. With anger it is crumbled but still a recognizable container, just distorted. In depression it is flattened from the top, so compressed that it has started to transform into something completely different, like a coin that has been run over by a train. They are both made up of the same elements, but take on very different forms, and whereas the crumbled can has much more presence and outward story, the flattened can almost disappears from the horizon. It's presence is minimal and it no longer functions as it was originally meant to.
With this awareness of how I take anger and push it down into a form that has less impact on the world around me but more compacted within me when transformed, there is an automatic release. A closing of that valve and permission to let my freak-out flag fly. It is as if a cage inside me has been unlocked, the door opened, and the anger released to fly freely within me, and with out. It feels too soon, too fast. Whereas I have been given suggestions through counselling on ways to recognize and release this emotion in healthy ways, it still manages to gravitate the quickest exits, the holes that have already been carved and I find I am lashing out at those closest to me and taking on victim roles, rather than taking the steps to release it in a controlled way. I suppose this is often how I learn, mistaking, imperfection exposed, guilt, then correction. I have also been advised that this is a pattern and not the only choice (they say it doesn't have to be hard).
I could say it is because I have been 'quarantined' with my family and given a lack the space to navigate this without constant disruption. But I know better. I know this is a factor but not a cause. And I know I have the freedom to prioritize. I know I have tools to work with my emotions and accountability to hold up on my end. I have a growing compassionate relationship with myself that I choose to access or block. I see how the history plays in here, and this understanding has the potential to build rooms for each grace and victimhood. Again, my choice. I haven't quite found the lights in the room of grace yet. The victim room is one I know much better, and frankly, more familiar. My job is to stop going for quick access and comfortable if I want to change these patterns, and prevent new ones from digging their feet in.
And in this awareness I do see this happening. That door to the depression room is more often closed. I find myself less and less attracted to its colours. I wonder, is this what breaking up from depression looks like for me?
Maybe that is it. Maybe that is why it feels hard right now, as I am attempting to break the easy and comfortable habits and to forge an alternative path in my growth. Perhaps I need to give myself the grace in this adjustment period and lean on trust that I have it in me, over the guilt built into the stories I tell about how this is affecting those I feel responsible for. The challenge is to lean into the trust over what I have always known to be my (perceived) truth. To cut the stitches that bind me so tightly to the identity keeping me small and so close to the ground. To face the pain that I have pushed down to avoid, and learn in my resilience that it will never completely take me out. To trust the anger that I have avoided a relationship with most of my life. To trust that there is another side to this, and I that am on the right path.
