I like to think I’m pretty good at recognizing my emotions (I mean when you’ve been in some sort of counseling over half of your life it’s a skill you pick up). I’ve gotten good at recognizing “is this a long term feeling or is this just situational?” Anyone who knows me knows how hard I work on my mental health so I can continue to identify (maybe) what the hell is wrong with me on certain days.
However, a few months ago I experienced an emotion I haven’t really allowed myself to feel much in my life to the point where it legitimately shocked me.
I’ve been sitting on the plan for this blog since the beginning of the year. I was talking with my counselor about one of my “little t” childhood traumas (one that I don’t open up much about; See there ARE things I still don’t subject y’all to) and found myself feeling a tightness in my chest that I wasn’t familiar with. I wasn’t yelling, but my volume certainly increased. I was wildly tense. My counselor asked me to tell her what was happening with my body so I explained but told her I couldn’t define it she goes, “I think what you’re feeling is anger.”
Oh.
The one I’ve spent my entire life terrified of? The one I didn’t think I ever had a right to feel because “other people have it worse?” The one that when it’s expressed to me I IMMEDIATELY launch into a fawn response?
Yeah, that one.
I’ve been afraid of anger for as long as I can remember. I know I have a temper inside me but it doesn’t come out very often. I can count the number of times I’ve YELLED at some on one hand because it’s not something I feel comfortable with. I think part of this comes from knowing how I’ve always responded to it and the idea of putting that sort of fear in anyone makes me feel guilty beyond belief.
The more I’ve read, however, is teaching me that feeling angry is healthy and pushing it down is the same as pushing down any other emotion. The trick is what you do with it.
I’ve learned that I’m allowed to feel angry about my trauma because what happened to me genuinely isn’t fair. Everything after “because” in that sentence made me cringe to type but I think there are maybe three people that would disagree with that point.
It isn’t fair. I was a child. It’s not my fault. Yet I’d been operating for years only expressing that through deep depressive episodes and paths of self-destruction that I can’t seem to get myself out of.
So from here on out, I’m going to proudly claim this anger to use as energy to move forward. I’ll find a way to use it for good for my betterment. I welcome it as part of my healing journey with open arms.
No healing journey is pretty. Embrace that.
Like Taylor Swift sang, (admittedly talking about something very different) “There’s no such thing as bad thoughts. Only your actions talk.”
Rose’s Ramblings 