Anger Management

I'm back! After a long sabbatical of not posting, I've returned. I've returned to tell you that which I feel I must before we can move on, or more accurately before I can move on. Because I've been plagued by these feelings of self-doubt and unhappiness (with myself) and inadequacy. I don't think I've ever felt like inspiration people tell me that I am, and I will tell you why. But first I must explain why I haven't posted. It's because I've been afraid. I'm ashamed of what I'm going to tell you, and I'm afraid that you'll think less of me for it. But if I don't tell you, it will continue to plague me. So at last I write.

Starting two years ago, I became someone that I later no longer recognized as myself. I hid this self from everyone outside of my household. When I would leave my house, I would gather my faculties and not act the way I would act at home. I don't know why. Scratch that; I do know why. Because I was so angry. So angry at the world, angry at the people who surrounded me, angry at God, angry at my situation. And the only way I could deal with this insufferable anger was to become someone else, and that someone else lashed out.

I'm not trying to diminish what I did by saying that I became someone else. I could have controlled things I said, but I didn't. And while everyone who knows me knows I don't exactly have the best filter, they also know I am not mean, particularly for the satisfaction of being mean. That's not who I've ever been before, but it's who I was at home for too long.

Things have been much better. I am far past the anger stage in the grieving process now. But that doesn't excuse the things I said then, at least I don't think so.

I can't tell you any specific things that I said, only that I was often cruel, frequently unkind, very often disparaging, and more. And all of this to the people who were trying to help me. My nurses, my family. Though they have since met the "real me," the one who doesn't say things like that, or even think them, and they have told me that they love me and they stay here for me, it was not so in the beginning. They stayed for my mother, because I was such a tyrant.

As far as I was concerned, nobody could do anything right, because nobody could do anything the way I used to. And so I let my anger loose upon them, and it was not a pretty sight. Every nurse steadfastly took when I dished out until they couldn't take it anymore, and at some point they lashed out in return, and with good reason. Since I had none. At the time I thought their "ineptitude" was awful, but none of my nurses are inept. They are all far from that, I was just too angry to see it at the time.

Personalities ruffled me, actions pissed me off, and no one could do much to please me. I didn't like being manhandled, which I am still today-- the only difference is that I have come to accept it. I didn't like that everyone did things differently, so I didn't know what to expect, though I have since come to accept that as well. It just took a long time. A long time for me to stop being so angry, and me to stop being so mean to the people who were trying to help me.  (Don't misunderstand:  for those who know me, don't think that I have gotten over my periodic temper flares...as I said, I have become ME again!)

I don't really know what else to say. Perhaps I will just leave you to digest this on your own time and in your own way. It has helped me immensely to get this out, but I hope you can be understanding. That time was probably the biggest trial I will ever experience in my life, other than smaller everyday trials. Trying to get through that anger was nearly impossible. But I'm through it now, and that other self is dead. I hope you can read this and see the real me through the angry me. I was angry at the world for letting this happen, and the same with God (or so I thought at the time.), I was angry with people because they weren't perfect, which is terribly stupid. I was angry that I was completely incapacitated, but mostly I was angry at myself for not wearing a seatbelt. But I have managed, somehow, to get past all this and am the person I used to be.

This blog may not be inspirational, but it comes from my heart and I hope that is enough. Until next time. And so we go.