AYS Day One Continued: Anger, Emotions, & Anxiety

Some people might have noticed that I tend to pick one word, sentence, or phrase out of a whole long thing and burn it in my brain. I would look up a post and link to it, but my brain is tired and that's too much work. That is what this post is about. To sum up my weekend in one phrase: be angry (please be angry) but channel your anger appropriately. OMG! a whole group of angry people! Not angry like the stereotypical bitter cripple, but angry outrage at injustice. And not just a room full of angry crips, but angry uppity intellectual activist crips. I would like to repeat, OMG!!!!! I think I've just died and gone to heaven. And you know, I have this anger thing down. I really have this anger thing down. Down to perfection. You inadvertently push my button and I fly off the handle in a split second. But appropriately? What's that? *sheepish grin* I could use some training in channeling it.

What is it with me rambling tonight? That was not the phrase I want to focus on. The point is to expand on something someone else has said, not go off on a phrase I made up to send to someone in a text. We were talking about anger and D spoke up and said, "Anger is not a choice. The choice is what you do." OMG. D, you are a genius. I love when someone says something so simply that I have been feeling for a long time but have not been able to express in words. There are two people in particular who this post is targeted towards who do not read this blog.

I would like to expand on D's statement. "Feelings (emotions?) are not a choice. The choice is what you do with them." and "Anxiety/panic is not a choice. The choice is how you process/work through it." I do not know why I have not been able to get this through to these two people, but I am now going to add this to my list of BP phrases. Maybe it will help. It's #2 on the list. #1 is I'm NOT sick G-D DAMN IT! Do I have a fever? Did someone forget to tell me?

These two people have been telling me things such as "just because you had a panic attack before, doesn't mean you have to have one again." Like I have any control over this at all. Like I can really have control over having muscle spasms in my legs while I'm sleeping that are so bad I want to sever my legs off right below the knees.

They say these things when I am doing well. When I am in control and can recognize that maybe so-and-so really isn't out to get me (the jury is still out on this as far as I'm concerned). They say this when I tell them that this cycles. All students live on a cyclical schedule. Break, beginning, slight lull, midterms, slight lull, finals, break, repeat. I learned from a previous shrink that even months before a semester begins, when I don't know my exact class schedule, my particular workload, how often that schedule is going to put me in contact with the person/people who is/are out to get me I can pull out a calendar, count the weeks and tell you with absolute certainty, within a day or so, when it is going to be bad.

I try to tell them this but they don't listen to me. They hear what they want to hear. What they hear is that my anxiety is situational and my triggers are easily identifiable. What they hear is that this means that I don't have a separate diagnosable anxiety disorder (I agree). What they hear is that I tend to create these situations for myself, put myself into them (I also agree). So don't, they say. I can't, I try to say.

It's not that I want to keep putting myself in these situations, it's not that I'm getting something out of wanting to sever my legs off, it's that I don't have another option. I don't have another way. I don't know how. No one has taught me how. Fucking teach me how! I need you to teach me how. It is not my choice to be anxious. My choice is to be prepared for these situations. To look at a calender in advance, to know that this is a day that tends to be a hotspot and to have several tools ready at my disposal so that I can slay my monster (to borrow a term from Rob R-H). People don't choose their monsters. They learn to live with them.

Maybe it's my fault that every time I see these people I want to strangle them, to shake them, to scream and yell and tell them NO! It has the fucking power. It doesn't have to. We all know that. We all know that I have the power to slay my monster. If only I had a real sword instead of a cut out paper one. It is my fault that I haven't demanded that you hand me that sword. You have the sword. You have the education, the knowledge, the experience, the practice, and I need to get that from you. Or maybe you don't. Maybe I've just been wasting my time with you. It's my fault for trying to be polite, for trying to reason with you and not knowing that what I really needed to do was shake you and yell and scream. But I just didn't know how to do that either.