Anger management

Where to start? Hmmm... well I guess I should face a pretty ugly truth - I have allowed myself to become a person that I actually don't like very much. Angry. Judgemental. Blaming others. Feeling like a victim all of the time. Frustrated. Helpless. This is all adding up to a huge noise - its deafening me. Frightening me. And it is making me behave in ways that are frankly shitty and downright unpleasant. What is even more frightening is that I have also realised how it all started coming unravelled about 4 weeks ago.

What happened 4 weeks ago? I gave up drinking. Completely. And the anxiety levels have been building ever since. Looking back I can see I have been spinning my wheels at an ever increasing rate and my behaviour is rapidly approaching mania. It is farking terrifying. What has been the biggest shock is how much I was using alcohol to cope with these emotions. Or thought I was coping. What I was doing was drinking to a point where I felt nothing. The anger and pain was so much I was desperate to escape. Because 3 months before I had removed another "emotional anaesthetic" - binge eating and over eating. I have very deliberately and systematically been removing my emotional escapes. And for some reason thought that there would be no repercussions.

I think, to be  fair, I should list about what has bought me to a point of such anger and frustration. Actually this anger is building to fury. Which is spilling out - it's almost as if it can no longer be contained. And what is terrifying is that it is being directed at people who really don't deserve it. I hate this. I really do. But I am angry because...
I am watching my poor parents trying to adjust and cope with the repercussions of my dad's strokes. He has developed epilepsy from the scars the strokes have caused and it is still unstable at the moment. I want to fix it and can't.
My son has been horrifically bullied and assaulted by other kids in his year. The fact we had to talk to the police and sexual assault team still makes me want to throw up. I know that the other children who did the bullying need help too but the feeling of horror for my son and anger I feel towards these kids is causing me great stress. And staying "strong" is exhausting me. Yes I am getting help but I can't just block it out
I live with the love of my life who suffers terribly from PTSD. It has been that way since July 2001 and things are much better now. But he still suffers and as a result, so does the rest of the family. Living with this is beyond just "living in the company of the black dog". Because this dog NEVER GOES away. You just learn to live with it. And frankly, it sucks. It's not his fault. It's not any one's fault. But it doesn't stop me wanting to find someone to blame.
I want to be faster, fitter and healthier than I am. It has taken 18 months to go from 145kg to 116kg and yes, it's a great achievement. But it's not fast enough in my eyes. It's not been perfect. I am my own worst saboteur. And I get pissed off with myself. WHY can't I do better, go faster, be everything I want to be? I didn't say it made a lick of sense. It's what it is.

There's lots of other piddly crap too and that's what I focus on. The piddly, insignificant shit takes up the majority of my worrying time and stresses me right out. Because I want to ignore everything else. It's too much. too big. too difficult. And now that I have stripped away everything (very deliberately) that I had to distract myself (food, alcohol) I am standing in what feels like a very scary place with no defences, no shield, no fallback. SO I get angry and attack, lashing out and striking first because I can't run the risk of any more hurt. But all I have ended up doing is alienating those who mean so much to me and developing a (in the words of Mistress Pain) bullshit attitude. And it is bullshit. Everything that's happening and has happened wants me to howl in rage and frustration but in the end that's just more noise. And a shipping container or 6 of emotional baggage which is getting fucking hard to carry around. Anger isn't working. Anger doesn't make me feel better.

So what the fuck do I do now?

Well, admit I have a problem, for starters. This is not how mentally healthy people feel (according to Dr Google, anyway). So it is time to head back to the shrink to work out how best to deal with this emotional shit fight. I need to get this all out and in its place. I need to get this "noise" down to a level where it doesn't drown out all of the good that's around me. Because I know it's there - it just feels like I am observing it rather than taking part. Or even worse I am deliberately holding it away because I don't "deserve" to feel the good stuff. And before you ask, yes I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder years ago and no, I have not suddenly taken myself of my medication.

To those I have attacked, I apologise. I am well aware that does not make everything better. I know it is up to you to decide if you still want to be pissed at me for the way I have been behaving. But I am truly sorry. Fear, anger and a victim mentality has made the worst parts of me come to the surface. And it's ugly. Raw. Disturbing. I am out of adjectives, but you get my drift.

Time to wrap up. I know this has been heavy but I needed to write things down. This is how I let my emotions have a "voice". I think they have wanted to speak for some time, but I kept ignoring them in the hope they would go away.