Feeling too much of it

My irritation level is high.

Anger rises in almost every thought.

I want to say this is unlike me. Yet I am human, and to deny anger would be to deny a part of me, to deny my voice. And the one thing that I've demanded of myself this year is to find my voice.

The difficulty I seem to be having is taking the irritation, the frustration, the anger, the resentment, the build-up, the distrust and putting it into words that make sense. That do not place blame. That acknowledges what a shit show life has been. And to find some level of acceptance in the ability to allow myself to feel these emotions. To speak them out loud and process them.

In grief, I have tried to hold true to the mantra - I need to feel it to get through it.

I am feeling it, folks. I am probably feeling too much of it. And after yesterday's therapy session, I acknowledge that the feelings are taking me on an unwanted rollercoaster ride of emotion.

Anger is not something I am familiar with, or comfortable with, in any fashion. I run from it as fast as possible. I shut down in the face of it. To have my mind be immersed in it - means I am at constant battle with something I have pretty much designed my life to avoid.

So when it starts to appear in facial expressions, in my tone, in my actions and words, I fly away with apologies, and denials, and a fear that anger has taken over my life.

Even in my darkest days of grief, I struggled with the anger phase of it. It did not feel comfortable, and now I wonder if I ever allowed myself to fully feel that part of grief. As I approach 17 years since losing Kevin, and a month before my next cancer scans, I feel it bubbling and boiling around me. Suffocating me and filling my brain with a powerful, acidic effervescence.

It tinges every part of me wanting to eek its way out to be processed. To live my mantra in full: I need to feel it to get through it.

Learning how to feel anger, how to accept and process it appropriately, to acknowledge it is normal, and to incorporate it into life feels like a very foreign concept to me. Anger is not within the purview of a pacifist's life. When searching Dr. Google for "Mennonite Church and anger pacifism", I landed on this blog by Linda Gehman Peachey from Lancaster. Her first sentences describe exactly what the church taught me about anger:

"I don’t think I’ve ever written about anger. Indeed, it is hard to even acknowledge I could be angry. If I learned nothing else in my childhood, it was that a Mennonite woman should never be angry. Anger was the opposite of who Jesus was and what a Christ-like woman should ever feel."

Nearly every word that Linda writes resonates with me in my feelings about why anger scares me, particularly because "it may look and sound too much like violence," and it can relate to rejection. That hits the core of why anger may be my albatross.

There's a lot in life to be angry about. I have mourned so much in my life, and now it seems I have unlocked the anger chapter. I spent years figuring out how to work with grief and mourning and loss, and I kept such a distance from this emotion. Now I need to know not only how to manage it, but how to accept it as part of who I am - as part of who I have always been.

Reflecting back, I can see anger in myself - many, many times. It's not as if it hasn't existed. But for some reason, I never acknowledged it in myself. I always named it as something other. And I can name it as something else tonight.

Disappointment.

And that one possibly hurts more. This year has challenged me in some just plain mean ways. Ways I felt undeserving of. I'm angry about it. I'm talking just about me. My life. My experiences. And what has been handed me has sucked. It does suck. And I still haven't accepted it. The changes have been hard. It has nearly stopped me from dreaming. It has slowed me down. Killed my energy and hope. It has torn down trust, and where I have always been able to see light around me, it feels so dim.

I'll acknowledge that yes, I have messaged my doctor about this. Because there's a very real chance this could be related to my psychotropic medications not playing well with a very suppressed thyroid-stimulating hormone (0.1). So there's that to figure out.

I recognize there are other factors at play beyond my own mind.

And. I'd also like to tell myself. That's it's ok to be angry. It's ok to be disappointed. You are allowed to be mad that life has not turned out in any way how you expected it to. You are allowed to be happy for the things that come from that and equally upset and angered at that. You can live in both of these worlds. At some point though, I have to live. I have to move forward.

As my therapist reminded me. I don't need to dream up the next 5 years. That feels far too long away. But I can dream up the week. I can focus on the joy I want to find tomorrow and the next day. I can set intention and make plans. And while doing that, I can work through this anger.