Let’s talk more about rage. I could soften it and talk about it in the socially polite way. “I was having difficulty reining in my anger, and I needed to focus on my breathing to do so.” Here is my post from yesterday in which I discuss all my struggles with my temper. I had it under control for the first twenty years of my life because I had to. It was psychological damaging, but I did what I had to do to get through it.
I had less of a grip on it through my thirties, and Taiji hepled me tap into my anger. Not in a bad way, but in a healthy way. It’s not healthy to hold back your temper to the point where you’re dead inside. Believe me, it isn’t.
For the majority of my life, I was numb. I could feel emotions way down deep, but they were very subdued–as if I was feeling them through a thick layer or twenty of gauze. This was positive emotions as well as negative ones–though I will admit that there were ten times the latter than the former.
I will point out that it’s also probably because I’m neuroatypical, which means I don’t feel things in the same way that other people do. However, I know it was more because of the emotional abuse I got whenever I showed any negative emotion in my family (I’ve mentioned more than once that only my parents were allowed to show their displeasure in any way).
Still. I felt I had a decent handle on it. With my parents, it was avoiding any topic that had the chance to go really wrong, and I could usually spot those within seconds. In general, I’m pretty good at spotting the pitfalls that will out me as a weirdo, alien, and/or freak. Or in the case of my family, just someone who’s completely wrong. Wrong at what? Everything. My mother wanted a daughter-shaped person who embodied the feminine ideals (even though she hated them herself) in order to repair her fractured relationship with her mother (don’t ask).
Somewhere in myy forties, I gave up on my relationship with my mother. (I knew there was no hope with my father and didn’t care at a much earlier age.) I knew that she was not going to change, and I knew that I wasn’t going to ever be the person she wanted me to be.
Side note: My father has dementia. It’s gotten progressively worse (as dementia does). When it first started, I was in a very difficult place with my parents. I have struggled with my relationship with them all my life. I did not know what to do. I mean, Taiji helped me a lot when I first started studying it, but there were limits to it.
At one point, I was really struggling. I did not know how to handle it, and every conversation left me feeling crushed, depressed, and angry. So, yes, I was keeping a hold of my temper, but just barely. I was struggling. Even though I only talked to them every other week or so, it took me days to get over each phone call. I had to give so much support and suppress so much of anything else that it took a toll on me.
It’s been that way for all my life, but for whatever reason, it was particularly difficult during that time. I struggled. Hard. Then, right before my medical crisis, I found a way to deal with it. I detached the two people I was talking to from my parents and tried to think of them just as two old people who are taking their last journey here on this earth. I know it sounds weird (much of what I think does), but it worked. Why? Because if I was able to not think of them as my parents, then I didn’t have to carry the weight and burden of our history on my shoulders. I could view them with a modicum of compassion because their situation truly sucks.
I would not wish it on most people, so that knowledge made it easier for me to hold in my anger and rage. I mean, there’s no point in letting it out, anyway. My parents are in their eighties and are not going to change. I’m not going to change in the ways that they (especially my mother) want me to. There is no point in getting into the shit between us, and I truly do not want to cause them pain.
But.
I also don’t want to feel the pain, either. Since my medical crisis, I can actually feel things. Deeply. I mean, it’s probably partly because of the Taiji. That’s definitely helped me unwrap some of my emotions. I’m still quick to shut them down, though, because if I let go too much, it’s going to burn down the world.
In my last conversation with my mother, the trap was laid so quickly and neatly that I stepped squarely in it. We were talking about the bad things Trump has been doing lately (I mean, there’s a ton of them), and then she started talking about US/Israel v. Iran in a way that made me deeply uncomfortable. It was a pain point for me, and I lashed out. She snapped back, and we were off to the races. It got heated pretty quickly, and I could feel the rage building inside me.
There was a moment when I had to use every ounce of willpower I had not to let the venom pour out of me. I was about to say so many really ugly things. I literally had to clench my teeth so I wouldn’t do it. I could feel my face flush and my shoulders tense up. It was touch and go for several seconds. I had to talk myself down and fortunately, my better side won out.
But I was exhausted afterwards. I mean, I’m exhausted in general because my sleep is really shitty (my fault) right now. That’s probably why I wasn’t able to rein it in earlier, too. When I’m tired, my guards aren’t in place.
I’m going to stop here, but I have one more post in me. I’ll write it tomorrow.