From Chaos to Calm

I often find myself struggling with mindfulness, a method that supposedly allows one to find a space between anger itself and the explosive or implosive reaction it causes. The intended result is the ability to reflect on what caused the emotional response before acting out, therefore being able to express it in a healthy way. For someone like me, who lacks patience nearly all of the time, this is one of the most difficult things to accomplish in the midst of an episode. What also makes this difficult is my inability to focus on something, anything, other than how angry I feel in that moment. I've been told I can be very stubborn about certain things, and I suppose that happens to be one of them.

More than a small part of me wants to hold on to that anger because doing otherwise still feels like giving up or giving in. So much of it comes from feeling invalidated and unjustified, to the point that I've felt compelled to force my view of what's 'right' on the people I believe don't know better. There have been times in the past when I would become preoccupied with that idea, which is ironic considering how much bullshit I've allowed myself to accept whenever some sort of wrongdoing was directed at me instead of someone else. Maybe that in itself ties into the pattern I seem to have of ignoring my own needs and focusing far too much on those of specific people, to the point of becoming codependent.

While most of the anger I feel seems to be random as far as catalysts are concerned, I understand that some of it does come from a logical place. For example, take this series of events; an inability to sleep, followed by being woken up by the sound of mice digging somewhere inside the walls, which causes an anxiety attack, and is then followed by being told by my mother that this is a problem I should've taken care of months ago by helping to clean the house. Even in that situation, I'm now able to see that being angry about it is healthy and even constructive. Lashing out as a result, though     not as much.

In just over a month I will have been in therapy for a full year, and can see that some progress has been made in that time. And yet it bothers me that the way to finding mindfulness is still so challenging. regardless of the amount of work I've done to find just a shred of calmness within myself.

Expressions of Anger, Healthy and Otherwise

I wasn't always an outwardly angry person. Rather than the explosive reactions I've been displaying lately, I always turned the anger inwards to avoid making anyone else feel uncomfortable.  For the majority of my life I felt as though it wasn't my place to express that anger even if I had a right to do so. I had no idea how unhealthy and self destructive this actually was, since it was the only coping mechanism I'd ever known.

However, feeling inappropriately angry is an entirely new thing. It's surreal to be so acutely aware that it really is inappropriate and unhealthy, rather than having a perspective so distorted by low self-esteem that I usually believe everything I do is a mistake.

This newfound awareness is helping me learn what appropriate anger feels like in comparison, at least. For example, getting uncontrollably angry at crowds of people for being in my way, for standing exactly in the middle of the sidewalk, or for seeming unaware of how to walk properly: inappropriate. This is what living in a city is always like, I should be used to it. I know I shouldn't want to punch a man for exiting a building and then promptly standing directly in my path. I probably shouldn't have also yelled 'excuse me, asshole' at him, but it happened as if it was an uncontrollable instinct.

On the other hand, being angry about growing up in a hoarder's house with leaks in the roof so big the rain pours in: entirely appropriate. There's a stark contrast between these two types of anger, and I've finally learned how to recognize it; one is uncontrollable, the other is motivating.

Counterintuition

Over the course of this year, I've learned that what I think of myself is often the complete opposite of what most people think of me. I've been told that when I err on the side of being what I consider slightly distant, I actually come across as cold. What I consider to be too needy or too emotional is apparently still, in its own way, somewhat detached.

There seems to be much more than a fine line between healthy caution and unhealthy paranoia, especially when interacting with other people. The more I work towards overcoming depression and anxiety, the more I see that there's a huge gap between these two extremes. In my mind, I seem to be afraid of falling into some sort of uncanny valley between being too detached and not detached enough. I sometimes become preoccupied with avoiding the point along that spectrum that would make me come across as off-putting, but where exactly does that point lie? And where does 'normal' really lie within that, anyway? How can I figure out how to find that space in between too much and too little if I can't even trust my own judgment of my own actions?

But, that's not even the most important question. There's one thing that needs an answer most of all      how can anyone overcome being their own worst enemy?

Paranoia

For people struggling with major depression, I've noticed there often comes a time when nothing happening on the outside can influence what happens on the inside. Regardless of how much praise and encouragement one receives, that nagging voice of self-doubt does its best to destroy any positive feelings resulting from it. Other times, what's happening on the outside can override everything. I tend to switch between these two extremes; feeling no different from positive or negative outside influences, and feeling the same no matter what due to the constant state of restlessness that soldiers on within me.

It's a unique experience to be able to hear mice gnawing away inside one's mattress while lying on it, or to be required to empty water from the tub into the sink every day because the drain of the former no longer works. Sometimes these things have a way of staying with me, reminding me of how much I feel as though I've become stuck in this horrible, chaotic environment. It makes me question my own abilities in areas that have absolutely no relation to my home life. It makes me wonder why anyone would want to be friends or in a relationship with someone that, from my perspective, can't even get their own life together long enough to find a safe place to live.

With that in mind, it's still difficult to believe anyone would genuinely want to get to know me without having some kind of ulterior motive. This feeling has gotten much worse ever since I stopped taking antidepressants, to the point that I've gone back to thinking of myself as a horrible, annoying and ugly person that doesn't deserve anything good or positive. Although I had once known no other way to think of myself, having a brief period of relief from such extreme self-loathing has given me a new and somewhat odd perspective. Now it feels as though the medication had made it easier to lie to myself, had given me a false sense of confidence, and that I truly am as pathetic as I feel.

The reason this new perspective is odd comes from being aware of some sort of newfound duality within myself. On one hand, I consciously know I'm not as awful as I think I am and have always been my own worst critic anyway. On the other, loathing myself so deeply is so familiar that it seems right. When someone treats me unfairly, I immediately believe I must've done something to deserve it regardless of all the work I've done to get myself to believe otherwise.

Being off an antidepressant after feeling slightly better from taking it is a new form of hell I hadn't thought I'd ever know. Instead of being relatively even-tempered with occasional periods of sadness, I'm now angry and sad constantly. It's like being set off without the ability to ever calm down. Insignificant things are getting under my skin again, and I hate it.

A recent visit with my psychiatrist has left me feeling a little hopeful, though also skeptical. I'll be starting a different antidepressant that will possibly have a better outcome with less side effects than the one I had been taking. I don't even care if I have to take several different medications at once at this point, I just want some relief from hating myself and everything so much that it's mentally and physically exhausting.