i love how emotionally intelligent, insightful, and measured your writing is. "calibrated to humanity" is such a great phrase, as well as the spontaneous combustion metaphor. and that visceral description of your shame responses - wow. your high level of embodiment & your commitment to healing shine through the words. i'm in awe of you. congrats on publishing and thank you for sharing your gifts with the world <3
i am a little surprised by your conclusion, that anger isn't the answer. i guess my view is that anger tends to be a helpful signal to make a change, set a boundary, etc, in this case accept losing at someone else's game or find a different game. thoughts?
Yes anger is a useful signal, and that’s all I want it to be. But I realized that my anger was doing many more jobs. It has become my coping mechanism, my go-to reaction. I could not see past it and every time I felt anger it seemed like it would consume me. For me, being angry left room for nothing else. It was like my emotions were a train and whenever that train arrived at the anger station, my brain decided that was the end of the line. But I no longer want that to be true. So in that sense I needed to feel my way into whatever came *after* the anger. Keep going until I reached the next station. I didn’t want anger to be the end of my exploration. I wanted to learn how to use it as a signal for which path the exploration train would take next. I wanted to learn how to lose the internal fight happening at the anger station so my train could be free to move on from there :)
I’m so happy I found such a precious article, it’s like reading a very detailed guide of what my life has been and what could be better. While I’ve had a different trauma from yours, losing my dad in a dreading way, I’ve develop those some assumptions and behaviors to cope for the loss and survive the rest of family which only pretended to do what was best for me
Beautiful and painful thoughts and insights! Somewhere in there, in a parallel life, I am with you experiencing this very similarly. I still think of myself as a late bloomer — why didn’t I realize this or that sooner? I look forward to following your writings! Just discovered you on Twitter.
I was moved and could so relate to your childhood/adult experiences. Thank you. I looked forward to reading more of your work.
i love how emotionally intelligent, insightful, and measured your writing is. "calibrated to humanity" is such a great phrase, as well as the spontaneous combustion metaphor. and that visceral description of your shame responses - wow. your high level of embodiment & your commitment to healing shine through the words. i'm in awe of you. congrats on publishing and thank you for sharing your gifts with the world <3
i am a little surprised by your conclusion, that anger isn't the answer. i guess my view is that anger tends to be a helpful signal to make a change, set a boundary, etc, in this case accept losing at someone else's game or find a different game. thoughts?
Yes anger is a useful signal, and that’s all I want it to be. But I realized that my anger was doing many more jobs. It has become my coping mechanism, my go-to reaction. I could not see past it and every time I felt anger it seemed like it would consume me. For me, being angry left room for nothing else. It was like my emotions were a train and whenever that train arrived at the anger station, my brain decided that was the end of the line. But I no longer want that to be true. So in that sense I needed to feel my way into whatever came *after* the anger. Keep going until I reached the next station. I didn’t want anger to be the end of my exploration. I wanted to learn how to use it as a signal for which path the exploration train would take next. I wanted to learn how to lose the internal fight happening at the anger station so my train could be free to move on from there :)
poetic. thank you!!
oh, also, bangin photo :)
I’m so happy I found such a precious article, it’s like reading a very detailed guide of what my life has been and what could be better. While I’ve had a different trauma from yours, losing my dad in a dreading way, I’ve develop those some assumptions and behaviors to cope for the loss and survive the rest of family which only pretended to do what was best for me
Everything rang true to me. Thank you so much for writing this
Beautiful and painful thoughts and insights! Somewhere in there, in a parallel life, I am with you experiencing this very similarly. I still think of myself as a late bloomer — why didn’t I realize this or that sooner? I look forward to following your writings! Just discovered you on Twitter.
Remarkable honesty, articulation and maturity. Thank you for sharing your stories. Sending it to everyone I know.