The Anger

I hate that irrational, flash of angry red, that sweeps in and consumes me. I hate the anger at being angry. I hate the loss of control and the flood of emotion that threatens to overwhelm me.

I hate being happy and euphoric one minute and then deep angry red the next! I hate the thought of what the anger can do to my family, who suffer the brunt of my illness. I hate the thought that this anger may be the real me.

I think this is what affects me the most about suffering either depression or similar mood disorders. How reactions are often way out of proportion to the triggering event.

I think of the times like last night, where I was having a really great day, I felt happy, playful and ready to conquer the world and then; my adult daughter did something I wasn’t happy about. Nothing serious, or spectacular in it’s portent; and yet it triggered a flash of hot anger, followed by that rush of anger-fed hormones, that completely switched me around in my mood.

I lay there in bed trying to get to sleep for my 4 am alarm time for work, and just got more and more wound up. How do you explain that you feel so angry inside that you want to lash out at something, your body is so wound up that your legs drum on the bed as you try to rationally sort out the irrational?

I finally got to sleep at about 1.30 am. Thankfully, I had managed not to say anything to my daughter. She has gone through enough without me making life worse.

Then I feel angry that I felt this way. Angry at being ill. Angry at the "Why me?" calls to God, wondering why. Then even angrier at myself as I respond to my own query, "Well why not?" As though the universe should revolve around my problems.

I sometimes feel like paraphrasing Tevye in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ when he asks – "Would it spoil some vast eternal plan, if I were a HEALTHY man?"

If this rambling doesn’t make sense to you – the reader – imagine what it feels like to the people like me. Suffering it from this side.

Graham Brown

January 2002