Monday, May 3, 2010

Exploring Anger

Emotions close to the surface, pressure behind my eyes, a cloud of uncertainty surrounding me today. Resisting the ugre to make that a proper sentence and this one too. Trying to journal... the freedom to be and say whatever comes to mind without concern for "proper." Maybe I'll delete this post.

Reading OA book of stories. Many of the writers attribute their overeating to medicating for feelings of anger... supressed anger. I wonder if I have that? It really wasn't very OK to be angry in our house as a child. My grandmother washed my mouth out (and made me gag) with a large bar of soap for saying something in anger to my brother. Did I puke then? I don't remember.

I do remember yelling at the tops of our voices, back and forth with my mom and dad, outside in the neighborhood... feeling embarassed that our neighbors could hear us even as we continued to yell. We yelled sometimes in the house too. It was flash anger, over fairly quickly. One of my brothers did it too. I don't recall hearing yelling with the three younger kids. My dad was uncomfortable with anger and so is my husband. He hates it when I get to the flash point. Definitely not OK with him.

I do it much less often... rarely now. But does that mean I'm stuffing my anger? My instinct says, no. My instinct says I'm stuffing my sadness and that anger is a convenient and long-time, habitual cover for sadness...

I don't want to write about my sadness. It crushes me sometimes. I get angry and I eat and binge to relieve myself, even if just for a moment or two, from sadness. Someday, maybe I'll write about it here. Someday, maybe I'll feel my feelings of sadness. Someday, maybe I'll cry.

1 comment:

  1. The old saying goes... it's not what you are eating, it's what's eating YOU. Sometimes there is truth to that. Sometimes not. Sometimes for me it is just about food and habit and boredom. I admire you for examining the emotions behind your eating. And you can write about them, or not:)

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