I suppose I ought to explain a little about why these reactions had been smothered at all. Instead of doing drugs and getting wasted like all the cool kids, I became an emotional overeater. This means that I use food to "deal" with uncomfortable feelings instead of just experiencing them. Boredom? Food can distract me! Sad? Food can comfort me! Angry? Well, I'm certainly not allowed to feel such an unattractive and unsettling emotion. Better eat over that, too!
So here I am: 20-years-old and 40 pounds over what I consider to be my natural weight. But that's not really what I want to say. What I want to say is: So here I am: 20-years-old and unhappy with myself. Because it isn't that it is terrible that I have more stored fat than I want, the real problem is the fact that I have been training myself to avoid emotions.
I'm gradually gaining progress on my endeavor to deal directly with emotions and release them. This, in-and-of-itself, creates a problem: when I don't eat over my emotions I actually feel them. During most days I end up thinking something like "oh god. I really want to lose weight fast. I hate this." I may hate having excess fat, but it sure beats feeling fully the anxiety, anger, sadness, and loneliness that plagues my days and nights when I am paying attention. No wonder I have used food so readily in order to not deal with this. It is a LOT less fun than a basket of Furbies. But, then, the wonderful thing about directly dealing with emotions also is the fact that I am truly feeling them.
Crying, yelling, stewing, and validating my emotions is an incredibly freeing experience. I am so in love with feeling things. It's just amazing how bursting into tears can open up the world again and again to reveal how important it is to understand oneself. If I'm crying, and my world is still intact, well, doesn't that mean that even while I'm feeling such huge things, everything is okay? Doesn't it highlight that, indeed, nothing will crumble if I allow myself to express my mind? So it really is okay to just be and try to push or pull myself into another mood; "I am okay just the way I am even when feeling negative emotions".
Now that I have discovered the painful and wonderful world of feeling things, I need to ask myself why it is that I ever felt the need to stop myself in the first place. This is where a lovely emotion called anger comes in.
While discovering what triggered my to start to reject negative emotions, I discover myself being engulfed by one. Why is it that anger is so shunned by most humans? It's "impolite" to be angry; it's seen as disagreeable behavior. It's "mean" to be angry; other people don't want you to be mad with them. It's "immature" to be angry; little kids who haven't adjusted to good and reliable social norms use anger because they are still young.
Anger, though, is an important thing to experience. Anger, like many other emotions, can trigger realizations of needed change. It is also an important part of the grieving process and the secondary emotional response to many other important emotions. Often when someone is experiencing a secondary emotion they may find that it is unmatching for the event; pointing to the underlying emotions and giving way to better understanding and closure. Anger also says a simple statement: "I don't like this".
As a young and endearingly-naive person, I can attest to the frequent sensation of having no idea what the hell is going on, who the hell I am, and what the hell I am trying to do or even what I want to do. I know uncertainty happens throughout life, but man, youth, in all it's splendor and whimsy, can be such a fun-sucker. The phrase "teenage angst" I think points to the jumble of different emotions swimming in their heads during those hormone-imbalanced-hell-years. Because so many other emotions translate so well to the phrase "I don't like this", it is easy to find oneself leaning towards anger in times of confusion. "I'm sad" = "I don't like this" = "I'm angry; "I'm socially awkward and therefore insecure"= " don't like this"= "I'm angry; etcetera, etcetera.
Getting wiser to the cloak that anger can sometimes be makes problem-solving possible. The "I don't like this" statement that comes with anger explains that there is something not being attended to. It is a wonderful tool used by our bodies that something is happening that needs to be payed attention to or solved. So why is it such taboo to feel anger?
The best explanation I can summon as to why people try to quiet others' anger is that they feel uncomfortable being around those who are angry. It is a strong emotion and sometimes results in people unable to look at circumstances from any point of view but their own. This is a little scary, of course. Who wants to be exposed to someone who not only has tunnel vision but who also cannot hear anything you say and is prone to yelling? Not many non-masochists, that's who.
But we, as a culture, do not treat anger as merely something uncomfortable; it is treated as a deadly grenade; a shameful "act" of childishness and insubordination; definitely something to be avoided unless you are ultra-manly and, if that is the case, it is your standard M.O.( par example ).
People often treat anger as a bomb. And the reason for this expectation may actually come from the way the subject is treated. If people are inadvertently taught by those around them to never talk about the things that they believe need to be changed for their wellbeing, isn't it justified that eventually that wittle bundle of upset will turn into an unattended-to, exploding anger baby of unpleasant (and sometimes uncouth) actions? People are sociable creatures (not always in the same way), and we all need to be able to express ourselves.
Currently, I am uncovering rainbow-and-sparkle-filled-memories of people telling me in different ways not to feel things and/or not express them:
Looking sad because your brother went to the ER at four in the morning for a suicide attempt? Don't look sad-- because then I'll feel sad.
♥OR♥
You are angry with me for ragging on your Dad in front of you while I weed through my divorcee problems? You're anger obviously means that you are unappreciative of my mothering and if you don't want me to suspect you of being ungrateful then don't be angry.
♥OR♥
You don't want to live anymore because of how alone you feel? Well, gosh, aren't we a pessimistic and unappreciative person!
Fabulous invalidating emotions by diverting them into negative stigmas, people! Bravo~!♥
At he moment, I am feeling angry about the aforementioned examples and many others which are popping up for me. And you know what? I'm totally okay with allowing myself to feel this. Just as I feel it is justified for other people to become angry with me for actions that I do that they dislike, I think it is an appropriate and very human thing for me to legitimately feel upset about some things in my past that I didn't like.
People are people. Again, we deserve to be able to express ourselves. If people don't want anger to forever be scary replays of teenage-wall-punching-syndrome, then hear their observations and descriptions of what is going on, ask them how events cam to be, and how things could be changed so as to make the situation better for them-- or ask if maybe they need to just be listened to.
Case in point, anger is just as human as happiness. There may not be advertisements of angry people eating salads, and drinking coffee and sodas, but it is just as normal to be unhappy as it is for those devilishly good-looking happy people to show off their their double frappuccinos, colas, and ranch-laden lunches. We just need to treat it as a another emotion: with attention and understanding... instead of caging and tazing it.
-Kat
P.S.
Oh, man. Who is just craving Olive Garden after seeing this?
