I’m angry. Well not angry all the time, but anger has been flaring up today over little irritations. A co-worker does something stupid that I have to fix and I’m raging. In recent months I’ve been working on, and I thought making improvements in, reducing my tantrums. I try not to make my problems everyone’s problems. Not whine about every little thing that goes wrong in a normal work day.
Today I’m having a bad day. Yesterday I could focus on work. Today I’m easily distracted again. It feels like grief. I’ve lost something. A part of myself, my past, has been altered. I find myself reviewing my life with different filters.
I’m angry about all the times I was belittled for over-reacting to something. Was I really over-reacting? Or was I the only one seeing the injustices clearly. I keep thinking of a relatively recent occasion where I “over-reacted” and my family could not be made to understand why I was upset.
My grandfather had died over the winter and my grandmother was living at my mom’s house. Grandma had Alzheimer’s and we never could tell if she knew that her husband was dead. We had sold their house and were having a large garage sale to get rid of most of their stuff. It was stressful. My grandma’s sister, Aunt M came down to help out. We spent a few days going through and pricing stuff. We all picked out stuff we wanted. As usual, I was annoyed with my family and they with me. The first day of the garage sale I could do nothing right. I arrived late, I didn’t pitch in enough, and in general everything I did was wrong. My mom and sister spent the day sniping at me. Little digs about my weight, cracks about how lazy I was, I can’t even remember specifics. But I was really upset that they would treat me like this in front of Aunt M. I was ashamed.
My mom had always been so careful to put on a perfect face in front of extended family. Now they were picking on me and being rude to me in front of Aunt M and didn’t even notice. I got upset and tried to explain why but couldn’t articulate it. I ditched most of the next day and got yelled at when I finally showed up the second day. This of course just proved what a useless sack of shit I was.
Now I can see that it was this public shaming that bothered me so much. I was used to them belittling me in private. But to do it in front of Aunt M shocked me. They were so used to treating me like crap they didn’t even notice anymore when they did it in public. Of course I was angry. I should have been angry a long before. I probably was.
I don’t even know if this story makes sense. I’m trying to come to terms with my past and I just want to run away. I wish I could take time off work, but I can’t. I know I’ll get through this. I know I’ll feel better and be stronger when I clean out the crap and let the wounds start healing. I’m glad I have a meeting tonight. I have been talking with my sponsor and other OAs. Today I just want to skip the hard part. I don’t want to lose my abstinence, but I do want to be numb.
I guess that’s what it comes down to. I want the comfortable blankness that I’ve always found in food. I want to not feel this pain. I don’t know how to be in this much pain without eating over it. I will have to learn. I am using the tools, meetings, writing, phone calls, plan of eating, literature and service. I feel a lot less frantic than I did when I started writing this post. Thank you for reading. I’m grateful for the connections I’m making with other OA bloggers. Thanks.
Dodi,
You absolutely have a right to be angry. I hope this "public sharing" helps you recover from your "public shaming". BTW, I responsed to your 5th step post in the forums.
-Mike
Posted by: Mike | May 12, 2006 at 08:37 AM