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silveradept[The December Days theme this year is "Things I Used To Fully Believe About Myself." Some of these things might be familiar, some of them might be things you still believe about yourself, and some of them may be painful and traumatic for you based on your own beliefs and memories. The nice thing about text is that you can step away from it at any point and I won't know.]
#11: "I'm Not Allowed To Get Angry."
You know, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, and all that. Although a fair amount of that suffering comes from having damaged something or someone in a fit of Big Feelings. And those tend to come much more out of frustration than anger, because sometimes you're a person who has big hands and is being asked to do a fiddly operation with parts that need a precise amount of force applied to them so they'll come apart or they'll go together. Too much force, and they break, too little, and they stay improperly joined. But there are also other frustrations in my life that generally I can't do anything about, either, and they're good for a vent here and there, or commiseration with co-workers.
But when we want to talk about angry, that stage beyond frustration, or the stage of frustration itself, unlike most people who were socialized the way I was, I generally got the message of: don't. If I was having a time of frustration about trying to perform a trick or get past a particular level, I was often told to go outside and play there, rather than spend time continuing to try and achieve the thing I was aiming for. (Often times, the annoying part would be that coming back to it after a little while, I could often first try the trick, or the RNG would end up kinder to me, or some other part of the situation would change (maybe that spell that's supposed to hit 90% of the time and had given me 10 straight misses and then, when I came back to it later, it actually hit like a spell with a 90% hit chance) and things would proceed from there. It can be frustrating by itself that sometimes the right thing to do if you're having trouble is to walk away from the situation and then come back to it later. On those times where frustration boiled over into actual violence, which did happen, although I don't remember it happening very often, there was generally a swift punishment with the idea in mind to set up the thought process that if I expressed frustration or anger, the consequences would be larger than the actual act itself, to discourage the likelihood of the situation happening again.
While frustration happened a lot in university about things, it didn't go farther than that. Note again, however, the nickname "Berzerker," which says at the very least that I was venting and letting the feelings get in the way of a lot of things. Where this statement really started taking hold, however, was in the bad relationship. One of the methods of control that my ex liked to use was to escalate. If I expressed frustration at something, not only was the "do somthing else" back, it was accompanied by a "if that frustrates you so much, then maybe you shouldn't do it at all." or a "your frustration is that you're not winning, and you need to learn how to lose gracefully." Or "since all you're getting is frustrated at trying to roll the Katamari together, then I should be the one to drive. You need to be able to communicate better." If I was unhappy and that unhappy was directed at her for things like "we're going to be late because you apparently needed to finish this thing, but we didn't budget the time for it because you decided it was necessary only a shot time ago," that unhappiness was then reflected and magnified back at me about being rushed by me, or about being late and that I needed to chill out about it. If she was in the vicinity of a frustration about something else, she would often contribute more to that frustration by telling me I needed to not be frustrated. And if I dared to question her by suggesting, sometimes in frustration, that changes needed to happen if we were going to have a prayer of staying within my salary, that got high escalation about the need to eat good organic food for ourselves and to maintain a full freezer and that if I really wanted her to, she'd tally up all of the services she performed for me, like cooking, cleaning, laundry, pet care, and then we could compare what kind of value I was bringing in versus what she was doing for me for free. It didn't change the fact that we needed to spend less or bring in more, and she would have put it together to make sure that she came out ahead by pure monetary means. The point was that I was not allowed to get angry or frustrated about anything (unless she was angry about it, like being angry about the discipline I received), and I was very emphatically not allowed to be angry or frustrated about anything in relation to her, or I would get it back magnified and targeted to wound.
As one might expect, it was probably pretty obvious to everyone around me how miserable I was working with this set of restrictions on me, and how things were not going well for the relationship and for me. Since it wasn't as obvious for me, and because I was trying to make it work, many of my friends protected themselves by not inviting me to things, because they didn't want her there. They'd invite me if I could have managed to go by myself, but she didn't like that, and she'd escalate with the idea that me not spending my time with her or including her on things was a sign that the relationship wasn't going well and it was my problem for wanting to have some independent time. Never mind all the independent time that I gave her with her friends, often because I was very glad to have breathing space to myself and to get some things done or entertainment handled that didn't need to be something for us to do or watch together. I wasn't allowed to get angry or frustrated about it in her hearing, or in any way where it would get back to her about it, and after she'd pruned away a lot of my friends who would have wanted to just hang out with me in person, it wasn't like I had a lot of avenues of people who I could vent safely to.
Work also doesn't help with finding ways of expressing frustration or unhappiness about work. It's a customer service position, and while we haven't heard it uttered in our hearing something like "the customer is always right," the general reluctance to impose discipline on anything but the most flagrant or repeated offenses, and the way that library culture tends to celebrate being abused by the user base as a badge of honor in addition to that complete reluctance of administration to back their workers, yeah, let's say that it contributes to a low morale situation in library workplaces. (Kaetrena Davis Kendrick has published multiple research papers about the low morale experience and the enabling factors for it, and what actually work to prevent those things from happening in library workspaces.) Looking ike a cis white dude means that I don't often experience what the other people in my system do, in relation to people being abusive toward them, and not to the same degree that they do, especially co-workers of color. It's certainly very close to being an official policy that none of us are allowd to get angry at anyone who deserves it, whether it's a user or an administrator.
And even if it's been some time since the relationship where my partner would escalate at anything that had even the whiff of frustration or anger, that doesn't mean that I have free permission to vent in my current situation. For one, I'd like to believe I'm at least marginally better at recognizing the incoming Big Feelings and making decisions to walk away from something causing frustration, or to ask for help or for someone else to please do the thing, because I haven't got the touch for it. For another, there's still the part where someone who looks like me being visibly angry/frustrated about something, and especially in the vein of being angry/frustrated to where stuff might get broken because of that anger/frustration, that's generally behavior that's the poster man for "this person is about to engage in abusive behavior, even if they never touch you and never would." So, if it's possible, it's better to avoid having those explosions. Which can run into competing needs, because sometimes the vent is what's helpful for me, but if the vent gets other people concerned about behavior, then it's better not to do that and avoid making their cortisol levels go up, at which point I start having the feeling that I don't have any emotional outlets that I can use, and that becomes "I'm not allowed to get angry" and leans into my own trauma from the bad relationship. Or if I do vent, then I regret it because it caused someone who I want to feel safe and happy with me not to feel that, and it becomes a shame spiral and feeds the idea that "I'm not allowed to get angry," but as a "because if I do, then I'm responsible for the unhappiness of others, and that means I'm deluding myself with a belief that I'm a Good Person." (You can see it right there, the confusing of an unwanted behavior with a moral judgment. But knowing is still only half the battle.)
This produces a spot that I struggle with regularly: the healthy expression of emotion is good for us, and bottling emotions, especially negative and destructive ones, is not good for us. (Even if it is the socially acceptable alternative to cathartic violence through sport for people who are raised as I was or who identify as men.) There is always work to be done about harnessing the Big Feelings and identifying their impending arrival in time to divert them or to absent myself from the situation before they boil over. I tend to try and build systems or reframes to create fewer opportunities for that frustration to happen, especially in situations where I'm going to be repeatedly exposed to the potential trigger. While those systems lengthen the fuse, they don't always remove the potential for a big explosive outcome (and then the regret afterward.) And sometimes there are situations where being upset that I'm being mistreated is the correct response and is supposed to be a catalyst toward change. After all, I needed to hang on to my anger and my frustration to use my no more, and then from there to say that the relationship wasn't working out, and then from there to make a more drastic change when it became clear that she was mostly going to keep behaving as though nothing had happened between us (except when she wanted to punish me for breaking up with her and trying to stick to that) and put all of the responsibility for actually getting her out on me (in addition to insisting I had responsibility to help make her financial situation better because I broke up with her.) And sometimes you need to stay upset when your coworkers are being mistreated, and to hold people accountable, as much as you can, for what they've said or done (or their lack thereof.)
It's still a work in progress. I no longer believe that I'm forbidden from having frustration and anger, except when the weasels are biting hard or I'm in a shame spiral about having expressed that frustration and someone else reacting to it. There's a solution out there that will work and doesn't insist that harmony is fully dependent on me to never express an emotional that doesn't fall into the pleasant category. It will take time, effort, and probably many more stumbles than have already happened in trying to find this solution. It is, after all, frustrating.
#11: "I'm Not Allowed To Get Angry."
You know, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, and all that. Although a fair amount of that suffering comes from having damaged something or someone in a fit of Big Feelings. And those tend to come much more out of frustration than anger, because sometimes you're a person who has big hands and is being asked to do a fiddly operation with parts that need a precise amount of force applied to them so they'll come apart or they'll go together. Too much force, and they break, too little, and they stay improperly joined. But there are also other frustrations in my life that generally I can't do anything about, either, and they're good for a vent here and there, or commiseration with co-workers.
But when we want to talk about angry, that stage beyond frustration, or the stage of frustration itself, unlike most people who were socialized the way I was, I generally got the message of: don't. If I was having a time of frustration about trying to perform a trick or get past a particular level, I was often told to go outside and play there, rather than spend time continuing to try and achieve the thing I was aiming for. (Often times, the annoying part would be that coming back to it after a little while, I could often first try the trick, or the RNG would end up kinder to me, or some other part of the situation would change (maybe that spell that's supposed to hit 90% of the time and had given me 10 straight misses and then, when I came back to it later, it actually hit like a spell with a 90% hit chance) and things would proceed from there. It can be frustrating by itself that sometimes the right thing to do if you're having trouble is to walk away from the situation and then come back to it later. On those times where frustration boiled over into actual violence, which did happen, although I don't remember it happening very often, there was generally a swift punishment with the idea in mind to set up the thought process that if I expressed frustration or anger, the consequences would be larger than the actual act itself, to discourage the likelihood of the situation happening again.
While frustration happened a lot in university about things, it didn't go farther than that. Note again, however, the nickname "Berzerker," which says at the very least that I was venting and letting the feelings get in the way of a lot of things. Where this statement really started taking hold, however, was in the bad relationship. One of the methods of control that my ex liked to use was to escalate. If I expressed frustration at something, not only was the "do somthing else" back, it was accompanied by a "if that frustrates you so much, then maybe you shouldn't do it at all." or a "your frustration is that you're not winning, and you need to learn how to lose gracefully." Or "since all you're getting is frustrated at trying to roll the Katamari together, then I should be the one to drive. You need to be able to communicate better." If I was unhappy and that unhappy was directed at her for things like "we're going to be late because you apparently needed to finish this thing, but we didn't budget the time for it because you decided it was necessary only a shot time ago," that unhappiness was then reflected and magnified back at me about being rushed by me, or about being late and that I needed to chill out about it. If she was in the vicinity of a frustration about something else, she would often contribute more to that frustration by telling me I needed to not be frustrated. And if I dared to question her by suggesting, sometimes in frustration, that changes needed to happen if we were going to have a prayer of staying within my salary, that got high escalation about the need to eat good organic food for ourselves and to maintain a full freezer and that if I really wanted her to, she'd tally up all of the services she performed for me, like cooking, cleaning, laundry, pet care, and then we could compare what kind of value I was bringing in versus what she was doing for me for free. It didn't change the fact that we needed to spend less or bring in more, and she would have put it together to make sure that she came out ahead by pure monetary means. The point was that I was not allowed to get angry or frustrated about anything (unless she was angry about it, like being angry about the discipline I received), and I was very emphatically not allowed to be angry or frustrated about anything in relation to her, or I would get it back magnified and targeted to wound.
As one might expect, it was probably pretty obvious to everyone around me how miserable I was working with this set of restrictions on me, and how things were not going well for the relationship and for me. Since it wasn't as obvious for me, and because I was trying to make it work, many of my friends protected themselves by not inviting me to things, because they didn't want her there. They'd invite me if I could have managed to go by myself, but she didn't like that, and she'd escalate with the idea that me not spending my time with her or including her on things was a sign that the relationship wasn't going well and it was my problem for wanting to have some independent time. Never mind all the independent time that I gave her with her friends, often because I was very glad to have breathing space to myself and to get some things done or entertainment handled that didn't need to be something for us to do or watch together. I wasn't allowed to get angry or frustrated about it in her hearing, or in any way where it would get back to her about it, and after she'd pruned away a lot of my friends who would have wanted to just hang out with me in person, it wasn't like I had a lot of avenues of people who I could vent safely to.
Work also doesn't help with finding ways of expressing frustration or unhappiness about work. It's a customer service position, and while we haven't heard it uttered in our hearing something like "the customer is always right," the general reluctance to impose discipline on anything but the most flagrant or repeated offenses, and the way that library culture tends to celebrate being abused by the user base as a badge of honor in addition to that complete reluctance of administration to back their workers, yeah, let's say that it contributes to a low morale situation in library workplaces. (Kaetrena Davis Kendrick has published multiple research papers about the low morale experience and the enabling factors for it, and what actually work to prevent those things from happening in library workspaces.) Looking ike a cis white dude means that I don't often experience what the other people in my system do, in relation to people being abusive toward them, and not to the same degree that they do, especially co-workers of color. It's certainly very close to being an official policy that none of us are allowd to get angry at anyone who deserves it, whether it's a user or an administrator.
And even if it's been some time since the relationship where my partner would escalate at anything that had even the whiff of frustration or anger, that doesn't mean that I have free permission to vent in my current situation. For one, I'd like to believe I'm at least marginally better at recognizing the incoming Big Feelings and making decisions to walk away from something causing frustration, or to ask for help or for someone else to please do the thing, because I haven't got the touch for it. For another, there's still the part where someone who looks like me being visibly angry/frustrated about something, and especially in the vein of being angry/frustrated to where stuff might get broken because of that anger/frustration, that's generally behavior that's the poster man for "this person is about to engage in abusive behavior, even if they never touch you and never would." So, if it's possible, it's better to avoid having those explosions. Which can run into competing needs, because sometimes the vent is what's helpful for me, but if the vent gets other people concerned about behavior, then it's better not to do that and avoid making their cortisol levels go up, at which point I start having the feeling that I don't have any emotional outlets that I can use, and that becomes "I'm not allowed to get angry" and leans into my own trauma from the bad relationship. Or if I do vent, then I regret it because it caused someone who I want to feel safe and happy with me not to feel that, and it becomes a shame spiral and feeds the idea that "I'm not allowed to get angry," but as a "because if I do, then I'm responsible for the unhappiness of others, and that means I'm deluding myself with a belief that I'm a Good Person." (You can see it right there, the confusing of an unwanted behavior with a moral judgment. But knowing is still only half the battle.)
This produces a spot that I struggle with regularly: the healthy expression of emotion is good for us, and bottling emotions, especially negative and destructive ones, is not good for us. (Even if it is the socially acceptable alternative to cathartic violence through sport for people who are raised as I was or who identify as men.) There is always work to be done about harnessing the Big Feelings and identifying their impending arrival in time to divert them or to absent myself from the situation before they boil over. I tend to try and build systems or reframes to create fewer opportunities for that frustration to happen, especially in situations where I'm going to be repeatedly exposed to the potential trigger. While those systems lengthen the fuse, they don't always remove the potential for a big explosive outcome (and then the regret afterward.) And sometimes there are situations where being upset that I'm being mistreated is the correct response and is supposed to be a catalyst toward change. After all, I needed to hang on to my anger and my frustration to use my no more, and then from there to say that the relationship wasn't working out, and then from there to make a more drastic change when it became clear that she was mostly going to keep behaving as though nothing had happened between us (except when she wanted to punish me for breaking up with her and trying to stick to that) and put all of the responsibility for actually getting her out on me (in addition to insisting I had responsibility to help make her financial situation better because I broke up with her.) And sometimes you need to stay upset when your coworkers are being mistreated, and to hold people accountable, as much as you can, for what they've said or done (or their lack thereof.)
It's still a work in progress. I no longer believe that I'm forbidden from having frustration and anger, except when the weasels are biting hard or I'm in a shame spiral about having expressed that frustration and someone else reacting to it. There's a solution out there that will work and doesn't insist that harmony is fully dependent on me to never express an emotional that doesn't fall into the pleasant category. It will take time, effort, and probably many more stumbles than have already happened in trying to find this solution. It is, after all, frustrating.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 07:42 am (UTC)Hugs.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 05:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 07:56 pm (UTC)(Mirabel is extremely apt here.)
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Date: 2023-12-13 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-13 09:58 pm (UTC)