Fear keeps me awake. Anxiety disturbs my thinking processes/cognitive ability. Adrenaline gives an energy boost until the crash.
But anger??? Anger does two things:
- In the moment, I feel like I could take on a legion of warriors and win. Energy is swirling around me and adding strength to my muscles. Not so much aggression (although it looks like that to most outsiders) as battle-readiness
- After that, or if the anger lasts a long time, I feel exhausted. Instead of waking up ready to take on the day, eating or doing chores, or enjoying myself with people and hobbies, I feel sleepy. And if I don’t listen and sleep, I start to feel sleep deprivation even though I am not sleep deprived.
Why talk about it now? Because I don’t want to feel tired when I am this angry. I want to find a safe way to let it out so that my body/mind/spirit can feel some relief. I want to listen and attend to the needs of my physical self through exercise, and yes, a punching bag or some kind of activity that involves self-defense/fighting.
Growing up, I didn’t like sparring, but I also didn’t fear it. Sparring taught me a lot and helped me feel confident I could protect myself. Not until the teachers and classmates started criticizing and humiliating me on purpose did I start to fear classes. And when the flashbacks started in college, I couldn’t stop the rage from taking over and making me more aggressive during sparring and practice sessions. Something that did not go over well with my teacher, younger brother, friends, or other classmates.
Eventually, I got so scared of hurting someone that I stopped all together. When you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, it’s hard to feel in control and able to spar without hurting someone. And when everyone around you is talking about you behind your back and watching you like you’re going to “lose it” and hurt someone, you just want to get out and leave. Or at least, we felt that way.
I want to not be afraid of going into the “zone” of rage and dissociation whenever I feel angry or scared. I’d like those parts of me to come out into the light and be an active part of our system. I am proud of them. The other parts in our system are proud of them. We want to feel what they feel when they defend us. We want to participate in learning self-defense and protection. We want them to be able to use our body and experience the endorphins and happiness that comes from physical activity too.
But enough of that for now. I am tired. My parts are tired. Yesterday at therapy was intense. And the self care we did after our morning session was even more tiring. So a nap is in order for now. Then following up on our new routine and some more self-care to get ready for work tomorrow.
Thanks for reading.
