Thread by @cFidd

I became a student of anger a long time ago.
It's something I used to not let myself feel. I had a million excuses.

It's a waste of time and energy

Your life is actually really good, what do you actually have to be angry about

You have no right to be mad about that

These are lies.
Anger, like anything else you feel, is an emotion. You have a right to your emotions.
What you don't have is an excuse or a right to intentionally hurt someone because of those emotions.

And like any other emotion you feel, you need to deal with it. Process it. Denying doesn't make it go away.

This is especially true of anger.

Anger by itself isn't toxic. But I'd seen it manifest itself toxically frequently in my youth, so I had no real idea how to process it, and I had an aversion to it. I wanted it to go away.

But that's not how feelings work. Especially not anger. Anger doesn't just go away.

Undealt with, unprocessed, it lurks, it ferments into some potentially toxic, and it leaks into other aspects of your life.
You find yourself angry an things you otherwise wouldn't be angry about. And if you're avoiding anger, the effect compounds over time. Like shitty interest.

So I finally learned to lean into my anger. Move through it, not avoid it or ignore it or wish it away. Deal with it so it loses its power over me and its ability to leak into other parts of my life.

It was hard.

And I'm much better off because of it. I'm healthier, my relationships are healthier, etc.

Another thing about anger is that it's a secondary emotion. If you're angry about something, you're probably feeling something else, too. Frustration often manifests as anger. Or loneliness. Or exhaustion. Or any number of other things you'd rather be angry than feel.

Sadness is a notoriously sneaky underlying emotion of anger, though. Sadness is unpleasant. No one likes to feel sad.
You know what's less unpleasant than sadness? Anger. Almost everyone would rather be angry than sad.

I've spent a while being angry about something and trying to process it, which is good, but it finally hit me that I wasn't dealing with the underlying sadness.
Hence the 3 a.m. feels thread. It's been keeping me up nights.

Nothing like a little exhaustion to break down those walls, I guess.

I've been (justifiably by any reasonable person's measure, but it doesn't really matter) angry at someone for a while for... well, being terrible. The details aren't important.

But I haven't wanted to confront the sense of deep betrayal and sadness associated with losing someone I cared about v deeply and who'd been a big part of my life.

So I finally am. And it feels wretched. Anger was much less unpleasant, in its way.

Also I fucking hate crying

(I used to get angry at myself at being angry at myself for crying. And then I'd get angry about being angry at...well, I think you get how this works now)

Anyway, Twitter's not actually some confessional or therapist, so I'll probably end up deleting this whole thread. I was just fucking around on my phone after I realized sleep was going to elude me for yet another night and... well, here we are.

Gonna give the sleep thing another go now that my brain feels a little unbunched.

Wish me luck.

Oh, one more thing before I (hopefully) pass out:

Righteous anger, even acknowledged and confronted, can be truly insidious. Feeling so entitled to and... correct about your anger makes dealing with the underlying emotions more unappealing--and thus more difficult.

This is exactly the trap I've been falling into. Hopefully I'm Indiana Jones-ing my way out.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.