The Angry Gremlin

Hello! After a couple weeks break I'm back! Whilst on my little break, a topic came up that has probably been bubbling in the background of some of my posts but not explicitly called out; that topic is 'anger'. 

I may have touched on anger previously, but that's because anger seems to come in multiple forms depending on the situation. I believe I've mostly referred to anger in the form of frustration; frustration at the situation, at how long everything seems to take, but also with myself. Other forms may be annoyance, irritation, irritability, feeling resentment about something. For those who know me 'IRL', they'll know that I rarely get angry, and when I do I find it very, very hard to manage. I become the human version of the anger emotion in 'inside out'; physically shaking, a ball of angry energy with no idea where to put it, sometimes audibly 'roaring' and becoming emotionally volatile. I also have a horrible habit of deferring back to a toddler-like tantrum of stamping and jumping if I get really over the edge and feel like I'm not being understood, or I'm struggling to explain why I'm angry. Afterwards, it leaves me exhausted, teary, upset with myself, and I won't lie, a little self hating.

 I despise being angry, I don't like how it feels in my body, nor the person it turns me into. That's why I've named that part of me 'the angry gremlin'. Why? Because it lurks deep inside the darkest parts of me, rarely being allowed out, feeding on the little bits of anger in its different forms until it becomes big and strong enough to break free when an outlet becomes available. To be honest with you, I'm aware that my reluctance to allow myself to get angry is unhealthy, but I don't know how else to handle it. I'm scared that if I allowed myself to really feel my truest feelings all the time, I'd be angry constantly at the moment because of my present situation with my health, and that's not someone I want to be. I imagine anyone else dealing with a chronic health condition causing an unwanted 'pause' on life may also resonate with this.

I imagine many of you may resonate with 'the Angry gremlin', but you may also be a lot better at feeling your emotions when you feel them and not letting them build up. If you've got any tips on that, I'd be grateful! For now though, I'm going to try and identify anger when it raises its head in one form or another, acknowledge it and try to deal with it in some way that doesn't involve just boxing it up for later. Hopefully that might be a step in the right direction to get rid of my angry gremlin! 

Ta ta for now!