Anger

[MakersDozn]

I don't like feeling angry. I avoid it, run from it, hide inside because I don't know how to handle it. I let it wear me down until I give up and switch from anger to sadness, which is a lot easier for me to handle. I can go entire weekends retreating from the world, but then all of us lose the time, because I end up too depressed to get out of bed.

I can't count the number of times we've ended up staying home from work because of this. The others say that if spread those absences out over the 25 years that we've been at our job, it's not that much. But I think it is. Most people don't hide under the blankets because they can't face the pain of being alive.

So we've lost another Sunday.

I can't help but see myself as even weaker because of this. Whether it's true or not, it's how I feel. I have enough ugliness inside my self-concept to fill a thousand landfills. And I'm supposed to work through it to heal. I could use one of Laura's sarcastic responses right now, but she's not offering.

The weight of all the feelings seems oppressive. It's hard for me to breathe, emotionally speaking. I feel incredibly alone and unsupported, like I'm being punished for wanting someone to walk through this with me and help me heal. I wonder what I've done to deserve all of this.

The anger is scrunched in a ball of muscle underneath our left shoulder blade. We've been trying throughout the day to release it, but we can't. I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not. I feel too defeated to be surprised.

I wish I could do something besides complain about all of this.

Charity