Stupid shit.

I watched a movie a few days ago called “Manic.”  It was all right.  It was about these kids in a psych ward.  A lot of them were there for anger management issues.  It made me wonder what normal people do when they’re angry.

When I am angry, I swallow it.  That’s the image, anyway.  I push it down somewhere deep inside until I can’t feel it anymore.  Occasionally, I freak out and break things.  Sometimes, I freak out and break myself. 

It occurred to me that, perhaps, when other people are angry they talk about what’s making them angry and then the issue is addressed and—maybe!—redressed.  I cannot think of the last time I was angry and the issue was addressed, let alone “fixed.”  In fact, it is such a foreign idea, this “talking” thing, or that anything could possibly come from it, I immediately dismissed this possibility from my mind.

I keep coming back to it, though.

There has always been an element of helplessness ingrained in me.  “Life’s not fair” was a common saying around my house.  When something shitty happened and I was upset, it was “too bad” but “there’s nothing we can do.”  What can you do to the things you cannot change, but accept them?  And it was also encouraged to stop being upset about these things as soon as possible, as being upset wasn’t going to help things, either.

I do not know how to have emotions for the sake of emotions. 

I would be lying if I said “I don’t have emotions.”  It would be more accurate to say “I don’t feel emotions,” but even that’s not quite right.  I feel things…briefly.  A flash of anger.  A flare of happiness.  But I’m always back to a complete flatness.  The emotions aren’t gone, though.  They linger, like the muck left behind when the rain puddles dry up.

“Why did you cut yourself?” my therapist asked me when I was 16, referring to the injury that had landed me there.  I still don’t know why.  I remember feeling on edge, feeling like I had to cut myself.  But I wasn’t angry, sad, or any other emotion.  Just vaguely uneasy.

To me, that says there is something fucked up going on in my subconscious, something that my conscious mind will not or cannot acknowledge. And the sharp disconnect between the two is what is allowing me to continue on in a largely functional way. 

I think, If I’m lucky, I’ll get through the rest of my life without the two meeting.