I get angry when I'm scared.
I shared this awareness with a friend who commented back that she would rather feel angry than scared because anger motivates her to action, whereas she feels immobilized when she's afraid. I could see that growing up I didn't have the luxury of feeling afraid, so I learned very early in life to "step over" the fear and quickly move into the anger that empowered me to take care of situations, no matter how scary they might have actually been for me at the time.
But there is much more to this anger than meets the eye.
Looking back across my life I see my anger outbursts in a whole new light. I remember one particular art class, a drawing class when I was at UCR. We had a model who sat in the middle of the room, but I couldn't get past drawing what my left brain kept telling me the way that I "should" be drawing it, and I became so frustrated that I had to leave class because I had a small melt down in the hallway, a burst of anger that resulted in a torrent of tears, but when that passed, I was able to sit down and draw the still life perfectly. When the instructor looked at my amazing drawing and asked what happened, I told her that I got angry, and she said, "Well, that must be your process."
Who knew how deep that truth actually ran.
So I've been observing my anger these past few weeks, and I am greatly disturbed by what I see. There are so many different ways that my anger manifests. And I'm not talking about being angry when there's something that "should" make me angry....I'm talking specifically about this protective layer of anger when I'm actually feeling scared or threatened in some way, because I don't just get angry when I'm scared, I also get very sarcastic...or arrogant....or avoidant....and all of this diversion only serves to keep whatever else I'm really feeling safely tucked away, down deep beneath the surface, ever and always outside of my awareness.
My panic attacks are like volcanoes violently erupting from the depths of all of the fear that lies buried far beneath the surface anger!
That's exactly what they are. And I find it very interesting this paradoxical dichotomy of my intrepid self and this person whose life is immobilized by the panic attacks. I think that's exactly what can happen when there is no direct voice for the fear. . . .the fear will find a way out, even when the mind and mouth can not acknowledge that truth.
Fear will find a way to speak its truth, even if it has to move mountains of denial.
I also find it interesting to think about the "volcano" genre of dreams that I've had off and on for many years. I used to think that the volcanic lava represented the repressed anger. . . . .lol. But now I understand that the volcano dreams are about all of the FEAR that doesn't ever get acknowledged or expressed, because it gets masked by the anger trying to empower the immobilized self that's really feeling scared and afraid. . . .and so it's forced to erupt in a flow of panic that doesn't just immobilize me, it pushes me to the brink of sanity and complete exhaustion.
I want to know what I'm feeling beneath my anger so that it doesn't have to erupt in an uncontrolled flow of panic.
This isn't going to be easy, because right now I only have the ripples of anger on the surface to serve as a guide to what is really going on. But I'm very glad that I am at least aware of this deflection process that takes place so invisibly, even it's taken nearly 50 years to see it for what it is.
Amazing.
So this isn't going to fix itself quickly or overnight, but I will continue to observe my anger and search for the deeper layers of what I am experiencing beneath the anger, which will at least open up space for me to be more authentic and honest about what's going on, rather than snipping and snapping sarcastically at the people I also care very much about :)