Hello Anger, Hello Sadness

Sometimes I want to pretend that these emotions don’t happen.

I’m writing this after coming down off of a trigger episode.

The trigger was simple, a couple of photographs sent to me that were meant to be silly and funny. The person sending them had no idea how they would link me to past trauma. I opened them and shut them almost immediately.

I felt saliva collecting in my mouth. Nausea overwhelmed me and my heartbeat thundered against my chest. Though I was completely still, my body felt as if it were trembling just beneath the surface. I’ve learned to recognise these tremors that can lead to a full-blown panic attack if I don’t catch them quick enough (and sometimes even if I do!).

Sometimes I feel like my CPTSD will always peek in and out of something that resembles remission in other physical illnesses. I never know for sure when something will trigger me and while my hypervigilance may have calmed down significantly, the disappointment of trauma effects rearing its ugly head is as present as ever.

There was a time when I would have seen this as evidence that I was not healing and maybe never would heal. I would have shaken a finger right in my face and said “see, you’re so messed up and weak.”

Thankfully, that’s not how I operate anymore.

There’s Room for All The Feels

There’s a tendency to demonise certain emotions. Things like anger, sadness and anxiety are the ‘bad feelings’. And if I take a look around social media for any length of time, I’m sure to come across the toxic positivity that is “Good Vibes Only”. I like to think that the intention behind that phrase isn’t meant to be toxic, but intention only gets us so far.

I had to face facts. I had a wide range of human emotions that were likely to happen at any point in time. This is just life. It helps to remember that this is independent of my trauma experience or the resulting misfires in my brain. If I had lived a completely charmed life I’d still have the full gamut of emotions. It’s called being human.

Prolonged exposure to trauma in a decade of domestic violence led me to associate certain emotions with scary outcomes. Anger was violent and unpredictable. It came out swinging and didn’t care who was in the way. Sadness never got anyone anywhere. It didn’t help to cry, it never changed my situation. And because I couldn’t experience more than a glimmer of happiness or joy, that meant I disconnected from almost all emotions.

Therapy reminded me that there is a distinct difference between the feelings we have and how we choose to handle or express them. Embracing ‘all the feels’ has become an important part of healing and coping for me.

Creating Space

Mindfulness helped me to create space for emotions. I never believed in this sort of stuff before. I thought meditation was ‘woo woo’ and while it worked for other people, I didn’t expect it to work for me. When my therapist first introduced me to guided meditation I was willing to give it a try, but not extremely hopeful.

The results surprised me. It was often painful at times. You see, meditation stilled me enough to really feel and mindfulness meant that I was dealing in the present moment. The present moment isn’t always happy. But the great thing about the present moment is its impermanence. I learned to observe my emotions and hold them at arm’s length just long enough to really see them and identify them.

Without that quiet and sometimes uncomfortable space, I believe I would have continued to engage in a fight/flight/freeze response with my emotions. My amygdala in overdrive and not helping me in my current situation.

Emotional Visitors

I now see emotions as entities that show up on my doorstep unannounced. When someone knocks on the door of my house two thoughts come into my mind. I wonder who it is and I wonder what they want. My curiosity is piqued. This wasn’t always the case, I used to be afraid to answer the door and was a consummate curtain twitcher. Now, from a place of safety, things feel different. When these emotions knock, I treat them differently.

First: Triage. I do a quick assessment, which reminds me of when my children were young. When one of them would come wailing and crying I approached them with calmness. I entreated them to slow down so I could understand them and asked the following question:

Is anyone bleeding?

I assess whether I am in danger, whether anything needs soothing physically. Sometimes if I’m edging towards a panic attack I have to take care of some physical needs before I can do anything else. Maybe that means a glass of water, a warm blanket, or removing myself to a quiet place. Whatever it is, I take care of those things first.

Second: Let’s Talk. It’s important to identify which emotion I’m dealing with and often that means they’ve shown up in a group. Anger and sadness like to pal around together on my doorstep. Once identified I’m asking them what’s going on. What happened? Where does it hurt? How can I help? At first, I felt a little off-kilter viewing myself in this way. But then I realised, this is how I would treat a hurting friend. This is what it means to be compassionate.

Third: Drop the judgment. I’ll be honest, this was the hardest of the three for me. The idea that I needed to ‘get myself together’ or ‘stop being so emotional’ suddenly started to fade when I engaged in the first two steps. I don’t tell anger it shouldn’t be here, I don’t tell sadness to stop being such a crybaby. Instead, I let them be, and sometimes, they just need to be heard. Asking sadness how I can best support it, is far more helpful than being a bully to myself.

Halo Effect

So, when I had this triggering episode I followed those steps. Anger said they needed to expend some energy, so we worked on a project. Sadness needed some distraction, so we played a game. Neither one of them felt like writing or doing anything too cerebral, so we did not. My day changed because I met my emotions where they were and offered to help. I felt a bit better when I woke up this morning.

These look like simple steps, but they are not. They require effort and practice. I know this well. I don’t handle my triggers like this every single time, but when I do it makes so much difference in how I go through them and come out the other side.

Sometimes I want to pretend these emotions don’t happen, that triggers don’t interrupt my life. But, they do. And that’s okay. Being mindful means I recognise them and care for them. In doing so, I care for myself with deeper compassion. When I approach myself with love, I bet you can guess what happens next.

Yep.

I feel more compassion for other people and the world around me, too.