Deafening Anger.

As per usual, it’s been a minute since my last post – and a lot has been going on! After months of PT, doctors appointments, crying and screaming I’ve since returned to work after my back injury. Still searching for answers as to why and how – but best guess at this point is it still boils down to the core issue of my abnormal gait and it looks like after just a couple short years of “normal” shoes I must return to the life of orthopedic lifts. Another story for another time.

One thing no one ever tells you about chronic illness and pain is the grief cycle is just as applicable as it is for death. Another thing no one ever told me about grief is that it is almost never linear and almost never really ends. It wasn’t until working with a therapist regularly that I even understood that grief is so much more than when someone dies; but rather anytime any part of yourself or someone you love is lost or dies as well. Since I’ve had disabilities and health issues since birth, I don’t really have a “healthy” time to look back on, or a time before illness set in that many others do. I can’t really grieve what “used to be” in that sense because for me it’s always been this way. Though in my own way since several of my conditions are progressive, the closest I can appreciate to this is remembering times long ago when there were certain things I could do that I no longer can today, or times in my life when certain symptoms didn’t exist…but let me assure you that there is plenty of grief to be had and it still needs to be dealt with and explored just as much as it would if someone had died instead.

Almost everyone knows the 5 stages of grief if asked, but there seems to be one in particular that I always keep circling around to, and one that I don’t feel like is often talked about: anger. On the whole I try to do my best at accepting this lot in life, even if I don’t understand it but I’d be lying if I said there aren’t periods of time where it is straight up just NOT ok. I see red, I want to spit snarky fire words and be bitter about the crappy set of cards I was dealt in the health department. There are many days when I am so pissed off at this useless flesh prison I’m trapped in that deprives me of so many things I want to do. There are days when I not only can’t see the silver linings, but don’t want to. There are days when I hate being disabled and everything that comes with it. Some days I don’t want to be the voice of advocacy and change, inspiring others to do more – I want to scream, cry, yell and hit things at the unfairness of it all. I’m very much still working with my therapist on how to cope and deal with this part of the cycle, but needless to say I have been in the throughs of anger recently with seemingly nowhere to turn and completely lost as to how to deal with it. How do you deal with anger when there is no person or thing at fault? How do you keep doing life when the angry thoughts are deafening? There’s no one or no thing to blame – so where does the anger live? There’s no nice, neat little box for it to go in my brain; it’s just this vague, homeless creature that gets to live rent-free in my brain ALL THE TIME. It’s not always active, but when it gets as loud as it does at it’s worst – it’s all but impossible to ignore. What’s for dinner? ANGER. What do I need to do today? BE ANGRY. Who do I want to talk to? NO ONE, I’M ANGRY. It’s an all consuming anger that is so much more than just being upset with someone or it distracting you periodically throughout the day – it soils and stains EVERYTHING. I would like to say I’m not really known for being an angry person, and I would hope it’s a shock to some that I struggle this much with it – but in these moments it’s almost impossible to filter through to maintain my “usual” composure. There’s no escape. You can’t live like that – so what do you do?

I’ve written many a time before (and probably will continue) about times when I’ve been….less than pleased with the Man upstairs. I feel like there have been so many times I have cried out and not been able to hear Him or understand His answers to my prayers – but there have also been many times I can say I was at the end of my rope without any fancy prayers or sometimes any idea what to even say and He comes through in a way I can’t deny. This was one of those times. It’s hard to describe the depth and type of this soul sucking anger (if you haven’t experienced it or can’t imagine being that angry – consider yourself on the lucky side of this coin) but it is all encompassing and distracting. As hard as you try taking your brain anywhere else just, it doesn’t work….it’s too hard to see anything past the anger. The anger that comes from no particular person or cause yet you still have to figure out where to put it. I was driving to work and couldn’t handle doing everything I needed to for my patients unless the anger somehow got smaller. None of my friends can truly get where I’m coming from and I feel lost as to who I can talk to about this – so in my absolute desperation I just started praying. It was one of the most honest prayers I’ve ever prayed and also probably one of the most simple.

“My chains are gone, I’ve been set free” suddenly started coming through on the radio and I found myself scoffing at it. Here I was about to lose my ever loving mind, seeing absolute red and fire from the anger burning in every cell of my body and Chris Tomlin has the GALL to try to get me to sing praises right now. I’ve never thought much about the lyrics of this song and how so often in my life I’ve heard that God removes chains. Having never been incarcerated or chained in my life, I’ve never had the physical chains that must have been so physically limiting and constraining but at that moment it was the perfect word. I prayed “God, I feel chained. I feel completely destroyed and decimated by the weight of the chains this anger holds. I don’t know how to get rid of it, and I don’t know if anyone can help. But I guess – if you could – I think you’re capable…is it possible for you to just take them for a minute?” And that was it. It wasn’t profound, prophetic or even a statement. It was a desperate question that I was so hoping the answer to was yes. And at least at this moment in time – the answer WAS yes.

Nothing magical happened when I asked that honest question. My anger was still there and I struggled through the rest of my week. But I’ve started to notice in the week since, the anger has gotten quieter in my mind and it has been incredibly obvious and “loud” the good things in my life. God is showing me that my excitement for things and finding things to look forward to, as much as I had thought, isn’t totally gone and in a way a mental switch was finally flipped. I’ve been needing to make healthier nutritional choices and have put it off for a long time, but finally and suddenly the motivation is there and I’m having success with my health goals. My husband and best friend has made the switch with me and we’ve really made it a fun, positive change in our household. I’ve gotten to have several REALLY great conversations with my husband that have brought us closer together. We’ve started making headway on some home projects that make our home life less stressful and filled with more pride at the work we’ve put into it. There are things in my life that are genuinely making me happy, and even a week ago I could not have recognized that.

As much as I would love to say my anger is gone and it will never return – that’s just not true. I’d love to say that I’ve accepted my disabilities and limitations and that I’m always going to be this shining beacon of hope for my community – but that’s also just not true. Do I understand my anger any deeper? No. Do I understand how to prevent myself from mentally getting to this place again? Not really. What I do know, and what I’m focusing on for now, is that I asked for help and received more than I thought possible. I believe God is trying to make my stubborn brain understand that I don’t have to do this life by myself, and if anything, it’s WAY too much for one person to handle on their own. I despise asking for help with humans, what makes me think I could even dare ask for help from the Creator of all existence?! But really in a way it’s a diss to God if I don’t, and shows a lack of trust in Him. In one of my darkest, most alone times I asked in desperation for someone to take some of the burden and He did. I didn’t think it was possible for the anger to be quiet enough again, but He calmed it. And He will be there the next time my anger inevitably comes back. In the meantime, all I can do is continue to work on myself and try to be better, but also I need to work on CONTINUING to believe that He is there and can handle a lot more than I give Him credit for.