Hiding Places For Anger

(written 24 May)
Yesterday I was visited by someone who wasn't feeling too good. They'd had a rough morning and a busy agenda for the rest of the day. We had a hot drink and initially I tried to get them to talk a little about how they were feeling but it wasn't going anywhere so we just got into the physical work needing doing.
It didn't feel so good. Politeness was observed, attempts at friendliness but underneath there was something not admitted, some elephant that didn't have a name. I struggle when I can't put my finger on what's going on but have noticed over the years that if I'm open to it (which means, if I keep the issue in my mental 'in-tray') then some better understanding comes to me, often in the night, sometimes some days later.



This morning I saw it like this: I have always felt a lot of resistance within me whenever I feel I'm being asked to reassure or sympathise. I also really dislike sentimentality; maybe I'm suspicious of insincerity, I don't know why. And because I don't want to reassure or take sides, I probably swing too far, bypass the compassion and love I could feel instead, and just harden up. I think the unspoken request for reassurance from another leads to a feeling in me of wanting to protect myself from being sucked dry.



I'm not saying I don't want to support another because I do. I think when we can see the other person is wanting to take responsibility for how they feel it's altogether different, it doesn't feel at all like I'm going to be exhausted at the end of it all. And so I see a difference between 'support' and 'reassurance' where it feels to me that the other person is asking to be helped to feel better without facing something that feels uncomfortable to them.



Interestingly I've been involved in the 'helping professions' all my life. And, not surprisingly, have been exhausted, and seen many others become exhausted along the way. It's called 'burnout' and holidays are recommended, but increasingly I feel that none of that ever needs to happen if we stick to 'supporting' in the sense that we are not shouldering the other's emotional load but helping them to shoulder their own, and 'reassurance.



What's all this to do with anger? Well it feels to me just now that when I feel the plea for sympathy and reflexively harden myself I'm actually touching on anger within me. Anger may be a strong term but I have a feeling that if I explore this 'hardening' I will move through the passive-aggressive feeling of 'I'm not going to let you wear me out' to a real feeling of injustice that more is being taken from me than I want to give.



And how many of us are so tired, feeling that we are always being asked to give, having been taught that one day we will be rewarded? I think of Mother's Day, a celebration I was careful to discourage in my children, wanting to avoid the sadness inherent in the lot of many mothers who work hard all year to feel 'loved' on one day in the year.



But I'm getting sentimental here!