accepting anger

Yesterday, I finally got angry.  Today, I yelled in therapy.  Tomorrow, I was supposed to be leaving for Germany and I'm angry that I'm not going.  I was looking forward to that trip since January and have been talking about child sponsorships since about that time.  Up until yesterday, I have been fine.  I have been calm.  I have just accepted that I'm not going, I can't run, and I have to find new ways of coping with my feelings until I can exercise again.  And now I'm angry and I'm not sure what to do.  I do know that I'm not sorry for being angry.  And I'm not ignoring it.  So good for me for listening to my therapist self (and my actual therapist for that matter).

The thing about being angry is that many people are afraid of this emotion.  I completely get this.  When I get angry, I yell, I cry, I say things I don't mean...or things I do mean but they come out in a way I wished they didn't.  But if I didn't accept that I was angry, I would never move forward to a better place and feel better.  Or address difficulties in a relationship that need to be addressed in order for the relationship to continue to exist.  I have seen clients and families over and over ignore their anger or say "don't be angry".  I have heard parents request anger management groups for their child but for the wrong reason.  Almost as if the group will then remove their child's anger so they don't have to face it, which is totally incorrect.  Anger management is learning how to express anger and cope with it, not ignore it or stop feeling angry.  No matter how much I encourage families to face their anger, if they continue to ignore and not accept their anger, nothing will get better.  Anger in itself is not a bad thing.  It's what we do, or don't do, with our anger that creates anxiety, conflict, and depression.

One of my best therapeutic breakthroughs was actually a situation where I knew my decision for a client's care would piss them off.  But I had to make that decision for their own well being.  This is a client who always ignored their feelings and no matter what their body language indicated what they might be feeling, would respond by saying, "no" or "I'm fine" or "I'm just crying because I'm tired" (uh, it's not my first rodeo but I'll give it to you).  So in this case, I called them on their anger and told them to just be angry with me.  The session ended by my client storming out and telling me to "Go f*** yourself" to which I responded "I will!" (not my best therapeutic moment, I'll admit, but I'm human too).  Our next session, this client returned and apologized to me for their behavior and I in turn apologized for my response.  We were able to process their feelings of anger, validate them, and still maintain a good therapeutic relationship.  This client learned that not only could they allow themselves to be angry, but that coping with anger had the potential to strengthen relationships instead of destroy them.

As I said, I'm not sure what to do with this anger or who to really be angry at.  But like my client, I'm learning to allow myself to be angry to get to the other side.  I guess I've been angry at God, although that relates more to unanswered prayers than specifically having back surgery.  But it relates.  Running is what I do to cope with the fact that those prayers have not been answered.  And now, I can't do that so I'm just angry.

So I'm accepting that I'm angry.  I'm not ready to move on from it either.  It's not that kind of anger where it's stewing and I'm holding onto it.  And I know that I will get over this and someday I will be running again and will think, "wow, I learned so much about myself during my medical leave!", but that day is not today.  And that's ok.