Anger

 

As my therapist taught me, anger is a secondary emotion.  It comes from the need to deal with another feeling which is often unidentified before anger erupts.  (I forgot exactly how he liked to describe it.)  Once a person gets angry, a lot of negative things can happen.

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Like many kids, I had an unhappy childhood.  My mother and grandmother were people who used fear to get their kids to comply with their directives. Both would get mad for reasons that normal children could not understand or deal with in a healthy manner. When my grandmother had a massive stroke, I was happy for a while - one source of terror was almost removed from my life.  The problem was that she became a shell of her former self, needing assistance for everything - including help to get up and being walked to the toilet.  At times, I had to babysit my grandmother when I should have been out playing.  One should not ask this, much demand this of a 7 year old child.  I guess this was one of the many causes of many feelings I had to repress.

At a certain time in my childhood, my parents realized something was wrong and took me to see several psychiatrists. Unfortunately, the DSM-4 (or whatever level it was then) didn't have entries for disorders caused by f**ked up family dynamics.  If they had, maybe I could have had a happier childhood, as I might have learned the skills to deal with many of the problems that come in life.

As I got older, the urge to get married and have children came along.  Knowing that my temper was a severe liability, I did not want to have children.  The risk of harming them as was done to me was too great.  But this also hurt my wife, as neither of us knew how to communicate our feelings to the other.  To this day, I'll never know if she would have wanted children, as we never had this discussion.  I feared letting myself get angry at her, as I felt that the only argument we'd have would destroy the relationship. So, when she became terminally ill, I can't be sure if either of us knew that we loved each other anymore because of our inability to communicate.

It took a while, but I eventually stumbled into an LCSW who taught me many of the skills needed to have a healthy relationship with someone else.  However, he couldn't help me deal with other issues that would cause me grief later on, such as settling for the first person who would put up with me after each loss.  

Just before the pandemic hit, I lost the two closest friends I had.  I need not rehash the reasons here.  But I ended up a better person because of it.  Now, I take a "Let it Slide" attitude to many things, as there are many more important things to be concerned about.  Letting go of anger, both repressed and non-repressed ended up being a good thing, as I can move forward to the future.  My current girlfriend can see when I get frustrated, and she knows that if she gives me a second to process what's going on, that I can stay rational and be the person she cares about.  Again, I am grateful to have her in my life at this time in my life.  But then, I've said this often in this blog....

Earworms - a short post

 

Above is the corn ear worm.  It has nothing to do with today's post, save for the idea of something that gets stuck in your head and keeps repeating like a broken record.

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For the past few days, an old tune has gotten stuck in my head.  No, it is not from a TV advertisement.  Instead, it is from a tune regularly modified and played on a TV show from my youth.  You may have heard it yourself: Pfft, you were gone.  The Hee Haw show ran from 1969 to 1992, and it got good ratings - even in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.  And "Pfft," became an earworm that often comes and goes in my head due to its pleasant silliness.  But "Pfft" is not the only earworm I've had to deal with.  For a long while, the jingle for the Radio City Christmas Show was stuck in my head, and I hated it. Other tunes have gotten stuck there, and I didn't mind them so much, as they provided a sort of rhythm that kept my mind moving.  

What is it about earworms that make them so infectious?  I feel, like others, that they trigger other memories.  In my case, "Pfft" triggers happy feelings from childhood without directly triggering the memories that caused those feelings.  Television was an escape from an unhappy childhood, and "Pfft" was indicative of the things that made me smile way back when.

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Given the nature of earworms, a thought came to mind.  What would happen if a therapist could both find and use earworms to evoke feelings in a person undergoing therapy?  Could this be a helpful tool in treatment?  I'd love to be able to talk about this with the therapist who treated me years ago, as it would be an interesting discussion for sure....

 

 

 

Conversations with two people.

 

Recently, I had a couple of conversations that I found very interesting.  The first was with my brother, as we discussed our mutual past, current family issues, and how to protect our assets.  The other with the newest member of our co-op board, where I outed myself to her and, discussed issues related to our co-op, and pleasantries regarding her father, grandfather, and great grandfather.

As I've mentioned before, my brother and I own a house we rent out to the best of tenants.  Hopefully, they will stay our tenants for a long time, as this income is a blessing to have in uncertain times.  Given that there is some maintenance that has been needed for a couple of years, we decided to take care of it before the weather gets cold.  Once done talking about the house, we talked about our past, and I found that I didn't remember that my brother was in the car when I was taken to therapy as a child.  I told him that I wish I could have given the notes from childhood therapy to my adult therapist.  And he responded that my dad wanted to protect me from what I might see.  Unfortunately, it should have been up to me to decide what happened to this information, and I wasn't given the chance to do so.  This is the one complaint I have about my father.  Eventually, we talked about his family and what he plans to do with his assets in his will.  (I won't go into those details here.)  Suffice it to say that I'd do the same things given his circumstances.

Once I was ready to go out, I stumbled into the new co-op board member.  We discussed an important issue that the co-op must deal with, and we agreed on the scope of the issue.  Hopefully, she will help me convince the other members of the board that this is an issue that can not be put off much longer. Next, we discussed family issues, and I mentioned some things about the recent past.  Specifically, that I saw her grandfather getting around on his scooter - and that I was happy that he was still active in his business.  Given that the co-op board knows of my transgender nature, I opened up to her - and she said that I looked good as Marian.  She couldn't believe it was me in the picture.  This way, if I come into a zoom meeting a little bit late, she won't get shocked at my appearance.

On the whole, I'm happy about these conversations, as it allowed for certain things to be said that needed to be said.  There was no hinting or guessing at what the other person meant.  These were some of the most effective chats I've had in a while.  And I'm very glad that I took the time out to have these chats....