Fury

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OMG-I am no longer going to have access to the OED since I am no longer in school. Someone better find me a copy stat! Oh, and I want the cool stand that it sits on.) fury is defined as:

"Fierce passion, disorder or tumult of mind approaching madness; esp. wild anger, frenzied rage; also, a fit or access of such passion."

I am one pissed off little cookie. I have rage roiling with me that I cannot even define or begin to tell you where it comes from. I'm like a tangled skein of line, a twisted rain soaked mast, the whomping willow, the...I think you get the picture. I've got anger coming out of me sideways, upside down and spewing forth like vomit. People keep telling me I need to grieve, lean into the grief, it's a process, it takes time, trust the process and all I want to say is screw you. Now that I think about it, I may have actually said screw you.

I started reading a book called "Fury: True Tales of a Good Girl Gone Ballistic". Now, a lot of things are starting to make sense. I keep marking pages in the book that strike a chord with me. Here are a few:

This is quoted from Harriet Lerner's The Dance of Anger:

"Although 'nice ladies' are not very good at feeling angry, we may be great at feeling guilty. As with depression or feeling hurt, we may cultivate guilt in order to blot out the awareness of our own anger. Anger and guilt are just about incompatible."

That I think sums up my general feelings, especially since I do hold in my anger and hold onto it for years that turn into decades.

This quote though is specific to now:

"I know in a cerebral way that I'm both happy and grateful to see him, yet when he leans forward to hug me, my skin creeps. I feel myself hardening over, giving in to irrational annoyance...Turns out, my ill temper isn't father-specific. We've barely hit the Mass Pike when the little black mutt with a wrinkled brow and big, commiserative eyes tries to curl into my lap...But something in the beast makes me recoil and I shove the dog away with such fierce revulsion that I see my father wince in profile, and the car swerves a little in its lane. The strength of my violent reaction surprises even me. But for the next three months this violent reaction will happen every time some gentle sap (beast or brethren) tries to cheer or, worse yet, console me."

Right now I have a lot of anger directed towards flirty boy. Some of it is deserved, some of his things are triggering my old things, and some of it is completely and utterly misdirected. I kind of feel sorry for him, or is that my nice lady guilt talking. Today I tried to sort through my feelings and figure out a way through this morass. I said tried, I didn't say I managed it.

I also had a nice healthy cry. It's hard to cry when your nose is all stuffed up and you can't breath. I feel a bit calmer and a bit like the demon that has been raging in me has released some of its anger. But, I still feel it, roiling below the surface like a snake ready to strike. And while that lump in my throat that feels like it is blocking my breath and my voice has subsided-it is still there.