Better Bring the Cheese...

'Cause here comes the whine!

I am in a bad mood.

I have been in a bad mood for 2 and half weeks. This is not my standard "so depressed I want to kill myself" bad mood nor is it my "someone has messed with my loved ones and is going to pay for it" bad mood. This is more a self-pitying, life-hating, disgruntled-postal-worker kind of bad mood. The kind that makes me want to wring the neck of anyone who comes within throttling distance. I'm irritated and snippy. Instead of having to bite back apologies and tears and I find myself having to generate apologies for biting people's heads off and stifle nasty comments. Truth be told, I feel almost... angry.

Me.

Angry.

(Yes, you can faint now.) So this begs the question of the week... WHY?

Why am I angry? Who am I angry at? Why now? And what do I do about it? Anger is one of those feelings which I have labelled "unacceptable" except in cases of protecting my family or directed at myself. And while this is certainly still drected at myself - that hasn't changed - I am finding myself increasingly angry at other people. Stupid little things make me want to run and hide to keep from hurting someone. And I always feel on the edge of either screaming at someone or crying.

Then there are times when I sink into this dark pit, my own private hell, where there seems to be no point to anything at all. I don't see options then, only the kind of hopelessness that comes from surrending one's will to care. It is one step below the "the only light at the end of the tunnel is that of an oncoming train" stage.

I don't like being angry. I tend to isolate anyways but I have even been avoiding things I normally enjoy. I didn't even want to go to Thanksgiving at my parents' house and I normally enjoy that. I don't like having negative feelings towards others because I can't control that. I can't change other people; I can only change myself. So when contronted the possibility of getting upset with someone else, I find a way to make it okay: make it my fault instead of theirs or just understand where they are coming from. But I don't have a particular target for anger so I can't wrap my head around this to convert it.

There has to be something constructive I can do with this anger. It is giving me a kind of strength that I don't normally have. The kind of strength that gives a person the ability to maintain eye contact with an enemy they know is stronger and more dangerous. And it is coupled with a shut-down mechanism that takes me too far down to do any damage. So there has to be something I can do with this anger. I just don't know what. And I don't know how to ask for help figuring it out...

"anger: a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire." (from Dictionary.com)