Anger can be vital in chronic illness life
Anger can be an important tool and GPS that tells us when we find something happening to us unjust or unkind. It can also pave the way for gratitude.
For a long time I was excruciatingly angry. I am non-theist (I don’t always know what I am), but I was ‘angry at God’ and didn’t know what to do with that feeling.
Being the angry sick woman only intensifies the stereotype of the hysterical woman who cannot control her emotions. So I didn’t allow myself to feel the anger.
Also, I'm deeply privileged (except for my disability and illness) in that I am white, heterosexual, I have access to resources, I have loving parents, and so I shouldn’t really be angry, because there are lots of people who are worse off than me.
So I held it in. I would feel the anger beginning to ignite, but I didn’t allow it to surface or in any way move inside my body. I was angry at the anger and it didn’t feel good to be this angry so I was irritated on top of the anger.
In fact, the irritation was my clue. I have learnt — from too many years of experience — that irritation is a sign that I’m not listening to myself, that I’m not seeing myself and that I’m not compassionate towards myself and my feelings.
I’ve practiced and taught compassionate mindfulness for years as a yoga and meditation teacher and practitioner, but there are layers to this practice and I, too, am human.
When the irritation started to emerge I knew it was time for me to allow the anger, instead of flicking it off. Anger can be an important tool and GPS that tells us when we find something happening to us unjust or unkind. Being mostly bedbound, having lost my career, friends, hobbies, and so much more IS unjust and it IS unkind, even though other people have it worse.
I started to allow the anger. At night, before bedtime I would let it all out, uncensored (inside my head). Whenever I felt the anger ignite I would allow it, go into it, witness it, cherish it, adore it and thank it for being there to show me what I was not OK with. Most days I felt like a child screaming because she didn’t get what she wanted, but I showed her compassion, consoled her like a good parent would.
I did this for many months — half a year at least, and one day I noticed that the anger had died down a bit. It wasn’t as fiery. It was beginning to lose steam. The emotion that surfaced instead was sorrow.
So I sat with sorrow for a long time. It didn't help to cry out loud (I also crash from it so I don’t), because the sorrow has always been there and probably always will be as long as I have severe ME. I noticed that this feeling has been with me since I got ill back in May 2011 and it intensified when I became mostly bedbound in 2017/18.
This sorrow is grief. For me, grief is not a process, it’s a constant, because I’m living with the source of my grief every day.
When I truly gave myself permission to feel both the anger and especially the sorrow underneath, something shifted.
Slowly, I began to feel a different kind of acceptance — an acceptance that didn’t overlook my suffering, but that saw it as neutral rather than something to be judged. A kind of spiritual neutrality and a deeper knowing that each of us are on separate paths and some paths are easier and lighter, while others go through a lot of darkness and trauma. This didn’t remove my feelings of injustice, I gave space for indignation too and a longing for the human race to do better.
Through this acceptance I also discovered that I could hold hope inside me while still living in the present. Hope is not an either or in my experience. I find it’s possible to make space for both hope and acceptance.
Also, a deeper, more authentic form of gratitude emerged, I found myself, spontaneously, moving into gratitude. My mind would just randomly start saying “thank you for this care and support I receive,” “thank you for the beautiful surroundings I have,” “thank you for all the love I receive” and so forth.
I’ve attempted to practice gratitude throughout my chronic illness journey, but most of the time it just pissed me off. It felt like I was forcing something on to me — I honestly felt violated doing gratitude practices, because I hadn’t acknowledged the grave injustice and tragedy I was faced with.
Now, I still oscillate back and forth between all these different states (anger, grief, acceptance, hope, gratitude) and I will still (and probably always will) be in states of anger and prolonged states of sorrow or come out of spiritual neutrality and feel sorry for myself all over again. For me, this is not a linear process — in fact, I don’t see this as a process at all, simply a changing of the seasons. Some seasons are full of anger, some seasons are full of inner peace and other seasons are full of sorrow.
But I've learnt how important ‘feeling your feelings’ is in this situation. For me, the most difficult one was anger, because I was taught in yoga school that anger is the lowest vibrating, darkest and most negative emotion you can feel — something to get rid of, in other words. I tried to bypass anger by doing gratitude practices instead, but I only got more angry. It was only when I truly felt and expressed (inside my mind) my anger that things started to shift.
Sometimes I feel knee-deep in grief, other times I feel elated with gratitude and acceptance, and sometimes it feels more like a wild roller coaster ride where every second changes from grief to acceptance, back to grief and then a bit of acceptance and then some more grief. It’s never a constant when living with chronic illness. And that’s ok.
Able-bodied society teaches us that time is linear. Growth is linear. Even grief is linear with its five-step process. But here in chronic illness world, where we go by crip time, things are messy, intuitive, backwards, broken and wonderfully human.
Tell me…
Which season are you in right now?
What is your relationship to gratitude at this moment?
Do you feel your anger or try to suppress it?
Thank you so much for reading this post. If you know someone who could benefit from this, then please share this page with them. You are also more than welcome to share it in your Facebook or other patient support groups.
Did you miss?
Embracing crip time: Redefining pace, productivity and patience
To hope or not to hope when living with chronic illness
The missing ingredient in gratitude practices
Meditation: Witnessing our grief
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I have been disabled all but 18 months of my almost 70 years. I ve learnt to listen to the keening, the howling and the deep melancholy, but it took years and years ( 3 children and the belief I was still superwoman didn't help).
It doesn't stop it having a deep impact, but I have accepted it as part of my being, like I have the anxiety of my partner of 50 years. It just is, and needs to be listened to, and acted on accordingly. It isn't meaningless and annoying. Dealing with it is part of taking responsibility for myself, and important in receiving wholeness.
In 2012 I also had a life changing injury which began a year of grief: the death of my beloved mother, my middle adult child developing a brain tumour and my youngest having 2 lots of major surgery for ear tumours. My husband was made redundant and we moved house. There was no time to grieve for any of that, not until 2020, which for us was a time of blessing, allowing us all to work through our losses. Though by then we had lost Chris and my dad, and my dog, and gained 3 grandchildren and a son and daughter in law.
Even now I grieve, though have to work out what for sometimes.
But it isn't as linear and straightforward as you think dear writer. And in reality it is no different to my able bodied partner with whom I speak
frankly. He grieves for the loss of his more able bodied partner, who, although she felt she had flu, had the capacity to give birth to 3 children, get a degree, be a fabulous cook, a creative artist. He grieves his son, and his own shortcomings. I still crave to be useful and creative but am a faint shadow of the woman I would have been. Although I am wiser, more patient and a lot more inclusive than I would have been otherwise.
These two sections in particular really stood out and resonated with me: "Hope is not an either or in my experience. I find it’s possible to make space for both hope and acceptance." And,"For me, this is not a linear process — in fact, I don’t see this as a process at all, simply a changing of the seasons. Some seasons are full of anger, some seasons are full of inner peace and other seasons are full of sorrow." I feel so seen, as always. Thank you for this!