Anyone else mistake anger for anxiety?

Post Reply New Topic

They feel so similar to me. I thought I was having a panic attack today when really I was pissed off at BF. We should have an "emotions" forum here so we can put out thoughts on how we experience and process emotions.

Turns out, we had a misunderstanding, but he did do something rude. Still, I was out of my raving mind pissed off. I'm still coming down from it. Seriously. Even after 2 klonopin.

And we haven't even talked about it yet.

I just know I had a fast heartbeat, discomfort, difficulty consoling myself and I assumed this was anxiety.

If you were to ask me what makes me angry, I'd have a hard time telling you because I'm not comfortable enough or familiar enough with that emotion.

Anyone else like this?

I think it's more than that. "Uncomfortable" is one thing, and might be true in varying degrees for individuals. I think the "not familiar" part is that we have been forbidden to talk or think or feel the way we do, and that this is the real cause of the confusion. It's not us, it's them.

"Alexithmyia" is about an inability to express feelings with words. For me, it’s both primary (nature) and secondary (nurture). But it’s not what you think. It's really about my inability to express the feelings that YOU can relate to and accept, with the words that YOU want to hear. The basic issue is that I really am different. It’s not that I don’t know myself or that I am confused or in denial. It’s that my emotions really are qualitatively different. I might as well have green skin. The world insists on denying that this is an issue. They want to find and name a problem that they can fix, or at least punish. I can’t comply, because I simply don’t have one. This is it. This is me. The horrible monster that my mother and the rest of the world has been trying to kill since birth is me. There’s no one else in here. If you can’t accept this premise, no further conversation would serve any purpose.

What we need is a whole new language and a whole new psychiatric model for what is "normal."

(I know, I already said a lot of this in the "Catatonic" thread.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt91016.html )

I also have a pretty hard time distinguishing between feelings. I just don't seem to have the vocabulary to identify them or describe them (alexithymia). Since my diagnosis, my wife and I have been comparing notes, and, well, it's been pretty humbling to find out just how bad I am at identifying emotional states. Mostly, I group them into "upset", "ok", "happy". Not a very broad categorization scheme. Anger to me is this incredibly hostile, aggressive feeling that I rarely experience. Apparently I get "angry" more often than I think.

Maybe. Or maybe other people are projecting onto you. I know they do that to me all the time.

Something happens, I go into a creative, problem-solving mode, and all they see is a straight face. They imagine an anger that I do not feel, because THEY would feel angry in the same situation. So I must be in denial or compartmentalizing or out-of-touch or depressed. I am not. This is called "sane" and "rational." It's a place most people have never been.

"Hey guys -- lets try something different! Instead of flying around the ceiling and attacking each other and pouring jet fuel on the problem, lets try thinking and cooperating and doing something that might actually solve the problem!"

Then, because they can't be serious, I get frustrated. I'm not reacting to the main problem. I'm reacting to their insane reaction to whatever-the-hell they think is my reaction and my failure to do some appropriately stupid thing...