And Then She Got Mad (might want to just pass this one up)

Warning:  If you don't want to read about my problems, just skip this one.  You aren't missing anything much.



Are their stages of frustration?



Hold that thought.



I'll be.  Yes.  There are totally stages to anger.

One internet search later and my course of this post is completely redirected.  Still, I'll provide some background.  Some.

The last oh....five days I believe, I have been dealing with a lot of high pressure and low pressure situations.  I've been drug into arguments I never wanted to be a part of.  I've been dealing with situations that should never have happened.  I've been pulled at to cause problems I have no business being a part in.  The little bits and pieces of me have become frayed with trying to take myself out of it all.  I was, in my mind, successfully handling the situation until today.

I woke up angry.  I'm on the warpath.  I'm out for blood.  I am so irrationally miffed that I was easily set off by that stupid internet craze going around of people taking pictures of themselves sans make-up and calling it cancer awareness.  And let me lead you down this train of logic for a moment just to get a look at how firmly past irritation we've crossed with five days of constant pressure:

"OH. MY. GOD.  What is WRONG with people?  How is a PICTURE supposed to actually DO something about curing cancer?  I'm so glad you can take a selfie without make-up.  I'm sure someone out there struggling with cancer is so RELIEVED the word is getting out via your heroic act of photography instead of DONATING to the cause to help with paying for their medical bills or to help sponsor research."

That happened faster than I could type it and faster than you could read it.  That went through my brain in under 30 seconds after I saw one more person doing this on facebook.  THAT is the point of mad I am at.  The shaking, unable to contain myself, one small word is going to set me off, please for the LOVE OF GOD LEAVE ME ALONE TODAY mad.

The problem?  I have a high stress 'fulltime' job and I have to work said job today.  I'm going to be put in the middle of another high stress situation very shortly.  Tomorrow I work TWO high stress jobs.  THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT.  This week has been constant harassment to me.  And the people I've tried to just talk to are NOT the right people.

Instead of just letting me vent irrationally so that I can calm down and think things through, their reaction has been:  "clearly you aren't doing anything about your situation so now I have to lecture you about how you can totally handle all these things that aren't in the least bit under your control and tell you how bad you are at managing your life because if you just look for something you'll see you totally could have done something about this situation that I know nothing about."  SHUT.  UP.  How is that EVER helpful, especially to someone who is already basically carrying a loaded gun of anger and words?  Do you really think right now is the right time to play the victim card?  If you don't want to listen just kindly find a means of escape.  Something like:  "Yeah, that sucks.  I'm going to let you calm down now," is preferable.  I'm actually really sorry that I have to talk my problems through.  I just NEED to vent.  Once it's out, I think more clearly and if you're not the person that wants to hear about the bad parts in my life along with the good, then just please stop me with kindness and let me go on with venting to someone or to somewhere else.  Lectures will only make me MORE angry and now that anger is unfortunately, inadvertently directed at you.

I lost the point of this post.

I'm not looking to justify my anger.  I recognize that a lot of it has been slowly escalating since Saturday.  I don't want validation.  I don't want advice right now.  I didn't even want to be angry.  I literally woke up angry, which is something I don't like.  It sets an awful tone for the rest of the day.  I sincerely don't know how some people can just brush things off.  I don't operate that way.  I have been making a lot of progress in getting the reigns on what sets me off, but I'm not perfect and I likely never will be.

Is it possible to be validated in your anger if you know you aren't going to DO anything with it?  Or is it better to keep pretending it's not there and to try to work around it?  Because I've tried doing both and neither works.  The best thing that's helped is writing out this blog.  As vague as it is about the specifics of what's going on today, at least I've managed to say what I wanted to say without fear of reprisal/negative response.

EDIT:  I'm being proactive.  Donate