Purposeless anger

I'm in a weird place right now, emotionally. I'm not sure what's wrong, but I'm sure something is wrong. I think I am depressed for the moment. It kinda runs in the family, but perhaps it hits me least of all. I have no fear revealing everything to you, gentle reader, but I don't want to divulge info about other people. So take it from me when I tell you that I am familiar with depression in myself and others.

I have these depressive episodes where everything pretty much sucks. The things I normally love hold no excitement. Luckily, if there is any luck to be found in depression, these episodes are brief lasting only a day or two or three. I see how living with this everyday would suck beyond all measure of sucky things. I want to tell you that I can't imagine what its like, but I can. I can imagine what its like to live like this without any idea when it will end. I guess I should explain what it's like. I keep forgetting you don't have my brain and can't know what I'm thinking.

Imagine you have a roommate that tells you one day that they peed on your pillow just to make you mad. Imagine the indignation and rage you would feel, all that anger bubbling inside of you. Questions of why and how and wtf, why me, what did I do to deserve that, more importantly what the hell is wrong with you, Roommate?

Now Imagine there is no roommate and no pillow incident. You are just angry and rage filled randomly without a reason. These emotions, very real and powerful, flood your body and brain, but you, your consciousness, recognizes that you are angry for no reason. But you can't turn it off. Everything makes you angry. When your eyes fall on a glass that is half empty (they are always half empty now) it pisses you off. Who had the audacity to fill a glass only half way? That means you will have to get up and refill it sooner. Or you see a towel on a shower rack and it hasn't dried yet. WTF is wrong with this Chinese-slave-labor-special towels that can't dry off after use? And etc, you could see a crooked paper and get angry about how it isn't straight or a pencil with a dull graphite point. Now, somewhere in your brain you know you are being unreasonable, that none of this stuff is important or deserves attention, but it doesn't matter because the feeling remains as strong as ever despite your logical musings.

I know that the conscious mind makes sense of the unconscious, that we have no control over our subconscious and whatever it does whenever it wants gets rationalized by the conscious. So the anger and rage and general pissed-off-ness is there floating around and your conscious mind says, "hey, I should attach this anger to something in the real world." There is so much anger that anything will do. Crooked paper, empty water glass, the urge to pee, people, girlfriend and dirty laundry are all prime candidates for this purposeless anger. I recognize that, so for the things that matter, like Loo, I just tell her I'm not feeling well. In the past this purposeless rage has snuck up on me and I have said some horrible things to her just to pick a fight, just to hurt her because I'm angry and she should be too. Meanwhile a part of me is saying no, don't.

After saying a bunch of mean things to her one time a long time ago she said to me, "You know me so well, for eleven years now, you know just what to say to destroy me." And with her words I could see through the haze just what kind of person I was, like an arrow through fog striking me in the chest. I got the message.

I'd want to tell you that I didn't have control over my body, that I was a puppet and IT did it and I was there in the background whispering, "hey, don't! Stop!" like I was some kind of victim looking for both sympathy and a scapegoat for you to blame and absolve me of responsibility. But the reality is I was there egging myself on because I wanted to break stuff and hurt people and anyone would do. I wanted to.

I should take a moment to point out that I'm not violent an I don't actually break stuff and beat people up, I talk and think things mostly. I recognize this whole anger/rage/haze thing so I intentionally seek solitude. It is hard to hurt others, especially people you love, when you are alone, though it's still possible. I'm using too many commas. Grrr...

After you sit with anger for a bit it gets dull and morphs into this general depression where lights aren't as bright, colors seems dull, food tastes bland and everything makes you frustrated and mad. People could offer you money and you'd bite their head off. I hate being this irrational.

So I am getting sick and most likely on day two of a depressive episode. I don't know if they are related. I heard you can tell you are depressed by hearing a happy story or about how happy people are and getting angry about it, like it makes you sick. So I watched a video about Beth Ostrosky Howard Sterns Wife. I'm a long time Stern fan so I know all about them and like them both a lot. As I listened to the bright and smiling Beth describe her perfect life rescuing animals in the Hamptons I felt a snarl crawl across my teeth. When it was over I wondered what I should do before bed. Nothing interested me even though I have been reading AMAZING books.

About a week ago I tripled the word count of my future best selling book (haha!) to a grand total of 20k. Afterward I felt so goood nothing could bring me down. In light of that experience and this one I wonder if I am manic depressive, aka bipolar. Who knows. Maybe when I can afford to I will see a psychiatrist counselor and she can tell me if I'm messed up or not and what to do about it.

The other thing is I am TIRED of my tire job. I work really hard and don't have much to show for it. And I see that after each ten hour day I am exhausted and not much fun to be around. My days off are more like recovery days than days off. This angers me. I don't want this to be my life. But I need money, you know? I want to write. Even talking to you, gentle reader, has lifted my spirit some.

Which reminds me in my book about Killing people the guy says that sharing depressive stories or feelings and talking about your problems actually HALVES the feelings you carry about it afterward. So you should talk about your problems because the person you tell carries half of it briefly, and after the talk is done you have measurably half the burden to carry while the other person quickly drops the half they were holding. It isn't their burden after all and now you have 50% burden. Winning!

Now that it's late and I still have to pee (stupid bladder!) I should go. Remind me to tell you about Venus, Killing and Free Will.