Category: anger

There’s no way I am going to fail my flight license.

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Yesterday I was very down, I failed for the third time the theoretical exam “Flight Principles”. The morning had started badly with a nasty call at work. Bad mood set right there at 9am. My exam was at 13h15. I didn’t feel it, despite I prepared. The thing is that I prepared based on the QPPL app questions. But the Office Fédéral de l’Aviation Civile puts other questions out. For the third time I made one mistake too much. You are supposed to pass 75%, which is 9 questions out of 12. I made 4 mistakes. Till the last moment I had the fourth question right. It was the section of a body that makes the resistance in an air flow, not the surface. I had clicked on “section” and then the doubt came. I switched to “surface”. For one wrong click I have the stress of having to pass my last chance, if I fail the fourth time, I have to redo the whole theory (13 exams). No chance I’ll do that.

The negative thoughts are so good at piling up. One negative thought is enough to fuel all others. In my head right now, I have this: a pile of negative thoughts, a scenario of a black future: no more ideal job, no more flight lessons, winter coming, no more sex friend…. Pile on pile on pile.

The good thoughts are being stacked elsewhere, where it doesn’t matter. I received the Swiss citizenship, I am flying to Japan and Korean this week, I will give two speeches at a Japanese conference, I am having a good time at water-polo, I have a new co-locataire for the house who is very nice, the weather in Geneva has been spectacular, sunny and warm to this day, my parents are alive, my nephew just turned 30 and my brother 56. I started interviewing candidate therapists to coach me in winter. Life is good.

And yet it could all go wrong. Hell no. I won’t allow it, for God’s sake.

Yesterday and today, I was feeling like shit, self-commiserating, poor me I can’t get an exam right, damn me, I can’t get an exam right, and work sucks, everyone is so inefficient, people unhappy about my pushing too much, yara yara yara. What the f**k. I stop it right there. I want to take this opportunity to stop and reflect on the reaction in my guts, on the irritating and revolting feeling I feel in the stomach, and how to revert this sense of pins and needles in my head, that come from being disappointed, angry, sad, frustrated all at once.

Meditation is still not my thing, too calm for my mind. But I can listen to some ted talks and put my mind at peace for a while. I found a podcast about therapy. I hope I find a good therapist who can accompany me during winter time. Winter is coming and I feel I am not prepared this time. Red flag, red alert.

It’s not about me

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It’s been almost two years since my first Fluoxetine dose. December 2019 was when I started. Then I took it until June 2020, and reduced the dosage by half, until September 2020, when I stopped completely. By end of October 2020 I was depressed again and had to resume Fluoxetine early December 2020. Today is 24 October 2021. Unlike last year, I have not attempted again to stop Fluoxetine at the beginning of autumn, but will do so next year, 2022, around March-April, when the best season for me starts.

This is an introduction to say that the way I feel now is different from last year. Today I feel confident, not depressed, I have energy, not lack of living fuel in my veins; the problems that arose last year with work (a contract that has deteriorated over the months) is persisting this year, with a new challenging turn, but I am taking it in a different way. This is a progress, and I’ll take anything but depression. Depression is a plug that is torn from my body, energy that turns off without a turn on button on the instruction manual. Anger, on the contrary, is a feeling, it makes me feel alive, although it’s not as pleasant as joy.

Anger is what I feel today, and what I have felt the past weeks. I have given so much to my job, working more than necessary, believing in the product, and I have received zero recognition and support from the management. I told this Mr. G., my psychologist, whom I see every 3-4 weeks, and I expressed him my frustration.

Frustration: the feeling of being annoyed or less confident because you cannot achieve what you want, or something that makes you feel like this

Cambridge Dictionary

So, I’ll take anger, because if I think back only a year ago, I could not move from bed. But I need to harness this feeling, which I consider not a happy one, and transform it to a positive one; Mr. G. told me that I want everybody to love me, and I seek everybody’s approval and recognition, whereas this is not what I should be aiming at. I should be happy with how I feel about me. It’s ok if not everyone loves me, it’s ok to have “enemies”, I need to remember that these are all feelings, not the universal truth. Reality is the way I perceive myself within my own circle of relationships.

It’s not all about me. I came across this video on Youtube and it made me think. Frederik Imbo, the author of this Ted Talk, says : do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? He advocates to use discipline and training, to train your brain not to take things personally. He became a referee to train himself to not take things personally. He shifted the focus from Me to We, and look at the other person’s intention. ’cause it’s not about me.

And what if it is about me? In this case I doubt about myself, because I haven’t come to terms with parts of myself, I am not confident. And I don’t take into account other people’s needs. This is probably rooted in childhood (maybe you were never good enough, or you were spoiled too much, always having your dad’s back).

I have started exercising not to take things personally. Easier said than done, but at least by trying I am training my mind to protect myself. It’s usually not about me, in which case the problem isn’t there, it’s the way others see themselves. When it’s about me, what can I do? My ego wants to be right, it wants to be acknowledged. Me, myself and I.

I am sad if I don’t get recognition. Imbo says: then open up without blaming the other one, vocalise your needs. Give yourself empathy, speak up.

I will adopt this strategy next time I am sitting in the same room with the CEO.

PS: did you know that we have 50’000 thoughts a day, and of them 10’000 are positive. 80% of what we think are negative thoughts. We might as well concentrate more on the positive.

Noise Off Distractions

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Last night I had dinner with my boss. I invited him over. It was a good exercise to discuss with him. this morning I figured out why. Waking up, while my thoughts are at best, free from distraction, and free to roam in my brain without noise, I realised : “noise”! That’s what it is. This is what I need to work on. I can best compute, reason, tink, work, judge, when I am free of noises. I am sharp when I don’t have distractions.

What I realise this mornign is that people are my main distraction. And by distraction I don’t mean something negative, I mean a distraction from my ultimate goal in life: be in peace with myself.

While waking up, the thought of distraction brought me immediately back to Will. The love of my life. Why did I leave him, why did I suffer so much for leaving him, and why this and why that. I think I know now: it is because he was a necessary casualty to free my self from distractions that don’t make me see me.

Distraction: something that prevents someone from giving their attention to something else:

Cambridge Dictionary

That’s exactly it. When I am with people, I am prevented from giving my attention to someone else: me. When I am with someone, I tend to reduce me in order to let the other express, shine, decide, say, feel respected. By doing so I let my own self pass on second rang. For the sake of others. I wrote a page of my diary about this, I need to find it again. ’cause its true. this has been one of my main difficulties in life: how to joggle between me and others, how to act and preserve my self against other selves. I see this in my present job, which I like very much, but it gives me pain as well, cause I don’t feel myself enough heard, appreciated and followed, as I should. And when I am with my chef, my superior, I lose my self, and he becomes a distraction, that doesn’t make me see me and my reasoning. How to pierce my own view into them. me against them, woman against a world of men. That too I am sure plays quite a role.

The medicine is giving me more strength and helps me detach from the situation. But I am still vulnerable, and I am still months away from being confident that I will make it without the drugs. I had a dream last night, that I was depressed and felt like doing nothing. The worst nightmare, it reminded me what it feels like to have no motivation.

But waking up, the motivation is there, and I thank God. Nature maybe :-).

Anger again

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Yes, anger again, same as last year. A cycle is kind of repeating: in the winter I am depressed and start taking fluoxetin; the medicine slowly but regularly starts having effect and equalises my moods, making me happier and stronger every day. It takes about 2-3 months to get stable. I am miserable in October-November-December, then from January things start getting better. Then around early spring (about now) I start becoming cocky, and angry at things and events; it is as if I was gaining too much confidence, and I can face any event or situation; I need to be careful, because at work I risk to respond abruptly to people (and to the Management) and I know I will regret if I do. So I tell myself “stay humble, don’t explode”. So I do. I try my best. So far I succeed, but sometimes I am really eager to give the proper feedback to people. I play it in my head over and over, as to rehearse the perfect speech.

I remember last year I was angry against W., my ex (the love of my life), for not fighting for our relationship, for letting me go like that; the anger was good to not think of him too much, self defense I reckon. As I already wrote in another page, I’d rather be angry than depressed. And I remember that last year, around late spring, I decided together with my psychiatrist, to start diminishing the dose of antidepressant. Because I was feeling strong, and because I knew I could manage reducing the pills. This year I feel I am doing well again, I feel I could let go of Fluoxetin, but I want to be more careful, and not rush things. I don’t want to end up later this year with a winter coming and depression galloping again in my brain.

Man, it’s so challenging to find a balance. I said from the beginning that I will win this fight, and I will. It feels though like a lifelong battle, that this will be my fight until the end of my days. I must never let my guard down, I must remember that there is always a risk of falling into depression. Like asthma. You have it and then it stays with you; you can calm it down, thame it, but never lower your guard, never underestimate the enemy.

Anger

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This week has been hard at work, plus it’s been two months since reducing Fluoxetin to 10mg a day, plus we had full moon on Monday and I started my period, with the mood swings that evince. Whichever element has had an impact on my mood this week, I don’t know. All I know is that this week I have been very, very angry. I am angry for the injustice that I am experiencing at work, and this anger makes me fuel more anger towards all the injustices I received during my life, big disappointments such as my sister in law. As if work and family weren’t enough, I think of other reasons why to be angry, and I am really angry. It’s as if I were searching for reasons to be angry. In my mind I go over ways to revenge each and every injustice, I make a film in my head where I have a conversation with my colleague, or with my sister in law L., and I go over and over and over through it in my head until I am satisfied of the outcome. Although the outcome is never satisfying, cause it’s just a preparation of what I want to tell these people in person. Then I could be really satisfied. Explode in front of them, tell them what I think of their miserable life, where they are so weak they have to find in someone else the reason of their deep rooted dissatisfaction. L. was left by my brother because of another woman (and many other reasons), and now she stopped talking to me and my parents, while she still speaks to her husband. Why are we to blame?

Yesterday I was so angry that I cried during the entire meditation session. I tried to stick to the breathing mantra, but yesterday my thoughts were overwhelming. This morning I didn’t even try to meditate; I woke up angry making films in my head again. Darn. What is it? Why am I so angry? Is it the effect of Fluoxetin? Is it the menstrual mood swings? Is it the real injustice I face at work, where this woman is jealous of me and my achievements? Is it what Dr. G., my psychologist says, that I have a fascination for dissatisfaction? Is it maybe also the frustration during my whole life of wanting to be good to people and doing efforts and sacrifices towards them that are misunderstood and not gratified as I deserve?

I don’t know. I just know that I want to write it down, so I can read this when I am less angry and make a “cold blood” analysis (a sangue freddo) of all of this.

I realise I care too much about what people think of me, I want everyone to love me, like I love everyone. I see life in pink, others don’t, but how can I act so that instead of them dragging me down to their dark world, I lift them up to my rose world? That again goes back to how we see the glass, it’s either half full or half empty. And why should they succeed in making me see the glass empty instead of full? How can I make them see the full side?

So my anger, I think, comes from the many years’ frustration of subsiding to others’ bad tempers and moods, just because I am able to adapt myself to others, I am flexible, understanding and ….. well THE HELL with all that! Today I am me, I regain my own dignity and right to be me, and others have to model their own behaviour to fit mine, and not the other way round, FOR ONCE. The hell with L., who has been jealous for years of my great relationship to my brother, and now that they are separated, she blames me and my family for being the source of her bad luck, well, I have a lot to say about that and about her. To hell with Trump, to hell with my colleague who feels threatened because I work well, to hell with everybody who is not strong enough to face me. I will no longer lower my intelligence for the sake of others. This has hurt me over the years, and I think more and more that this has been one major element leading to my depression.

Like Claire Underwood said at the end of season five: My turn now.