The Anger that came with my PET scan today

A friend asked how I was after my PET scan and I said “angry”. I – of course – quickly put it down to the fact that traffic was bad and there were some very annoying drivers just doing the wrong thing and obviously, “I was fine”. She reminded me that there were quite a lot of things I could be angry about and it was really okay sometimes to be angry and not “fine”.

I struggle with just feeling angry.* It’s not an emotion that I often sit with and try to understand. I get angry – probably too often – rant a bit (sometimes send a passive aggressive email) and then put it aside. I put the anger down to “a certain event” – something happening. I know somewhere in my mind that the “certain event” probably does not always warrant the anger that comes with it and it is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

*And now, as I’m trying to write about it, I’m struggling. It’s not easy.

The normal mental load or something else?

I would like to say that I do acknowledge that there is other anger there – just lying dormant (or not so dormant) ready to find something to ignite it. Yet, I fear that rather than acknowledge that I’m angry about different things, I’ve actually probably denied that I’m angry. Rather, I put the impatience and “quick to get angry” moments down to the fact that I have a lot on my plate. My cancer radio is on – not always loud but on. I have a relatively stressful job. I normally single parent two awesome AND headstrong children. I went through surgically-induced menopause and take relatively heavy medication to stop the cancer. I blame that mental load for losing my shit sometimes (alongside a relatively large dose of guilt and remorse after I have let my rage get the better of me).

As I write these things that are on my mental load, I realise there are a few things in there that I could be angry about. I believe (until now?) that I have been angry about these different things at different periods but suitably dealt with them because there’s no point being angry all the time. And while I believe that is true – that there’s no point being angry all the time – I’m starting to think that just because I have dealt with the anger once or twice that it doesn’t mean I’m not still angry or that the anger can’t come back. So I’m going to articulate some of the anger, in hope that actually acknowledging it is there will somehow help me also release some of it.

A side note: If you haven’t realised by now, I’m not exactly advanced in processing my emotions. As I’m writing – I think, woah, this is all so obvious – why am I working this out now? What can I say, except, I’m trying now and I am aware of my emotion-processing limitations.

Seems there might be … Something else

My ex is in town and is staying at the house. It’s been around three weeks (some would say three weeks too long) – probably the longest time we have spent together since we separated around four years ago. It’s a complicated history with a lot of anger. I did process a lot of that anger and I slowly let go a lot of the anger I had that was directed towards him. And while I’m newly angry at a few things that have happened recently (and rightly so) – this anger will pass. Though being back in a similar situation brings out feelings from the past and as I’m writing, I’m beginning to realise that I’m not sure I ever really let go of all the anger I had that was directed towards myself. I worked on it but I am still angry with myself for allowing myself to remain in the marriage as long as I did.* And, if I really dig deep, angry at myself for allowing myself to get into the relationship in the first place. Towards the end of the marriage, I began to realise that a lot of the problems – while significantly amplified in the last few years – were there from the start and I just refused to see them because, honestly, I didn’t think I deserved better. I’m also angry that I haven’t changed so much from that 27 year-old because I still have similar feelings about myself.

*This is compounded by the fact that it was a year to that day of us separating that I learnt I had breast cancer. I’m angry that I didn’t have enough time not being someone’s wife and dealing with the emotions around the divorce before I then had to deal with cancer.

I’m also angry that I have to do the parenting and the cancer on my own*. I’m not sure this anger is directed at my ex but some of it might be. I’ll caveat that statement with the fact that I in no way want my ex to be the person I do share the parenting and cancer stuff with. Parenting is not always easy. I definitely don’t always get it right and some days, I just want someone else to step in and deal with the meltdowns or tell the kids for the fifth time to brush their teeth. I also sometimes just want someone to hug me when I’m at the end of the day and not handling the idea of going to sleep because I don’t want to wake up the next morning still having cancer. I’m angry at the circumstances – more so than my ex – that I don’t have someone to do that for me. I really need to get rid of that anger and do something about it – if I really want someone in my life – that’s more in my hands, I guess fear and the previous statement that I haven’t changed so much from my 27-year-old self prevent me at the moment. A topic of writing for another day (but so intrinsically linked to the anger as the anger is likely propelling a lot of these feelings).

*I know, I know – I’m not alone – surrounded by people who support me, love me and help me deal with the parenting and cancer stuff all the time but somehow it’s not the same.

Probably doesn’t need to be said but, yes, I’m angry that I have metastatic breast cancer. I’m angry at myself for not getting checked earlier. I’m angry that my children live with the knowledge that my life will likely not be as long as we want. I’m angry that I don’t know the timeline. The anger was much more prevalent when I first got diagnosed. At a certain point, I decided that I was going to do “something” with having metastatic breast cancer – to give myself a purpose – repurpose the anger into something good. I then got angry with myself for not doing anything.

Okay, Okay – seems there is some anger there

So yeah, seems a few things that I’m still angry about. I think some of the anger is quite justified. I mean – bad driving – fully justified to have a bit of contained rage. More seriously, while I cannot change the fact that I have metastatic breast cancer, I think I am allowed to be angry about it. Not all the time but acknowledge that it’s a justified feeling at times. I also think some anger about unreasonable behaviour from my ex is allowed but I do need to let that go. It is what it is; it is not something I can change and I don’t want to hold that anger.

As I wrote, I identified a lot of anger directed at myself and – I could be wrong but I’m not sure that’s so healthy. Not to say that I don’t warrant some angry thoughts from time to time but I don’t think I should be carrying so much anger directed at myself because then it becomes a bit of a vicious spiral and feeds into negative thinking that I could do without. I definitely have made some mistakes and rather than continually making myself feel bad about those mistakes, I need to learn from them – try not to make them again. Ironically I’m realising (late) in being so angry with myself, I’m pushing myself back into a mindset that would make it more and more likely for myself to make the same mistakes. To be fair to me, I have known for some time now that my mindset wasn’t great – haven’t been feeling overly positive about myself – I put it down to my general insecurities and hadn’t quite understood just how angry I’ve been with myself.

I do realise that acknowledging the anger is just the start and is not going to magically now disappear because I have acknowledged it. It’s a start though. And maybe, just maybe some of the anger is misunderstood – maybe I can use some of it do something better – starting with myself (without being angry with myself when I don’t always get it right).