Musings on Anger
I am no strANGER to anger. I grew up on it. My father was not what you might call “an angry man”, but he would fly into fits of rage, and I was afraid to approach him. Invariably, my questions would irritate him or set him off, again. My timid requests for his assistance concerned mainly maths in which I was, incomprehensibly and infuriatingly a total dunce. Where anger is, love is not, so I grew up never knowing if he loved me at all, or why he would hate me so.
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In a sense, I grew up in a war zone, since anger is, per definition, martial. Everybody was fighting their own corner, as if they were permanently under attack. In a sense, they were exactly that, if we understand anger as a response to imbalanced Blue Ribbon emotions, those primal emotions which exists in creatures of a higher order to preserve homeostasis, after it ensures survival. When you lack self-confidence or feel unable to live the way you want to, you are going to have the proclivity for anger as your last call-to for affirming the Self.
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My mother has always been eerily quietly knotted up into a nucleus of anger, which has started to seep out with her progressive mental deterioration. She always could flash out a sting in the buttock with her Scorpio critical eye, but now she may shoot little rocket glares at fellow passengers on a bus for wearing a hat in a shade of green she dislikes. Green being her favorite colour this causes much offense. All bad taste does, and I think since Eve Marie Saint (still with us at 93) nobody was ever been deemed to have any taste at all. And then there is the incessant black-smoke-muttering following her everywhere.
I worry how much lava will bubble up to the surface, yet. She left us with the ominous statement, back in the late eighties, already, that she was scared of her own anger, and predicted, one day, she would explode. Perhaps, much of this stored-up anger has already gelled into the sclerotic illnesses she suffers from, or is invested in the hope my father passes on before her (and preferably soon) so that she may have a turn at a life of her own before her own demise.
I think it is safe to say that, in that light, I respect her recent announcement that she prefers to entertain superficial relationships only (meaning I may keep my distance). Who wants to live next to a volcano?
My father’s anger is born out of panic or the loss of control. He may “break down the airport” when one check-in desk closes and he is directed to the next one. His queueing will feel to have been in vain (eventhough he will be the next served) because my father thinks in tidy compartments (cannot generalise pragmatic actions) and thus the command to wait for one’s luggage to be checked in at this particular desk has failed. To reprogramme the mind takes executive skills that are impaired, deficient, or delayed for my father by his Autism. We have been multiply mortified in his presence in restaurants, shops, hotels and don’t get me started on customer service desks.
His recent, rare and undiagnosable heart condition seems to reflect his diminished ability to regulate his emotional life rhythmically. In a sense, as for a child, his baser instincts are too predominant in a man of reason. They rule much of his life (hunger, sleep, pleasure, fear etc) and it takes most of his energy to rise above them. In this light, my father may be regarded as truly gifted cerebreally for having excelled both professionally and socially. Asking him to be a kind and emotionally engaged father on top of that, I can see, would be asking too much. Our mother, therefor, always minded us daughters not to.
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Looking for esoterically satisfying answers to the riddle of Autism (whilst waiting for modern science to acquire the necessary perspective), it became plain for me to see how managing the Autism for any other individual without violating their own karmic process could only take place through the care for the well-fare of their Blue-Ribbon emotions. It may sound odd, but as carers and guardians, I feel, we only have the right to treat the “animal” (i.e. ur-astral) side of a person, and never interfere with their I. Most therapies, I find, when they aim to “normalise” or overwrite entire characters with applied behaviours, violate the soul with its personal mission (which includes to live with - and not against - Autism).
Once the Blue Ribbon emotions are meticulously monitored and sanitised for children with Autism, stress-levels will drop significantly and (self-)destructive and aggressive behaviours are thus (largely) corrected. (This is hard to attain for adults diagnosed later in life. Hence my plea to rather over-diagnose than under-diagnose - but that is easy for me to say, to whom it would never occur to discrimnate negatively on grounds of a mental handicap or psychiatric disorder….).
Over 50% of the stressors (or triggers) for (autistic - or any for that matter! -) inapporpriate or undesirable behaviours (or “signatures” of the main handicap for those who are otherwise relatively oblvivous to their “abnormality”) stem from systemic errors or continuous perturbances in the primal, instinctive brain. The aim is to satisfy these basic needs and minimise disruptions - as one would do for domestic animals (cows, sheep, horses, cats, dogs: see Temple Grandin for more on her revolutionary insights into the well-being of animals).
If you concentrate on energy management by means of montioring the seven Blue Ribbon emotions (as defined by Jaak Pansepp: SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY - his caps) you will have done much to help your autistic child (or spouse etc.) to work through their autisic dysfunction, time and again, to arrive at at a stable and reliable foundation from which to build up higher and nobler projects - free of that anger which clearly is the result of frustrated blue ribbon emotions (and hence a key symptom of fair- to high-functioning Autism).
The anger of my son is even more typically Autistic, than that of my father's, since his character is happy-go-lucky and fun-loving overall. He has a great sense of adventure even if it is limited by panic-attacks, obsessive-compulsions and unrealistic fears, paranoia and delusions. But it is a ferocious anger, and comes with much physical force and tends to be of an extremely volatile nature, like the bushfires that flare up out of an overheated eucalptus leaf. It means I live a life of extreme alertness.
This flagrant anger is not unfamilar to myself, either. I fulminate. Every Saturday anew, lightning is discharged as I ascend the stairs to do my loads of washing and meet with fresh mayhem. No sooner have I tidied or sorted through his things, and my son returns it all to dissaray. Furthermore, he is rather heavy-handed for a string-bean, and since I live in rented accommodation his modifications to our carpets and wallpaper is no end of nervous tension for me.
When we reach Saturday - furthermore, in Anthroposophy, the Saturnal (or for me saturnine) day of reviewing of the prior week - I will already have waded through six days of repetitively accumulating stuff, sand, mud, muck, mess on the other floors of my house, and I have spared myself the fat cherry on top of the cake till today. I am trying to let go of organising my son’s life, hoping the foundation I worked my self to the bone on is in place, by now. There is little more I can do to extend this platform for the rest of his life. From this small patch of solid building he will have to proceed upwards.
All I can still try to do is break back down the blocks he put in place that cannot pass examination and may threaten to bring the whole construction down later on. Such collapses are not something you can allow to occur for someone with Autism. I put out a finger against the work done so far, and give it a little push to see what comes toppling down. But this is not the work I prefer to do. I am therefore frustrated - and am easily agitated. I no longer know what I want to do, though, so after my usual rant and rave I calm back down, accepting my fate. The foundation for this was laid back too far down this Tower of Pisa to consider breaking it back down. I suck up the charred plasma with some hoovering and shake the cinders from the duster with short sharp flicks out of the window. At least, I am not cold yet.
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Anger is a lack of flexibility. It is to find oneself outside the flow. My sister IS “an angry woman”. Her dysphoria is the setting of this anger that has no true will-power or creative agenda, and that feels frustrated with absolutely everything. The seams in her nightdress, the gusts of wind, the radiator that is too hot, the balcony that is too cold, the floor that is too hard, the mattress that is too soft.
Her Blue Ribbon emotions are that seriously compromised that she feels fundamentally and permanently insecure. My mother left her too free to make of herself what she willed. But for Autism this willing is extremly hard to access and optimise for a lack of soul-body integration. All three faculties of soul (thinking, feeling, willing) exist barely interconnected. There is stagnation and the I is fragmented on a cellular level; the blood barely manages to outline a whole.
The anger indicates this split. It is a curdling of the blood. Think of a béchamel sauce which separates when the fat cannot be emulsified sufficiently. This unintegrated fuel causes fragmentation. Constantly overwhlemed (on a sensory level) and flooded by distressed Blue Ribbon emotions, my sister’s Self is drowned out. This is a tragedy and an inhumane condition to suffer.
The ramifications of Autism (however brilliant or successful socially the bearer of it may be) are horrifying and forbode great misery for humanity. I believe our children have come to warn us with their Autism, to respect our instincts but to channel them towards a nobler striving. Not a smarter, faster, more automated brain.
Martial arts as applied by spiritual practitioners fight the dragon within. It is not about conquering the dragon to destruction, but taming him into a little devil on your shoulder testing and tyring you, until one day he perches like a cool - karma - chameleon, directing the I AM to tower above the all I am not.
A Hindu saint who was visiting the river Ganges to take a bath found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. Smiling, he turned to his disciples and asked, 'Why do people in anger shout at each other?'
The disciples thought for a while, and then one of them said,
'Because when we lose our calm, we shout.'
'But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner,' asked the saint.
The disciples gave more answers but none satisfied the saint. Finally he explained:
'When two people are angry at each other, the distance between their hearts is larger. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that great distance.
What happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either nonexistent or very small...'
The saint continued, 'When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that's all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.'
He looked at his disciples and said,
'So when you argue, do not let your hearts get distant. Do not say words that distance you from each other more, or else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not be able to find the path to return.'
PS: I didn't have time earlier to write anything else, but wanted to add this story, which I was reminded of when I read your text, even though this story is about anger in general....
This is a beautiful and highly appropriate story! Much of my anger towards my son is entirely meant to bridge the distance between our hearts. With Autism this distance can be immense and grow quickly even bigger! Anger as such is, of course, not a solution, but an indication (a measuring of the distance). It is a great relief when I reach the other side - not that my son actually listens to anything said in anger (or otherwise).
The anger works as a kind of radar, searching for the wandering soul (it is also not really directed at the person, nor is it so simply and uncontrolled venting). The day I stop being angry is the day I surrender this soul to the universe. Also an option. But not one a mother resorts to out of weariness. The woman however, believes in the whisper (which leaves me sad, not angry).
Love is always about finding yourself at that point in time when nothing much more about anything needs to be said anymore. Peace at last!
Appreciated your intuitive contribution immensely.
Your writing kept me captivated. Great job! I wish I was as articulate.
I am the mother of a 4 year old autistic boy. I also grew up with a father who had undiagnosed autism and was full of anger. I also grew up in a war zone. I also watched my mother unravel.
It's hard to talk about those days with my father because he is a different man in his old age, and it sometimes feels like I'm talking about two different people. It's very surreal to have the great relationship I have with him today while still holding a lot of bitterness toward the man who is the root of my insecurities and mourning the way my childhood should have gone.
You have been upvoted, resteemed, and followed. I look forward to reading more of your musings!
Thank you so humbly for your vote and subsequent actions betokening your appreciation!
So recognisable, what you say regards the relationship with your father! It is heartbreaking for us mothers to have witnessed what Autism can do to good wives and mothers. It literally sent my mother's soul prematurely off to other parts where we can't reach her anymore. Still, she chose not to abandon a man in the vice of his handicap despite the impossibility of a reciprocal love relationship. She earns my respect for that, but in doing that she chose Autism over her children: I say this because Autism perpetuated itself detrimentally in my sister who cannot forgive my father because of her own Autism....
I grieve with you and smile in gratitude for this.
Beautiful writing with deep observations of yourself and all other involved. As I work with people, to those who have the same destiny, I will higly recommend your inspiring lines.
„I believe our children have come to warn us with their Autism, to respect our instincts but to channel them towards a nobler striving. Not a smarter, faster, more automated brain.“
„Most therapies, I find, when they aim to “normalize” or overwrite entire characters with applied behaviours, violate the soul with its personal mission (which includes to live with - and not against - Autism).“
It is unfortunately true. Working with people , all my work is to teach my clients the opposite, to understand and live with this what their personal life mission is.
„Anger is a lack of flexibility. It is to find oneself outside the flow. „
Very true. I would add that angry people need to control things. When they lose control, there si inflexibility and anger. Master Yoda knows the key. Thank you for this sharing.
That is precisely it! Anger and control are inseparable. In a way that also means, that those who are able to get angry have a great sense of responsibility which the utterly detached and therefore calm may have less. The anger however also indicates a need to let go of that which you cannot be held responsible for concretely. One must convert this commitment to others into a more silent and peaceful prayer.
Your insightful words reinforce my trust that we can bear what we are given as long as we don't grasp and cling and take on more than we need to.
Your clients are lucky to have you!
Thank you. :)
"Your insightful words reinforce my trust that we can bear what we are given as long as we don't grasp and cling and take on more than we need to." Dito!
Thank you for sharing this piece it is powerful and very well written <3 And I through my mother lived directly on top if not in the vulcano, until my core became magma itself. I have to guard it very closely to not set my world on fire <3
Following you, I note how some days the conflagration is imminent and then somehow you manage to temper it again. I admire how you are able to self-regulate what must be pretty intense degrees of heat.
I try ...
Incredibly well written and deeply conveyed. You gave some very thought- provoking aspects of anger that I did not consider. So interesting, family dynamics. I grew up with an NPD/Cluster B parent - it does makes you 'hyper aware' of the most subtle shifts in mood and what those triggers are. Thank you so much for sharing such a personal and deep topic. Amazing writing and thoughts, @sukhasanasister
Autism veers unsettlingly close to NPD at times! (When not an actual co-morbidity.) I am currently researching the underlying patterns of disorders by their common signatures, using a spiritual scientific-anthroposophical medical fourfold organisation of man, for the sake of tracking the mal-integrations on a more holistic level, to help us gain a fresher perspective outside the DSM tangle. We all are starting to see that a disconcertingly large group of intersecting psychiatric disorders exists and is fast growing beyond our psychiatric understanding.
It is tragic for the "sufferer" of these disorders, of course, but the damage it does to those around them is not sufficiently told. I am prepared to take radical responsibility from my end (close to blame!) but it has to serve a creative outcome and subsequently it may judge certain conditions as "unbeneficial" to the evolution of mankind. This may make me take a "tough stance" on AS and suchlike (demanding those afflicted take full responisibility for managing their disorder - needless to say authorising adequate mentoring and designing facilitations) in the hope this empowers rather than victimises. This is to judge in terms of health and illness, but not to condemn they who make (necessary!) mistakes. My greatest mistake wedged me ever deeper into a world of Autism: I believed insufficiently in the superior choice of a life lived in love (I wasn't taught it, of course, so that is where I let up on myself again, a little bit....but I could have trusted my little voice better...) Let's break the vicious cycle that Autism wants to create (as in a spun coccoon!).
Thank you for helping me to tell our stories. Your attention and generous compliment are extremely encouraging for coming from an authentic voice.
Amazed at the ability you have to peel away the onion on this topic without prejudice - from a clinical and holistic/spiritual perspective beyond the scientific method. Yes, absolutely the alarm bells are sounding and they have been for quite some time. There are several components to this - many layers. Overwhelming amount of layers. I agree that we have come to a critical intersection of needing to address what is going on. Critical. Early assault to the nervous system, endocrine system, immune system would be my first obvious starting place - to track and stop the progression. You also have to look at modern society itself - what might be contributing to an over stimulation of the nervous system - flight or fight response - this is important because it puts an individual in a perpetual emotional response state - bypassing the frontal lobe where critical thinking and reasoning reside and leads to re-wiring of the brain. How does a constant flow of adrenaline effect the triad of the endocrine system? And what about the explosion of other disease conditions that are going through the roof (even in domesticated animals). We have a very sick society. I mean that on a multitude of levels - it operates in a narcissistic petri dish of septic thinking and action. Out of touch. Where is the 'human being' in this narcissistic society? I believe that it is entirely possible to help those with autism and change the current trajectory with some awareness and addressing those under-lying causes. However, it does require society to look at itself and take responsibility . Although, if you are familiar with NPD, that is a monumental task that might be better served by more localized change . The visual that comes to mind is that of tossing a stone in a stagnant pool of water and getting the ripple effect. ;)
The honesty! May your anger not fuel but power your art to levels in ways that nothing else can. We are all told to transform our anger into blah blab blah. Sure we all know lemons can make lemonade but what can you make with a 15lb sack of shit that others forced upon you? Just drop it, right? Whatevs. My thoughts on this pesky matter will be presented in another account as im trying to keep this one mostly, umm, left-brained.
really loved the depth and personal experience you go into here. i love how you talk about meeting the CORE emotions and building from there. i think, too, if a human's basic needs aren't met, it's so easy to come from those unhinged spaces and to dwell there persistently which is so taxing on the nervous system. when i studied massage, the teachers talked about reaching the parasympathetic nervous system which calms, restores and relaxes the body. our responses are different once we spend regular time there. it's hard to remember when we're regularly in fight or flight more (speaking to myself here), but we can sculpt a life around creating that safe core. <3