Go with the Flow, Rage with your Feelings!

Ever feel like the world is telling you to “just breathe” when you actually want to scream like a demon? As a mental health advocate, I often feel like I should respond, not react. But hey, I’m only human. And sometimes the healthiest thing one can do is let the valve blow.

The past few months have truly tested my caregiving boundaries. My ageing mother’s already terrible health continued to worsen, resulting in a series of non-stop emergency hospitalisations, including one evening when family was asked to rush down to the hospital because the doctors did not know if she would make it through the night.

As the only child who can help her (my home-bound elder brother has schizophrenia and is very much a child himself, depending on our mother for everything), I bore the brunt of it. Getting information from doctors, helping my mother make decisions on life-saving matters, updating extended family, assisting the helper with grocery shopping and any matters pertaining to my brother, speaking with the social worker regarding support for her—it was a lot. 

What Broke Me.

However, while terribly stressful, these tangible and tactical matters were not what broke me. It was the emotionally-charged altercations with my mother! During the months of hospitalisation, every visit or phone call with her saw her piteously (or angrily) crying about how helpless she is, her suffering, her constant whimpering that she wants to die. 

That was when she was in great pain or so out of it, that all she could do was weep. But as soon as she felt even an inch better, the lamenting would start. I had to endure her protests about how she has no one to talk, meaning complain, to (yes, while I was standing right there, listening to her—the irony was clearly lost on her). And her dissatisfaction with her helper. The one helper who has been more competent and caring than any others she has had.

Okay, so just listen to her—one ear in, one ear out, no? After all, she is such a sickly, old woman. Sure, but when they start feeling like accusations and criticism (direct or veiled), there’s only so much one can take.

Feelings very quickly devolved into dread at the thought of speaking to or seeing her. To hear her say each time that “you all don’t know how I am suffering” and to demand that I listen to the repeated grievances with nary a thought as to my own mental health concerns is simply oblivious. Worse, her expectations over the years that I—the child who grew up invisible in the face of her brother’s mental illness, who had to swallow her needs to make room for her family’s cataclysmic challenges, who struggled with insomnia and depression, and who eventually had to seek help for her own mental well-being—should be responsible for everything and everyone was overwhelming. 

Her lack of awareness of how stressful things have been for me was so triggering that all decorum and societal norms were tossed into the wind. I welcomed the worst thoughts with open arms; the worst vitriol was spat out in between my gasping breaths. 

Nama-don’t-stay.

Frankly, at times, I felt like I didn’t recognise this screaming demon inside me. Where did all that peace, balance and joy that I try to cultivate go?

Spew and phew, I think.

Get it out, let it all out. Think about it. If you repressed your emotions or engaged in some sneaky passive aggressiveness or simply stoned out, you’re not really dealing with how you feel. But once you’ve let the amygdala have its way, you can move on to using that big prefrontal cortex of yours to process why you reacted that way. And perhaps learn a lesson or two for next time.

The first thing I learned in therapy is that there is space for all emotions, including anger! Only in Recognising, Accepting and Working on our emotions (this is my RAW method—a nifty acronym I coined to consolidate my learnings) can we help ourselves. 

So often we believe that there are “good” and “bad” emotions, and feelings like anger, resentment and envy are bad. But why? Feelings, all the colours of it, are what make us human. Of course, we don’t want to be off-balance, but it happens. Especially when you’re dealing with so much, just cut yourself some slack. It’s okay that you didn’t have the most mature response to a trigger. It’s okay that you looked like a deranged axe murderer on the rampage—sure, not quite the look we should aim for.

My point is—it is okay. As a wise yogi on my favourite meditation podcast would say: 

“Let them enter your house, but don’t serve them tea.”

“Feelings come and they go.”

So true. And, if you don’t allow for the occasional rage, it will only eat you up inside. 

Okay, before I get accused of encouraging screaming demons, a caveat. This is only in extenuating circumstances! It’s when you hit that limit (to each their own). Not when you wanted chamomile tea and all they had was sencha, okay?

It has taken so many repeated triggers for me to have felt this intensely; it feels like this is the umpteenth time that I have had to deal with her health issues and hospitalisations over the decades.

So—I let myself feel. I screamed into the wind as I ran. I screamed at my poor mobile phone whenever a text triggered me. But then, I employed my RAW method once I had let it all out. 

Let’s Get RAW!

The first step asks that we Recognise what is the true feeling we are feeling. We may think we are angry but often Anger is just the expression of another feeling such as hurt, overwhelm and so on.

I scratched the surface revealing why, this time, I was reacting so terribly. And I discovered that it had a lot more to do with grief and loss than anger and exhaustion. I lost my brother to his illness; the illness I blame for losing the reality of a normal family—a complete home with mother, father and brother intact. 

I lost the maternal relationship when my mother threw her entire being into his care. I lost the paternal relationship when the stress of dealing with a sick son caused issues between my parents, and after years of listening to my mother complain about my father, I stopped speaking with him three decades ago. And then was left in a desolate sphere of grief when he died two years ago, with no one seemingly concerned that his death had impacted me.

I recognised that my anger during this time was because I partly blamed my mother for the decimation of the relationship I had with my father. And somehow, the repressed grief over his death had taken a stronghold due to her behaviour over the past few months.

Once I Accepted that my anger was being driven by my unprocessed grief about my father’s death, I started to Work on dealing with it. From sharing my feelings with my husband and close friends to looking at old, happy photos of my father and family to listening to grief podcasts, I continue to find little ways of dealing with it. This is the best way I can manage my well-being and find balance in a life of never-ending triggers.

RAW might work for you, too. So, the next time you have a meltdown, feel your feelings. Breathe in, yell out and RAW it!

About the author: Yasmeen @lifeofyasmeenhc shares raw, personal insights on mental well-being through her speaking engagements and blog, Not a Pretty Picture. She is currently completing her memoir about growing up as the invisible sibling of a high-needs individual.