Posted by Partlycloudy on September 22, 2008, at 17:09:01
It's not often I get given homework, but last week, she asked me to go out and buy a punching bag. This was after I had determined that I was afraid of feeling my anger, which helped to resolve some of my back pain and ongoing headaches. (Just the realization - I didn't actually have to take any action about the fear, or about the anger, and it was better.)
So now I have a "Dark Knight" Batman punching bag I picked up at Toys R Us, and of course I was afraid to use it. Afraid that I would give it a whack and it would explode, or crash into all the breakable objects in the room, or would splinter any furniture it came into contact with. Pretty silly. I also bought some blow up mitts, that you slip over your fists, and they make a very satisfying smacking sound when you hit anything - the sofa, a pillow, a wall, even each other - they SOUND really devastating and Pow!!! Bam!!! Comic book effect.
A couple of days into playing around with these new toys, and my back is feeling better than it has in months. Probably better than since I was on Cymbalta, which did a nifty job of preventing me from feeling any back ache at all.
I haven't gotten past the problem of feeling like a right idiot using these tools - and also feeling like an animal in making that connection between feeling and acknowledging my anger, and expressing it using these tools. I feel very, very foolish. But there is no mistake, none whatever at all, that my body is appreciative of having an outlet for releasing what I guess now I've been suppressing and stuffing, since, well, I was an infant. It's never been OK to express anger in my family. I can't recall my mother ever actually being mad (even though she was the disciplinarian in the family). It was all done coldly and with utter unpredictability - which made it such a horror.
This is an interesting trip I'm on.
poster:Partlycloudy
thread:853476
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080920/msgs/853476.html