Fury + Fear = General Anxiety Disorder?

by with No Comment Musings

My Fury embodies the energy of Kali: Goddess of Rage and Resistance.

Fury is what I feel when I’m helpless. Plus fear is what I feel when my amygdala kicks in with the fight-or-flight reaction (FFR) and I can’t make it stop. Equals General Anxiety Disorder.

Looks pretty simple, but it isn’t. If I broke into rages instead of a panic attack, then my fury would be diagnosed and treated. The anxiety expressed in those rages would not be addressed. If I have panic attacks instead, because I’ve been victimized one too many times, only the anxiety would be treated.

Therapist: What are you afraid of?
Me: I don’t know. I’m safe, there is nothing to fear.
T: Then why do you think you have panic attacks?
M: Because that was the only way I could express my fury.

It leaked out of me 24/7. How do you treat that kind of fury? The helpless fury that must find an outlet or I’ll explode.

Most therapists are at a loss of how to treat fury-induced anxiety. They don’t consider the other emotions that are tightly woven into the panic response.

Especially for women. Women cry when they are frustrated and feel helpless. This feeds the angry fire.

I’ve learned to embrace my fury. I treat her like a long, lost child who has grown to a strong, even vicious woman. Anger is so destructive when it isn’t given a proper outlet.

For those of you with imagination, anthropomorphize the fury. What does the fury look like? What gender? What species? Build up this image in your mind.
When you know what your fury looks like, embrace it. Tell it you love it and that it is a part of the collective of you. You might have to do this a number of times before Fury trusts you enough to listen.

Once the Fury relaxes enough to have a conversation, you can hit these bullet points:
• I love you as a natural part of who I am as a person.
• I’ve neglected you and I’m sorry for that.
• I understand why you have sabotaged my efforts in the past.
• To show you how sorry I am, I’m asking you to turn your attention to what hinders us.
• Your destructive nature is necessary to sift the wheat from the chaff.
• Let us work together as a team to overcome any obstacles that come our way.

You may have to have this conversation with Fury a few times before it takes, but it will take. Fury will settle into your unconscious mind, where it has always resided, but now Fury has a new directive and will fulfill your request with a focus that is monumental in proportion.

After I did this, my whole life changed. The decisions I made when Fury was not acknowledged were cut and burned. Some of those decisions were salted as well. Fury doesn’t play.

Another role Fury can take is as a defender of the child you were, the child you must raise. This is anxiety. This is helplessness. Have Fury protect and care for this child. Fury was given to us for this purpose.

Many call Fury the Shadow, but this is only true if you deny its existence. Otherwise, it becomes a tool of the heart and mind. You’ll make better decisions. Toxic people will shed from your life. This will be true even if you have a mental illness. I think one of the reasons I survived so long with the illness was because I acknowledged all the icky parts of myself. Just know that Fury is the biggest “shadow” of them all and must be addressed first.

I am not a licensed therapist. I make no claims to having any experience other than my own. If the above practice resonates with you, you’ll have success. If it doesn’t I recommend that you not continue the matter and seek professional help.

Either way, if you are seeing a therapist, discuss the ramifications of a guided meditation. Remember that you are paying the therapist for their expertise and that you are the boss. You are the owner of all the feelings inside of you. If your therapist isn’t open to working with you on anger issues or just recommends prescriptions to the psychiatrist to deal with the anxiety, it’s time to find a new therapist.

Take charge of your journey to wellness. You are mighty, not helpless. Let your Fury become your guardian. Fury will tell you when something isn’t right. Fury will protect you.

©2018. I.O. Kirkwood. All rights reserved for text only. Image may be subject to copyright.

Why White Men Might Be Pissed Off

by with 14 Comments Writing

I’m just taking a stab in the dark here, but I think I might know why white men might be pissed off—at EVERYBODY, including other white men.

Imagine this scenario:

You are told that you are the root of all that is evil in the world—sexual objectification, racism, oppression, economic inequality, and every other –ism, –ion, and -ity you can imagine. When you can’t see it because you are also marginalized by a ruling class that happens to have the same colored skin and secondary sex characteristics as you, you are further subjected to the contempt of the people around you.

It doesn’t matter that you are kind to everyone you meet and give them respect regardless. It doesn’t matter that you’re willing to hear another’s point of view as long as they don’t objectify or oppress you. You’re a white man and you have the power to change these things.

angry white male

NOT. I’m not buying this crap that white men are the root of all evil anymore. I am a feminist and that means I want equality and respect for EVERYONE. I know which demographic is perpetuating the lie. I know that all of us are responsible for our own awareness. Just because I recognize that a few wealthy, white males are actively perpetuating this systematic oppression of EVERYONE ELSE, I’m not given the license to slander all men with white skin.

White men do not have the power to change these things unless they join the rest of us: black, brown, red, yellow, female and bleeding freaking rainbows. Blaming others for something they had no hand in dreaming divides them from us. It gives those who truly want to defeat us the power to do so.

See what this lovely white man has to say. He has identified the problem beautifully:

America’s White Male Problem

We are destroying our ties to each other with blame. Several white men I’ve spoken to have commented on how they feel marginalized and useless, and it stems from the idea that they are somehow empowered to change what is happening and should do so immediately. These white men are just as disenfranchised as the rest of us. This privilege is mostly myth, perpetuated only by the media and how we respond to it.

And just to show you what I’m talking about, about how all of us suffer because we are constantly blaming and judging each other by standards we didn’t even create, check out this article:

Defining A Modern Masculinity

I am raising two emotionally literate young men and what has surprised me is the anger they feel. Fortunately, I’ve given them permission to constructively express this anger at home. The outside world is brutal not just to people of color or women or homosexuals, but to just about EVERYBODY. There are very few people on the face of this spinning planet who have not been harmed by the damage we do to each other on a daily basis.

bikini rainbow

This is the article that started my rant:

The Actual Difference Between Women Who Are Hot And Who Are Beautiful

What man is going to read this rant and feel empowered to see the beauty of women? Does she have valid point about women’s beauty? Absolutely, but this article has painted men as the ugly creatures when its true intent is to empower women in their own beauty. Are there ugly creatures like the men this article has described? Absolutely, but they are few and far between, though most unfortunately vocal in their opinions. Since these kinds of men react out of a deep seated sense of fear of losing their man-card, the real key to avoiding such ugly creatures is to love yourself and know when to walk away.

This article’s anger is every bit as valid as the anger white men feel. This author has every right to express her rage at how things are and to demand change. I just wish she had done it in a way that empowered EVERYONE. That’s the true sign of being comfortable in your skin—of being beautiful. You take full responsibility for how you experience the world.

We are all beautiful, amazing human beings with different talents and capacities. I want to live in a world where we build each other up. I want to live in a world where we compassionately and constructively become the change we want to see.

What are your thoughts on -isms, -ions, an – ities? Hit me up in the comments below.

©2014 iokirkwood.com “Why White Men Might Be Pissed Off” All rights reserved.

savedpicture-33.jpgIn between bouts of writing for metaldescent.com, blogging, and banging her head, I.O. Kirkwood is the author of “Subatomic Revolt” in Mike Lynch’s No Revolution Is Too Big series and the short story “The White Carpet,” a finalist in the Scribes Valley Publishing Fiction Contest in 2013.

Rage With the Beast

by with One Comment MusicWriting

I’ve been asking myself why metal music makes me shiver. Particular songs just make my skin prickle and bring such intense, all-over pleasure that it has caused me to question some fundamental understandings about myself.

I asked my son about this and he told me, “You’re getting in touch with your rage.” He should know. I think he inherited mine in utero.

angry

My son says his beast looks like a tall, roaring flame with a mouth full of teeth. Mine looks more like this. You can dress it up, but you can’t take it anywhere.

I agree that metal, especially extreme metal, can be comparable to shaving unhappy bears and setting them loose on an innocent population. But why do I love it so much? Before it had made me so uncomfortable that I ignored it.

All music is an expression of the human condition. Yes, even the vapid boy bands with their bubble gum pop riffs and saccharine lyrics express a human condition whether I agree with said condition or not. Based on this premise, I followed the threads backwards.

From an early age, I remember fear. I remember helplessness. I remember not having the power to say “no” though I screamed it in my mind. I remember pain. I remember rage. I remember crying so much that it seemed that all I tasted were tears.

I do not remember the actual events. My mind has suppressed them so successfully that only once in a blue moon will I have a complete recall. The recall is hellish.

dont pray for easy

See, I ran from my past like a tri-athlete There were years when I forgot what it was like to cry because I hated the taste and the sensation. I laughed at the most inappropriate times. Verbal arguments were fought with a desperation and viciousness that left my opponents stunned. I was ready to swing whenever I felt remotely threatened. Until I went to therapy. Until the first recall.

It’s never convenient to recall. The recall doesn’t happen while I’m sitting at home alone or with a trained therapist. The recall doesn’t care if I’m at work or if I’m at the grocery store. I am helpless in the face of it—frozen—as my awareness is transported to a  brutal moment of physical degradation in another place and time. Sometimes I am three years old. Sometimes I am in middle school. Always, I am young and I am helpless.

During a recall I receive a quantum packet of FML in about thirty seconds. No lube. No consideration for whether there are spectators or not. No “thank you” afterwards.

At first I thought it was because I was in therapy. But when I had reached a point where therapy had done what it could, including medication for an incapacitating anxiety disorder that rendered me agoraphobic for three months, I realized that I needed to take control of my past.

wired to suffer

I started by asking for tears. In 2009 I cried de Nile River. That was when my love for heavy metal truly blossomed. All the old standbys from my adolescence came into play: Sabbath, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Metallica and some newer, angrier hard rock/heavy metal acts like Godsmack, Alice in Chains, Black Label Society, Chevelle, Mastodon and QOTSA got their time. Anything that talked about the rage and the helplessness, the establishment and the insanity.

I realized that the music was a natural release valve for all the pent up rage that boiled inside of me. What I didn’t realize until five months ago was that the above mentioned music only scraped the surface.

I have October 8, 2013 marked as a turning point. I went to my first all extreme metal show. Screams and growls mostly. Blast beats a requirement.

At this show were a number of thrash metal bands, three of which stood out for me. The first was my son’s band Xstrophy and I go to almost every show now because they have opened up a whole new world for me. The second was Exemptus just because they have a sheer energy that engages me on a visceral level. The third was Battlecross.

If you’re friends with me on FaceBook, you know that this band is my all time favorite thrash metal band. It isn’t because the music is phenomenal. It isn’t that they are just all around great guys who know how to put on an amazing show. Though the aforementioned certainly contributed, what made them special is that their music helped me communicate with my Beast.

worst day

I wish I had started that young…

For the first time, I could get in touch with my rage and it didn’t scare the crap out of me. Together, my Beast and I could thrash and wrestle and scream and growl, and let me tell you, it feels freakin’ incredible. No one gets hurt, least of all me, and I come out grinning like a fiend.

The happy side effect is that instead of getting bludgeoned by total recall, my rage is feeding me the feelings in small doses. Instead of going catatonic, I get to step back and examine the pain, the helplessness, and the fear from a place of empowerment. I never expected something as extreme as, well, extreme metal to be so therapeutic. From In Flames to Meshuggah to After the Burial to All Shall Perish, I am discovering a whole new world inside of me where the things that go “grrr” in the night are my allies. \m/

Copyright © 2014 iokirkwood.com. “Rage With the Beast” by I.O. Kirkwood. All rights reserved.

Poor Adam or Why Women Lie

by with No Comment Writing

I’ve been thinking about the stories of Adam.  Lilith left him and Eve led him astray. Poor Adam. These two stories have sparked centuries of debate among theologians on the duplicitous nature of women. Why do women lie? A better question to ask is: Why do people lie?

How We Teach Our Kids That Women Are Liars

This article addresses the pressure from society  to view women as liars. Interestingly enough, when I looked up “are all women liars” on Google, there were pages and pages of articles about the lying nature of women. When I Googled “are all men liars,” I found a couple of articles on the first page and then all the other hits were for a movie, All Men Are Liars. My experience is that PEOPLE lie for various reasons, but hey, let’s get out that tar brush and paint in wide strokes over half the world’s population, shall we?

Image

I’m thinking women haven’t cornered the market on lying.

Are All Women Liars?

This was an eye-opening read because it showed a wide spectrum of how men view women. Yes, women lie. I have lied. But believing that all women lie would mean that I could believe all men are absent the emotional spectrum to have hurt feelings. I sensed crushed, male feelings in this offering and rightly so. I also sensed balanced, male perspectives. You have to read past your own biases.

Women Are Not Liars

Then there is this lovely treatise on the anatomy of feminine emotions. This rang true for me. Women have a different emotional perspective as a general rule. It is part biological and part cultural. Women are wired differently. Biologically, we serve as the vessels of humanity’s continued existence. Culturally, containing something is a far different experience from penetrating something, and the actions you are able to commit will affect your experiences and the ordering of your priorities.  The mystery in all of this is that you are in charge of how you see things.

In my journey, I’ve discovered that people lie because they are afraid: fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of success, agoraphobia (hey, don’t knock it ’til you’ve suffered it). I’ve also discovered that if someone is lying to me, more than likely s/he started lying to self first (unless of course the subject is a sociopath and I’ve dated plenty of those).

Perspective is everything. Once you understand the motivation, you can’t stereotype. You are able to stop yourself and ask, what fear is motivating this behavior? And women are afraid. Women have been afraid for millennia, but that’s a post for someone else to write.