Skip to main content

"Mad-Sad"

Anger!
The young girl Tip from the Disney movie Home gets it.  

 As the term suggests, it's when you get angry but deep underneath you are sad. In the movie, Tip is sad when she was separated from her mother by aliens when they invaded Earth. When Oh discovers what is underneath her anger, he says, “You are mad-sad”. What appears to be anger is really sadness and grief for her loss.

 My grief, my sadness is the eye of a hurricane and around it swirls many other emotions capable of serious damage if managed improperly. Lately, anger has been encircling my pain. 

 Anger is an uncomfortable feeling for me as I am not usually one to anger. It takes a lot to get me fired up and I typically try to diffuse anger in others because it's scary and unpredictable. A control thing likely for me.

But I am angry. I am not angry at anyone in particular, just life in general.
I get angry when I do something new or old where Xavier should have been with us.
My anger seeps out when I read about the lack of funding for researching kids brain tumours. I get angry I didn't get more time to spend with Xavier. I am angry at myself for going back to work while he was sick. Angry at how people value things and not people.

Angry that I have to deal with issues with my daughter that no 8-year-old should ever have to deal with. Angry with people who don't understand. Angry I can't sleep anymore.

Angry we have to start a new life without Xavier and angry that I could not save my son.

 I am angry we are left here without him. 

 However, I am learning anger can be healthy and a natural part of the grieving process. I have a tendency to push away anger because when I feel it I also feel guilty for being angry at all. I have to tell myself to let it out, scream about it, pound it out in words on my computer.

I need to use anger to my advantage. It is a driving force. In Tip’s case, it drives her to search for her mom. 

 It's ok to be angry. My anger is telling me something is unfair, it's protecting my vulnerability and sending me a signal that something needs to be looked at within myself. My anger is calling me to action and it's my choice how I react. 

So I have decided to use my anger, to harness its energy and pursue a cause. I want to turn my mad-sad into positive action. I am choosing life not death. Not in the sense of physical death, but I am not allowing my anger to consume me or spiral out of control destroying what good I have around me.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The aftermath is MESSY

We are on the road to recovery!  Physically, Xavier is improving daily with his regular physio and pure determination only a child possesses. He is learning to walk again and use his left side, all while building back the muscle he lost.  He has at least another month of treatment left, but we are so fortunate we can manage it at home and at a dose that causes fewer side effects than he faced last month.  Xavier is determined and I admire that in children. The lack of self-pity in kids we have seen  on his cancer ward are so inspiring. Instead they use that energy to heal, and set goals for recovery.   Still there are residual symptoms that are concerning. He is choking on liquids more frequently, suffering from reflux and is unable to move his toes on his left foot. Seems minor but as he tries to walk now his toes curl under his foot and trip him. Who knew how important straightening your toes are!  But the lingering side effect of treatment ...
2 comments
Read more
Ever since I learned how to write, I have been writing. I am not a professional, nor do I pretend to be. I am not an English major or a published author. I wrote the news for years (almost 10 if you count my years at my college newspaper). But the benefit of writing for me is not for money; it's for pleasure. Writing makes me feel good. Since I was 10 years old I kept a diary. I wrote down my thoughts, my daily activities and everything in between. It was my stress relief - how I figured shit out. I can trace every low point in my life to a time when I stopped writing for pleasure. Pen to a paper, fingers to a keyboard, I have to write. My sanity depends on it. So, here I go. I intend on writing about my life, about stories I have swirling around in my head. And maybe share some excerpts from my diaries as a child. If no one reads this, that's fine. It's not for anyone else but me. But if they do, that's ok too. If I can bring a tear, a laugh or a smile to someone e...
2 comments
Read more

Feeding the fire

Buried deep within my soul is a fire. It burns slowly; smouldering inside me day after day. I long for the day when this fire rages again. Like it used to before I smothered it with life. Before kids, before mortgages, bills, illnesses and medical interventions, there was something else on my mind. It was fuelled by almost everything around me and grew stronger with every use. This was something that took me through dark spiralling tunnels, across cobalt blue seas with purple monkeys swimming and up mossy green mountains that whispered cool breezes. It sparked all my  senses and tugged at my heart. It sent shivers down my spine and excitement in my belly. And sometimes it paid. My creativity was ignited by an imagination as unique as every snowflake that falls. The words came to me, the stories flowed and the imagery made sense. I created eloquent editorial and powerful prose. But somehow along the way I lost my creative spirit. I pushed it away. I pushed it down. I push...
1 comment
Read more