HELPLESSNESS / RAGE

Noticing something can happen in many different ways. It can be a moment in which something comes to your attention. It can involve an experience of something inescapable:  a thought, a sensation, a sound. A certain kind of helplessness might accompany either experience. ‘I couldn’t help but notice …’ or ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about …’.  These experiences have something in common. In either case what you might regard as your ongoing feelings and thoughts, the ones that you might want to hold onto, are interrupted. How easy do you find it to return to them?

Notice how often you find yourself being unexpectedly interrupted and unable to return to where you were, emotionally and intellectually, before the interruption. The more often it happens, the more vigilant it is likely that you are being. In some way, maybe even if you don’t recognise it at first, you will be living your life feeling ‘on edge’.

There are many ways you can begin to deal with this kind of precariousness. One of the most effective ways involves trying to notice how ‘present’ you are in situations. Do you, for example, find yourself sitting among supposed friends and believe that they are talking about things which seem strangely, indirectly critical of you?  Are you able to say anything directly about what you believe is going on?

If you’re not then in a way that surely isn’t hard to imagine … you’re not really there with them. And that will put you on edge. It may put them on edge; it may relax them knowing that you are unlikely to respond. They may believe they are helping you by telling you a ‘truth’ gently. Or you may be projecting something onto the situation. The only way that you will find out what is happening, and to stop feeling so on edge, is to discover a way of articulating your point of view.

Don’t just jump in and say something. That can be destructive and painful. What’s at stake here? Trust. Think about and find someone to speak with (when I say this I usually mean a psychotherapist, if you can find one who’s any good) about how you might be able to do this.

Asserting yourself safely is a good response to your RAGE instinct.