A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I’d heard anger was a common reaction to finding out one has cancer, but that I wasn’t angry. XUP emailed me and said she was angry for me. I keep thinking about that.
I never mentioned this here before, but I spent a few months in Ottawa’s mental hospital when I was a teenager. I still remember cutting my 16th birthday cake with a plastic knife.
During my first week there, I was on an adult ward and I shared a room with three seriously ill people. One night a nurse woke me up and took me to the Quiet Room at the end of the hall. She spent hours telling me how important it was that I accept Jesus into my heart, and warning me about the dangers of not doing so. She seemed almost demented about it.
Finally, she told me to get down on my knees and pray out loud to God.
I was scared, I’ll admit it. But I couldn’t do it.
“I can’t,” I said.
She demanded to know why not.
“I don’t believe in God,” I said.
She stared at me for a few moments and then she said, “In that case, I will pray for your soul. Because even 15-year-olds can die in their sleep.”
And she did. She got down on her knees and prayed out loud for my soul. Then she returned me to my room, where the others slept their deeply disturbed, deeply drugged, sleep.
I went back to bed, but I didn’t go back to sleep. There was something sinister about the way she said even 15-year-olds could die in their sleep.
The next day I thought about telling someone, but I knew instinctively where I fit into the hierarchy of credibility. She was a psychiatric nurse. I was a mental patient. She was an adult. I was a kid. Who would believe me? I don’t think it even occurred to me to feel angry about it. It was just the way things were. I kept quiet.
Shortly thereafter, I got transferred to the adolescent ward, where there were attempts at therapy. Among other things, I was part of an experimental new group called The Anger Group. Everybody in this group had anger management issues. Some of them were angry all the time, and, according to the doctor, needed to learn to control their anger. Me, they said I wasn’t angry enough. They said there were things I should be angry about, and I needed to learn to tap into my anger in a safe environment and release it.
These group sessions were led by psychiatrist Dr. Danesh and videotaped by a film guy. As I recall, we only ended up having a few sessions, because they all ended rather disastrously. Just talking about anger enraged some people, and because of anger’s contagious qualities, there would be explosions and mayhem and video cameras would be broken and alarms would be sounded and patients would be physically and chemically subdued.
Let’s just say that these experiences didn’t encourage me to tap into my own suppressed anger and coax it to the surface. If anything, they reinforced my conviction that anger only makes things worse.
On an intellectual level, I can see the benefits of anger in some situations – it can light a fire under people, and motivate them to change whatever needs changing.
But it seems useless – or even destructive – in other situations. If there’s something you can’t change – like a cancer diagnosis, for instance – what purpose is there to anger? Wouldn’t it just be frustrating to feel angry?
(For another point of view, read Welcome to Cancerland, by Barbara Ehrenreich. She’s got breast cancer, she’s furious, and she almost makes me want to get mad too.)
Jeeeeesus, Zoom. You are one amazing person! Thank you for so often making so many of us reflect deeply on the issues you bring up. We are all the better for it.
I didn’t get angry either. I decided to just move forward. I think a lot of anger is just fear. If you feel fear, a lot of the time, the emotion that comes out is anger. It depends on the person, of course. Like when the guy in the car nearly hits me on my bike and then he gets angry at me. He’s angry because he got scared that he nearly hit me. Anger is a default emotion for a lot of people. If it isn’t for us, then good for us! You waste a lot of energy being angry.
I think kids sometimes grow up learning, mainly implicitly, that it’s ok to be ‘sad’, ‘disappointed’, ‘low’, ‘tired’, ‘confused’, or even ‘frustrated’, but that it’s not ok to be ‘upset’, ‘mad’, ‘angry’, ‘pissed off’ or whatever. This mis-labelling of emotions can create confusion. Therefore the anger that one may sometimes feel comes out in different ways, and may not be recognized as anger, even as an adult.
But I do agree that anger often is a reaction to fear. And that angry reactions can be unproductive. However, getting in touch with any anger you might feel about things and learning to name it and acknowledge it can be extremely powerful.
I agree with you on the anger issue. I use to have anger problems when I was a child and into adolescence. And one day I woke up and then realized that being angry was very tiring and that being angry didn’t do much for me. Then I got angry and frustrated less.
I think that being angry at cancer wouldn’t really be a good thing. Cancer is caused by mutations, which is a mistake in copying the genetic code. Which means that you’re body made a mistake, leading to cancer. So it’s like getting angry at yourself for something that’s not your fault.
I do agree that anger often comes out of fear, but I also think anger is a way of repelling rather than absorbing injustices. When crap happens to you like this incident where does the injustice that has been done to you go? If it has impacted areas in your life, then you’ve absorbed it, haven’t you? As to your cancer, it’s not the cancer I’m angry at it’s the fact that there isn’t enough being done to prevent you, me and all the other people from getting cancer; the fact that our food and air and water are so messed up that this disease is striking more and more people. And I was angry at how the health care system kept you waiting around for weeks and weeks, doling out bits and pieces of information, misdiagnosing stuff causing unimaginable terror — things like that.
I agree with you on the anger thing. And XUP took the words out of my mouth – if I’m angry at anything, it’s anger at the reasons we’re getting cancer, the process of treatment and recovery. But those things are changeable, so I think someone needs to get angry about them.
And I was a teenage psych in-patient too. I was in Whitby’s psych hospital when I was 13. That’s where I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
I think I’m very much like you.. while it’s understandable to get angry over many things (cancer included)… being angry doesn’t change anything. You’re just angry, you still have a problem, but not you have a problem and you’re mad.
I don’t get angry very often, I’d rather just work toward a solution.. that said, when I do get angry… it’s memorable for the witness.. usually involves a lot of throwing things and general mayhem and destruction.
Interestingly The Man was in therapy and they told him that he had a right to be angry but he isn’t.
The problem with anger, as I see it, is that it is tremendously easy to lose control of it… and it ends up consuming you, and all you can do is rage. I think we’ve all met people who are angry all the time and for silly reasons…
Certainly not good to stew on it, but if you’re not feeling it you’re not feeling it. Right?
Oh Zoom – I am just catching up and I am so sorry to hear about this.
This was an incedible post – I think some people need anger and some people don’t. You clearly don’t and I think that’s probably a more evolved way to be.
I’ll be checking in on you here often…HUGS.
What XUP said. I could have written every word. Except I would have been less articulate.
But now one can tell someone else how they must feel. You feel how you do and you deal with cancer in the way that feels right to you.
And that story of the nurse? I really, really hope she is no longer working with vulnerable people. That made me ANGRY.
Think we’ll start the day at the Carp Farmers Market — the West Carleton Fibre Guild are doing demonstations of knitting, weaving and spinning. Sometimes there are alpacas!!! Will pick up some maple butter tarts and a giganto bag of the best salad mix in the city and then head to my sister’s cottage (new home) to help move furniture and garden.
Ignore that misplaced post above. It has nothing to do with anger . . . unless there are no brown eggs left when we get to market.