So, I have a serious cancer diagnosis
One of the principle ways that people mismanage their anger is by playing the role of victim. Now let us be clear early, I have every right to be angry. This world bothers me, it always has. I have been victimized by individuals who because they felt miserable with themselves had trapped themselves and then lashed out at me. My mad mother and her insane proxies did that, and they were some of many who took advantage of my inability to read their confused minds. People with autism like me, are not good at it. We like things to be ordered, honest, and respectful. There have been many people who have been disrespectful to me and expected me to understand their underlying good intentions? Really! People who suggest that things are done for MY best interests are playing a dangerous game. Look at the rioters in the big cities around the world who have had enough of pandemic lockdowns. Yes, they are misguided, but so are an arrogant bureaucracy that takes too much for granted. If you do not explain things properly and counter misinformation quickly no one will take you seriously. The debacle over AstraZeneca has still destroyed the confidence in official health advice on vaccines, especially with younger generations. The world is in a horrible mess for many reasons. So, what is outside becomes something inside. Cancer is the metaphor of a sick system. I have a serious cancer diagnosis that must be dealt with and I am angry with past blunders and obnoxious medical people.
Anger is straightforward. A simple emotional response to feeling frustrated. When others chose to demand rationalization or justification of my discomfort they are trespassing on my head. Kindly remove your foot. Go away, bother a truck at full speed. Certain people decree they have decided to be offended by everything. Hey! I am hurting. I do not want the horrible surgery that will cut up my left cheek, put holes in my neck, and require a graft. The degree of my anger is proportional to the degree of frustration I feel. Nothing will placate my disappointment. The world does not owe me anything, but others want to blame me for my cancer. Decades ago, they blamed me for being a victim of violent crime, so now I am sick again it must be my fault. I am just a person in the wrong place at the worst possible time. This is my third Melanoma and a fourth is suspected. How it came about is not for your conjecture!
This stupidity of blame stems from a world that is unable to keep pace with exponential changes. Population growth has not been handled well. The environment is suffering due to human created climate change. Standards of living have plunged as the growing rich-poor divide destroys social cohesion. Criminality is every day as illicit drugs, human trafficking, slave-trading, deforestation, and wild animal abuse becomes normal for whole populations. The world is now so very old. Things are happening that some want to deny their role in, on either, a world front or on an individual issue. Ideally taking action to change situations with which one is unhappy directly challenges a frustrated focus. Some people like the chaos they make. It is crucial to become more aware of the distinction between sympathy and empathy, and to stop asking for or giving sympathy. Trying to elicit sympathetic responses from another person are damaging in that both reinforce victimized thinking, especially when people are creating mischief to bring others down. I acknowledge my angry responses while my feelings are difficult to articulate immediately. Alexithymia is a usual trait for autistic people anywhere on the spectrum. So, I am not a victim, just unfortunate. Save your platitudes for the next royal funeral.
People are afraid of their anger, refute its existence in themselves, launch it onto other people, and expect aggression from them. Through tough experiences, I have a high expectation of abuse from others. The anger that I have experienced is in response to stress transformed into distrust of others and into feelings of being injured. Fortunately, I learnt to have a strong and sensible belief that life is unfair and manipulated by people who do not deserve any credibility. One sees it everywhere: insensitivity in businesses, rough treatment in hospitals, crude behaviour on our shared streets, threats from poor governance, and harassment of boundaries. Some of it for my own good? I should accept every word of a doctor? Nurses are a weird lot. I know, terrible thing to say. But some of them have been real pigs to me through many hospitalizations. The horror stories are my own and anyone reading this may have had rough treatment at the hands of some medical staff at some time. They are not all works of wonders; they are flawed humans who need a good slap. Some specialists are narcissistic. It is all very well to say one has some power over some situations but hospitals cover their legal tracks well. The posters on the walls talk about respect to staff but nothing about being in a position to earn it. Similarly themed posters are in stores, libraries, and anywhere fearful people work to cover their rights because everyone else has the problem. Everyone else being any unfortunate not to have the right look or expression of gratitude. As a person with autism I have been attacked for not having the right attitude or appearance. For example, while having trouble putting money into a supermarket machine that kept returning a note, instead of asking if they could help, my bags were searched. I was showing frustration you see, making others uncomfortable.
My way is now focused on certain criteria for my physical comfort. This helps to shift from the victimized stance, characterized by my passivity and manners based on negative energy, to a stronger stance of active coping and personal power. Now I tell people to shut up. Crazymakers are not welcome. Not out of a sense of ill-advised entitlement which has shown to be destructive force in contemporary societies, instead I am different by my brain physiology. I now argue with people who try to put me in my place. Bossy types are doomed to a life of mental discomfort always needing to be right. Liars condemn themselves to a lifetime of mental instability; I have seen it. I identified my critical inner voices that focused on injustices. Many of them were the voices of crazymakers who needed passive victims and discouraged my behaviours that challenged an unsustainable situation. I also ask for help from sensible people. I wear the official United Nation’s Sunflower lanyard for autism, not that many understand what it means.
My difficult life has given me an insight into handling the world when it is spinning out of control. Look within which is the one place one can look to find some control. I am really good at leaving people in the messes they have made. Sometimes all we can do to promote peace around one is to leave. The world’s boundaries are being redrawn with refugees leaving bad places. Personal problems become political issues. Making an aura of inner peace is an outcome one has instant control over. Now, no instant change may come of showing calm, it may enrage some. However, one is more effective in changing lousy circumstances if one acts from a state of calm and of logic, facts and figures. Sometimes, leaving is not an option then releasing stress during incredibly challenging times means making some space so one can make better decisions. I am good at focusing on detail and seeing blocks of colour which for me are synaesthetic too; they sound out to me.
Another thing I do is to get on my best walking shoes and stride out a solution. Stuff comes to me, stuff clarifies itself, and stuff just happens. Physical activity is a proven method for lifting depression and anxiety. Yoga helps too; I can bend quite well—like the willow in the wind. The world does not make sense. Science is always revising theories. Religion is hollow. There are many ways to conjure temporary coping mechanisms for this harsh reality and like clouds they are forgetting stuff. Developing a sense of equanimity during challenging times is hard. Yet, it is essential business to maintaining our well-being, both within and of the world. My specialist doctor says I cannot leave this dangerous cancer, it is ulcerated and requires intrusive surgery. I must deal with it as I have faced many horrible surgeries and tough stuff in my life with a calm mind and focusing on that this too will pass. I certainly do not like it or feel I have to be grateful. Surgery happens on October the fifth. Meanwhile, I will paint pictures, keep house, grow all things white (my double white angel’s trumpet has just bloomed), and rub my cat Charlie’s sleek coat until he rumbles deep purrs to help me sleep.
