Originally Posted by waves

i hate feeling angry and ungrateful too. I feel angry towards my parents a lot in the scrunched situation we are in... stuff comes up... sigh. Yet if it weren't for them i would literally have no place to go right now, and it drives me nutty having negative feelings... there seems to be some superego part of me i guess that is dictating to me that i need to be all-reverent, all-accepting, all-deferent and subservient to them because of this, and falling short in ANY of these areas (i fall short in ALL!) means i am ungrateful. So even though i might actually begrateful, any gratitude i might have gets automatically invalidated. this is so "logical" so left-brained... also very rigid and judgemental besides.

the raw reality is, the emotions we have about ourselves or others don't always go together. they don't tie in neatly with each other. and when we try to make sense of them logically, i think we end up denying parts, or suppressing parts, sort of shaving down a square peg to make it fit a round hole.

anyway i know what you mean about hating how one feels. when i get very angry, even just very angry, i hate that feeling. just that feeling. But i have found that hating it fuels the anger more. What i have done which has helped actually is to pray and ask that my anger be mitigated somehow. Like please God grant me grace, let my anger be tamed by compassion. very simple like that. Sometimes even for myself. because i get angry with myself sometimes. Then i just have to be patient... and remember it is ok to be angry, and that i will get through it to better feelings.

Take care, Bobby. Try not to judge yourself too harshly. I know it's hard, but really... you've lived through a lot and you're living through a lot. You're human and are having human emotions, but that doesn't mean you are bad. Just human. I think being bipolar makes you feel them that much more. But you would probably still feel them if you weren't. But I know...

You have a good heart.

So don't you forget it!

love

~ waves ~