November 2000
This is part of an ongoing discussion on the topic of differing patterns of emotional reactions that I had on alt.polyamory with another regular poster, who I shall here call Suzy.
Me:
I find that for myself there are a million different possible shadings of "upset" (just as there are for other emotions), and only a small subset of them really count as "angry".
Suzy:
I tend
to respond to strong expressions of frustration and self-irritation the
same way I respond to pure anger; which is to say with strong components of both physical and emotional stress/fear reactions.
Me:
You'd hate living around me then. I often feel these sorts of emotions, and I express them openly when on my own turf. Venting is my way of coping with them. But then, I find that frequent small ventings tend to reduce the necessity for infrequent large ventings. Mostly. But it does depend on what's going on.
Suzy:
Well, I do live with someone who reacts similarly to you. I sometimes find it a bit uncomfortable, but as long as the frustration/irritation reactions are basically fairly predictable and follow a familiar pattern I manage ok. Unpredictability is harder for me to deal with.
Me:
As an example of how I tend to react to annoyances, I recently spent several days making a pair
of fancy leather and copper knife sheaths for someone. After much mucking around
and experimenting, I had come up with a design that worked and had made two
sheaths that had worked exactly right. The final stage involved finishing the
leather with melted beeswax. And at that point, as I was putting the last coat
on the second of the sheaths, it slipped from my grasp and fell into the boiling
water that the wax was sitting over. Of course, it shrivelled into a useless
lump before I could get it out of the water, and I was faced with doing the
whole bloody thing again. Aarrrggghhhh!!!!
My way of dealing with this level of annoyance was to curse vigorously, stamp up and down the house ranting, then to ring my partner and a close friend, one after the other, and rant long and hard at them. Since they both understood the situation, they just listened to me letting off steam with the occasional "how frustrating" and "that must have been awful" comments, and within half an hour I had been able to go from "steam coming out of my ears" to "wryly amused at the situation, and ready to start making the replacement".
Suzy:
I can
entirely sympathise with your frustration in that situation; however, it still
would have made me a little anxious is you had reacted that way in my presence,
even so.
On the other hand, if someone who I have a connection with goes all "quiet and cold" at me, or is sarcastic at me in a critical way, I respond to them with fear and stress responses, in the same way I might respond to shouting or physical aggression. But I don't tend to think of the coolness or sarcasm as being "intimidating" in the same way that I do the more overt aggression/shouting.
Me:
If I'm dealing with someone who I "have a connection with" as you put it, then anger very rarely comes up. I'm assuming the sort of connection you're referring to is the sort that comes from close friendship or other relationships at that sort of level or closer, rather than for more distant friends. Would that be right?
I get low-level irritated and frustrated very often, and sometimes strongly so (see example above); but generally it takes a helluva lot for me to move from those sorts of emotions to something I call "anger". Perhaps I use the terms to mean slightly different things to other folks; I do sometimes wonder about this, since for me actual anger is a very very rare thing. It tends to be reserved for things that are done to me (or those close to me) either with an intent to hurt, or with a clear and conscious lack of respect and consideration. And the sorts of actions that tend to elicit anger in me just don't get done by folk with whom I have a connection... if they were likely to act like that, I wouldn't have formed a connection with them in the first place.
So if I'm unhappy with something that somebody close to me has done, then I'm far more likely to react with annoyance, frustration, exasperation, something like that. And I do consider these to be "minor" emotions - things that have little lasting effect on me once the trigger has been dealt with. The emotions don't tend to persist after that, and they (or the issues triggering them) certainly don't get resurrected for squabbles down the track! They're minor !!! They don't really matter in the long run, they're just responses to minor day to day aggravations, so there's no point in hanging on to them, or nursing grudges over them. See what I mean?
But I can understand that many folk are not comfortable with displays of strong emotion, regardless of how major or minor they may seem to me. Which is why I filter and translate as a default, unless I know I'm in the presence of someone who won't be bothered or fazed by the unfiltered stuff.
Suzy:
Does
having to filter and translate in this way bother you or make you feel uncomfortable?
Me:
Not really. For me, it's normal. It's just what I do when I'm dealing with "the world". It's like putting clothes on. One might be comfy going around one's home naked, but still expect to wear clothes outside. Same sort of thing. Occasionally it can get a bit tiring, but that's at worst.
And the translation thing's why I tend to babble on so longwindedly. If I don't explain myself folk are never going to be able to understand my behaviour, since while I may not be displaying my emotions freely, my actions and choices are still based to some degree on those emotions. So I verbalise them like this, instead. If I'm in a position where I am unable to give the explanations or subtitles, then there's very little chance of my forming any meaningful connection with somebody.
Suzy:
Does this need to translate
and filter affect how close you can get to some folk?
Me:
It affects it to some degree. I
have found that as I get to know someone better, they'll generally start getting
used to my reaction patterns, which are very consistent (in their own weird and
labile way). As they develop the ability to predict my reactions to some degree,
and to read the reactions in my language, then it becomes possible to
express them a little more openly without the translation. Many people that I've
known for a long time are eventually able to work out the general gist of how I
function, and that allows me to let the filtering go to some degree (though
there will probably be some needed for particular sorts of situations).
But those folk who can cope with the unfiltered me get a special place in my heart. I know that I can be sometimes difficult to deal with on that level, and I tend to get all warm and gooey knowing that there are people who are willing to let me vent and rant and react as I will, and still find me worthwhile to be close to because they enjoy the other aspect of my reactvity, such as the bouncy, happy, reacting-to-little-stuff-like-a-three-year-old bits, and the intensity of the attachments I form to those who are willing to interact with me on that level.
Suzy:
In my
case, I find that only if emotions are fairly non-intense and don't stir up
recurring issues will they fade fairly quickly for me. One thing that makes
dealing with folk who display irritation outwardly more difficult for me is that
I often find it hard to distinguish between different kinds of
"angry/irritated/snarky" sorts of emotions. Consequently, I can sometimes
misinterpret the intensity of the reaction that is occuring in my presense,
which can make things a bit awkward.
I do have some ongoing interactions with people I do get angry at from time to time, and in these sorts of cases, the anger is generally associated with an impression that the other person either intended to hurt someone, or was being deliberately careless or thoughtless. And sometimes my anger reaction will escalate, in much the same way that my anxiety escalates. In short, what happens is that repeated exposure to strong negative-emotional episodes tends to culminate in me feeling abused. I suppose the same sort of thing could happen with irritation-escalation - repeated incidents of thoughtless actions could lead to a feeling that there is an intentional lack of consideration occurring.
Me:
[nods] I can understand the "escalation" thing quite well. In my case it doesn't tend to escalate to "anger" levels because as soon as I notice that pattern starting I try to stop it. My partner Mark and I have a very definite and predictable pattern for dealing with conflict, and it works very well with us. Mostly stuff doesn't get to the "conflict" stage since we tend to discuss things as they come up, and negotiate solutions we can both live with. Sometimes we'll sit down and have "problem solving sessions" where we each recount little niggles and we try to resolve them before they become big niggles. We tend to have a pretty calm relationship, by and large. But sometimes stuff happens anyway.
For the first few years of our relationship, we used to have one big row every two months or so. It was so predictable that we'd call it "the bi-monthly blue". These days it's more of a "bi-annual blue", but still follows much the same pattern, which goes more or less as follows:
1) Mark does something that bothers me.
2) I will say "that bothers me for X reason, can we do something about it?"
3) Mark will (for whatever reason) not really take in what I'm saying, or not do anything about it.
4) repeat step 1-3 several times, until I get quite annoyed.
5) I fume about it for about as much time as it takes to build up a bit of a head of steam.
6) I have a ten-minute vent at Mark about whatever it is. He listens. (Since serious blowups are so rare, it will definitely get his attention).
7) He says something like "gosh, I never knew you were that bothered by it. Lets see what we can do about it".
8) I say "Perhaps we should also try to work out why you were reluctant to deal with it when it first came up. Was there something about it that bothered you?"
9) We negotiate a solution that we're both happy with.
10) We feel all close and sooky, and spend the rest of the day assertively Appreciating the others virtues and doing nice things for them. ("Oh, you made me sushi for dinner! How lovely!" "Well, it only seemed fair since you not only went out and got me that punnet of raspberries for lunch, but you cleaned up the cat litter tray when it was my turn!" Etc.)
A quick caveat: all these descriptions of coping mechanisms for dealing with strong emotions that I talk about depend entirely on the voluntary nature of my association with the other folk involved... the fact that I can withdraw and not interact with someone who can't/won't discuss issues and deal with them costructively means that I don't tend to get close to folk who I can't use these approaches with. On the other hand, I find non-voluntary relationships (such as difficult relatives or annoying workmates) much harder to deal with, since my coping mechanisms just don't work with folk who do seriously manipulative or head-game-type stuff. In those cases, I just stress out and gibber instead.
Suzy:
I prefer to deal with issues as they come up, but some people can't do that, and some issues don't resolve easily. For example, some of the communication issues between me and my partners are quite complex and we have to go at them layerwise a bit at a time. Also, dealing with an issue right now only works if at least one person is feeling semi-rational. If everyone is having a lot of feelings, it might not be possible.
Me: True. I've found that in situations where everyone's feeling a bit emotional, it can be worthwhile to postpone the dissection-and-negotiation stage if stuff's still a bit too painful. But that only works if all parties know that the other(s) are willing to (a) acknowledge their reactions as valid, and (b) accept that if we are a bit irrational right now, then it can be the right and sensible thing to come back to some aspect of the problem later when emotions are a little more settled, and that this doesn't mean that the problems aren't being dealt with. I know that when I'm really worked up over something, I can feel ok with postponing dissecting it until later if I don't feel that it's just being pushed aside. That involves trusting that the other person will be willing to discuss it fully later, but it can be a very useful tool for getting past the really thorny bits without explosion or trauma.
Suzy:
There is fortunately a middle ground. Complex issues don't have to be used as weapons or brought out at inappropriate times.
Me:
I agree wholeheartedly. Ick. Issues as weapons... no thanks!
I'm finding this discussion really interesting, and potentially very useful. There are a number of "slow burn" people in my life, and sometimes it can be very difficult to get them to verbalise their reactions clearly, so I have to guess. Your clear explanations of how things work for you may also help me gain better understanding of how such folk in my life perceive emotion and conflict.
Thanks, Suzy!