assertiveness

Headaches: Overdoing It, Anger/Anxiety and Adrenaline Withdrawl

One of my most distressing symptoms of CFS for me is the tension headache that never really goes away. Another friend recovering from CFS recently mentioned her similar headache, and since I’ve got one right now and I’m in a bad mood, I feel like complaining a bit about it.

Back when I was a computer engineer, I used to get regular migraine-intensity headaches about once a month or so. I would spend hours every day engrossed in a computer screen and often felt a headache coming on in the afternoon. I was so obsessed with my work that I would just push through until the pain was so debilitating that I would need strong painkillers with codeine just to get through the day. Once I got to sleep I would be OK the next day, but if the pain was too intense to get to sleep, it would often escalate until the pain was so excruciating that I would be nauseous and vomit. Vomiting with a migraine was a horrible experience but would usually give me some relief, and then eventually I’d fall asleep.

The next day, I’d feel really groggy but the pain would mostly be gone and I’d be back to work. The day after that it felt like nothing had happened and I’d be back to go go go mode. Then a few weeks later I’d do it all again.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Reality Check For Compulsive Care-givers & People-pleasers

I recently came across a fascinating talk on YouTube by Dr Gabor Mate, a physician with a background in palliative care who wrote the book When The Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection. His talk covers the link between compulsive care-giving/people-pleasing behavior, and physical illness.

I really relate to what he says. I used to have a successful Engineering career from which I burned out several years before I came down with CFS. I too was a compulsive care-giver and people-pleaser.

While working as an engineer I was heavily involved at my local church and did volunteer work on a 24 hour telephone crisis line. I enjoyed the feeling of helping people in crisis, but I can see now looking back that I was in a constant state of stress. I often did late night shifts at the crisis centre with a migraine, doped up on codeine-based pain-killers and desperate for the shift to end so I could go home to bed before yet another suicidal caller rang. Meanwhile my relationship with my girlfriend of the time was slowly falling apart, I was losing interest in the career I used to love, and my faith in the religion I was brought up with was going down the toilet.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Using Assertiveness To Release Anger & Stress

I’ve noticed a consistent pattern among myself and my clients recovering from CFS: We all have a history of taking on too much stress and not really standing up for ourselves when other people do things we don’t like. Most of us had parents who weren’t willing or able to teach us how to deal with our emotions, to self-soothe our nervous system when we were in distress, or to stand up for ourselves when our emotional or physical boundaries were being violated. Often the person we most needed to stand up to was one or both of our parents themselves, and that rarely goes well when you’re a distressed child trying to stand up to an adult who is being unreasonable because their wounded inner child is running the show.

All of this is a recipe for ever increasing anger, resentment and frustration. We end up overcompensating in a desperate attempt to get our needs met because nobody taught us how to do this effectively. Internalise that toxic cocktail and it’s no wonder we end up sick.

Behaviour patterns learned as a child tend to stick even if they never really worked well, and coping strategies learned as a child rarely works well in the adult world. If nobody shows us a better way, it’s easy to continue behaving in ways that increase our internal store of resentment and frustration long into adulthood with no way of releasing the stress pressure cooker.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Dealing with Angry People

I get my fair share of hate mail on this blog, which I find unpleasant but not entirely surprisingly. Given that CFS appears to involve the emotional centre of the brain, it tends to generate a lot of anxiety and/or anger. Many people aren’t good at expressing their anger cleanly, and some of them choose to channel it into hate mail directed at me.

Say "No!" to Other People's Anger

Say “No!” to Other People’s Anger

Being on the receiving end of somebody else’s hostility can be stressful, so it’s important to be assertive with these people to stop their stress from entering my emotional boundary.

He’s an example from last week: I got an email from a female ex-friend who I initially met through this blog, which began:

“I don’t read your shit, but…”

… and went on to give me some unsolicited advice that I didn’t find particularly helpful.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

A Breakthrough in the Healthy Expression of Anger

Up until recently, are used to suppress/repress/internalise my anger. In fact, I now believe this is one of the main reasons why I came down with CFS. But now, after a lot of anger expression workshops, therapy, and non-violent communication practice, things are starting to change for me.

Do You Express Your Anger Constructively?

Do You Express Your Anger Constructively?

On the weekend, I attended yet another anger expression workshop called “Feel and Heal Anger”. The idea behind the workshop was that when were out of touch with our anger, we often internalise it self-destructively or project it outwards onto other people as violence or other forms of abuse, both of which are unhealthy.

The aim of the workshop was to get in touch with our anger and express it in ways that didn’t hurt anybody else, or ourselves. There were boundary setting exercises, group sharing, and dynamic burn meditations to help us process the anger and the grief that lies underneath it.

At this particular workshop, I felt more sadness and grief that anger and rage. But I figure if I’m feeling emotions, then the process must be working. I had a fairly sleepless night after the workshop as my body was still processing feelings that came up for me.

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By Graham Stoney, ago