Bunny211

I am 15 months sober and still my emotions are like a roller coaster ride. I was sailing along FINE today and then suddenly something minor happened (I double booked myself at 5pm tonight) and now I am a sniveling mess at my desk. I want to cry and scream and break things. It is that time of the month for me, so I know that is part of it. I am so sick of the emotions crippling me! The anger, the rage, the sadness, the fear etc. GOD. Last week, with PMS I bruised my wrist from banging on the hood of my car because I couldn't get the gas pump to work. I was screaming WHAT THE EFF?! at the pump. Afterwards I felt SO DUMB.

I mean, sometimes I am just like WHY do I FREAK OUT with such intensity, over little things?!

I am going to EMDR therapy for trauma and it is bringing up some stuff so maybe that has something to do with it. I dunno. I'm just tired. I'm so tired of feeling bi-polar...up and down, up and down. Ugh.

Just needed to vent.

ScottFromWI

Sometimes venting is just what we need. Glad you are going to talk with someone about it tomorrow too, that really helps me with my anxiety too.

tomsteve

a line from thembig book

We alcoholics are sensitive people. It takes some of us a long time to outgrow that serious handicap.

Bunny, has this been happening since before therapy?
or just since the therapy started?

KAD

I'm just ahead of you at 17 months sober and I can definitely relate. I try not to let it show in front of other people but, dang, I lose my cool over the littlest things! I do think I was even worse during my drinking years, though. When I'm driving somewhere and running a little late, don't let me get caught at a red light! I do catch myself and even get a good laugh out of it once in a while. I worry obsessively over how I think people might take things I say and do, too. It's tortuous at times. I figure it just takes time to work through this and get used to taking a breath and keeping calm.

Soberpotamus

Yep, I've lost it at the gas pump, too. I mostly rage inwardly, but yeah. It's still there, and it's rage for a moment.

Early on, I swore I was bipolar ... or ... something, lol.

Hang on. It will get better. Your therapy sounds good. I had a brief, small introduction to EMDR with a therapist that eventually didn't work out, but I'd do EMDR again. I found it unique.

Gottalife

Hi Bunny,
I can still have a short fuse at times. It is the manifestation of a character defect that wasn't that obvious when I first got sober, anger.

I look at character defects as normal human characteristics out of balance or done to extremes. Anger is a normal human emotion/reaction to some situations. Most people are slow to anger, some at the other extreme, seem to explode. Most of the time my reactions are in line with most people's, somewhere near normal. But in early sobriety I had a few moments.

Whose job is it to fix character defects? My part is prayer, God please take away these stupid thoughts, and God save me from being angry.

God took from me some of my defects at an early stage, even against my will, but left me with others for a time because, I guess, I had lessons to learn. After repeatedly practicing the defect of extreme anger I began to realise how counter-productive it really is. The defect over time became futile and eventually redundant. It also gave me opportunities to practice step 10, cleaning up the new mistakes as I went along. Eventually the anger relented. I still have no idea where it came from.

Talkinandwalkin

The same thing happened to me. I honestly thought I was going insane. I got into numerous arguments with complete strangers over trivial matters. I was also having short term memory problems. I could go from calm to enraged in no time. I went to my doctor and received a prescription "brain food" vitamin. Oddly enough my short term memory problems abated and I stopped attacking my fellow citizens. Before any one goes crazy I am not offering medical advice I am relaying my own experience.

obiwan

Hi - do you know exactly what you were prescribed? I may well need some

SoberCAH

This is a great topic.

It rings true for me during my first year or two (or 5 or 6, maybe) in sobriety.

For me, the answer has been God and AA.

I lose my temper occasionally, like a few weeks ago when Delta told me I couldn't pay to check an additional bag on my flight home from Key West and it appeared that the Fed Ex office next door was fenced off from entry.

By the time I got to Fed Ex and started working with the very kind worker, she asked me why I was so calm (apparently, she gets a lot of angry Delta flyers).

I thanked her and explained that I was a little less than calm a few minutes earlier when it appeared that her office wasn't open.

You seem to me to be doing a great job in recovery FWIW, so I would keep up the good work even though your emotions make you feel like you are simply along for the ride sometimes.

Bunny211

Thank you all! I can so relate to to so many of these posts! I sometimes swear I am bipolar. Like, this cannot be normal for my emotions to swing SO wildly.

This has been a constant (but a bit better) since getting sober. Maybe it was there before I got sober but I don't know...I was pretty much constantly drunk. I do not lose it as often as I did before working the steps (I am in my 9th) but I do still lose it. I think it has gotten better since EMDR therapy. My temper tantrums are still as severe, but they are less frequent.

Yesterday, when I double booked myself (which, thinking logically is NOT a life or death situation) I was sitting at my desk and I could feel the tears coming. I could feel my face start to contort and I was like DON'T cry, DON'T cry and I couldn't stop it. I had to get up and go cry in the bathroom. Pulled myself together, left work. When I left work I pulled into the parking lot, backed up and hit a street sign. Started crying again and pulled forward, threw the car into reverse and hit the sign again. By this point I am hysterically crying. Like I literally want to drive my car off a cliff and die in a blaze of fury! I was a mess!

God, my emotions can be intense and IRRATIONAL.

Boleo

It's not positive thinking that keeps me sober. Positive thinking has a short shelf life. Sobriety all by itself can sometimes drive me stark-raving-mad.

It's equanimity that keeps me sober in the long run. Not that nothing ever disturbs me. Rather, nothing disturbs me bad enough, or long enough, to make me feel like I need a drink to escape from it.

"In this life - pain is inevitable - suffering is optional."

tomsteve

its getting better so thatsa good thing!
im thinkin maybe, now that youre fully aware of the problem, working on catching it at the beginning.
i used to be a rageaholic. when i got sober i was quite miserable, so that anger didnt hit until the fog wore off. then.... OH MAN!!! it wasnt fun being in a fit of rage- the bb calls it a brainstorm.
what helped me was doing what the bb said- turn back to the list,being the 4th step. i carried a little notebook with me so when id get set off, i could write it down, own it, and look for my own mistakes- where had i been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person,place, or thing entirely.
eventually i learned i dont just blow up. it starts with frustration, then anger, then the brainstorm.
and the sooner i caught it,or catch it still,and got into the solution, the easier it was, and still is, to fix.

steve76453

Oh man can I relate to this. I was just coming here to make a post about how emotionally angry and wound up I have been feeling today! 5 weeks in for me and the one relief is that nowhere in my brain am I thinking how much a drink would make this better. It's actually the opposite; if I were to go to that horrible crap right now I'd drink until I couldn't anymore and go on a stupid rampage that's even worse than just dealing with my emotions from the get go. I'd have bouts of rage when on the booze, but usually I'd just be drunk and coasting along and then when the hangovers happened...woof. Now I feel like one of those cartoon depictions of someone getting angry; my entire fact gets hot, turns boiling red and steam comes out my ears! Seriously though...I internalize everything and used to be a master at hiding whether I was mad or not but now I simply can't. I still internalize but I fume so bad and all it takes is the stupidest thing to set me off. Whatever help kicking drinking has done for my blood pressure I feel is ruined with my mood swings, haha.

steve-in-kville

Lets just say some tools became airborne the past few weeks....

advbike

I am the same way.. easily frustrated and upset.. so at 2 1/2 years sober I finally went back into AA and started working the steps. I just couldn't take the constant frustration and irritation, the emotional ups and downs. And my complaining ego.. lol. I was retired early, traveling, living a great life, and all my mind could do was find things to complain about.

AA and stepwork has really helped me calm down, but I'm not sure why. I had done plenty of therapy and reading before, and had a very good intellectual understanding of how my feelings and distorted perceptions would trigger me, but it didn't help. I still would get cranked up over little things. But it's slowly getting better now as I work my program of recovery, and trust in a higher power.