Member-only story
Affirmation #21
Your Emotions Are Not Irrational
Your heart deserves more than dismissal
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There was a brief time as I came out of my depression when I didn’t realize that I had regained my capacity for normal emotion.
My emotions have always been mildly disengaged. I once cat-napped through a fire alarm. During my depression, however, the quiescence intensified; some subtle but vital channel had been blocked, and my emotions reacted more to the world inside my head than the world outside.
Medication opened the channel; shortly after starting meds I found myself getting angry. Anger is a side effect of Wellbutrin, so I didn’t think much of it until one day I detected a pattern in my new temper. It turns out that I got angry when…
…I had a good reason to be angry.
To be honest, that was really strange. I was used to having a delayed fuse; I didn’t get angry in response to provocations. The anger came later when I was ruminating. So, quite suddenly, it felt like I had developed a superpower — the ability to be mildly angry when it mattered.
In retrospect, it amazes me that I missed that, at first. That has been on my mind lately. How often have I ignored vital information about my emotions? What has it cost me?