If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!

If your angry and you know it-

stomp your feet

make some noise

fling some paint

jog a mile

write it down

Dealing with an HIV+ partner (or loved one, ore being HIV+ yourself) opens up a HUGE can of emotional worms and dumps them all over your house. They get into everything. You work hard hard to clean them up and but it seems like you just keep encountering more of them in random places squirming around. You go to brush your teeth before bed and there there in the bathroom sink wiggle wiggle.....you just start to cry and cry and cry about everything. Or you are getting ready for work and put on your shoes and squish between your toes and you just get so depressed you feel like crawling back into bed and calling in sick. Or there you are eating dinner and put a forkful of salad in your mouth and Ewww! you are so angry you just want to throw your plate at the wall and stab your fork into the table.

So many of the emotions that HIV dredges up seem to have no rhyme or reason. You feel angry, but you don't know who you are angry at or what you are angry about exactly or you are sad, but you can't say just why. Those kinds of emotions can be the hardest to deal with since we can't determine the cause in order to work them out. Other times we know exactly why we are angry or sad, but there is absolutely nothing we can do to change the situation. 

I am fairly certain that if I didn't have outlets for my emotions I would pop, or more likely implode. Neither D or I are big talkers when it comes to feelings. I avoid it because I have a hard time putting my feelings into coherent word groupings, or even identifying what exactly I feel. I couldn't tell you all the reasons why D doesn't talk about his feelings, he's never really fully explained it to me-that would entail talking about feelings- but I imagine it is mostly for the same reasons. Unless we absolutely have to talk about something we both try and express our feelings non-verbally. This allows us to vent our emotions, clue each other in on how we are feeling and take some kind of action. If you have a problem you fix it with some kind of action. I think emotions are kind of the same way, if you have a strong emotion you have to take some kind of action to "fix" it.

There is a fine line you have to walk sometimes when expressing very strong emotions. If you aren't careful you can choose ways of expressing and processing emotions that are even worse for you than not dealing with the emotion in the first place- drinking, drugs or otherwise hurting yourself or others, etc...

I like to practice what I call "constructive destruction". Basically you take something worthless, and worthless is key- your grandmother's china won't work the same, and destroy it. Shred all of your junk mail with your bare hands. Get a piece of styrofoam from a box and punch it to pieces. I have a friend who buys glass christmas bulbs in January when they are super cheap and saves them for when she is feeling emotionally overwhelmed then she takes them out to the dumpster and smashes them. I have called her more then once to smash bulbs. 

The point is to do something physical and destructive that doesn't harm yourself or anyone else and doesn't really destroy anything of value. It nearly always makes me feel better. 

So does exercise. I love to go in long bike rides, especially up hills, which I usually hate doing, when I am stressed or angry. D dances. Physically pushing your limits feels so freeing and empowering.

Sometimes I go into a room, shut the door and throw a tantrum complete with stomping my feet and yelling. It sounds silly, but so does being angry for an unidentifiable, or vague at best, reason. 

Making noise really helps. D has a toy air pistol that makes a really loud BANG! that he "shoots" when he has to much anger or stress to keep inside. I make a lot of noise rearranging canned goods.

I don't think it matters so much what you do, just that you do it and it doesn't cause any real damage. I have learned that not dealing with emotions can be very harmful. They get all bottled up and explode with very dangerous consequences. Instead of allowing that to happen now I try and express them as best I can. Sometimes  midway through doing something like throwing a tantrum to vent your anger you start to feel downright silly and start to laugh at yourself. And laughing at yourself is about the best way I can think of to end a bout of anger.