This is something very important, I think, for all men to hear, and I speak because I’ve been made aware of it on my end so often. When I was a little kid, I had a volcanic temper, getting really angry really quickly and reacting as such. When I started hitting preteen years, that started manifesting as yelling when angry—in a low register as well, the same way my dad would on the rare cases he got mad. Problem is, for pretty much all my life, I’ve been better friends with women than men. And the two didn’t mix.
If I was mad around my female friends, it didn’t matter if I was mad at them, someone else, or something inanimate. The moment I started yelling to vent my frustration, they looked incredibly concerned, and I felt ashamed that I’d caused that reaction. Plus, I did theatre and chorus in school, so I’m sure that the volume I learned to generate from those only added to the intimidation of hearing a burgeoning baritone yelling. So I’ve been working on it since then. My temper’s gotten far more under control, it takes more and more to get me angry as time goes on. And even when I am angry, I take steps to keep my temper in check, to keep my voice from getting loud, to keep myself from flying off the handle. I know it scares people, and I’m ashamed that I’m able to do that. Worse, even with control, I don’t have enough control yet.
I ended what once was a very close friendship recently because of this. For months, she and I had gotten into arguments maybe once a week over the same topic, and each time, I got more and more angry because the issue kept reappearing over and over. But I held myself in check, time and again, because I didn’t want to let rage rule the arguments. Then once, just once, I didn’t keep my cool. My voice rose—and by now, I’m a baritone/bass, so my voice is low and loud when it gets close to shouting—my body language got rougher as described earlier, and…it terrified her. It triggered PTSD that she’d never told me about. From then on, being in my presence wasn’t something she could do…and knowing I’d caused that after not thirty seconds of losing my cool is probably the most shameful thing I’ve ever done. Thirty seconds of a raised voice, not even at full volume. And now I’m even more sure that I need to keep working on controlling myself, because I refuse to let something like that happen again.
Just like @anexperimentallife said before me: it doesn’t matter whether or not men intend to terrify people by shouting, we do it anyway. Worse, if the person has specific trauma that you don’t know about, your yelling could be even worse for them than it already is in general. There is no excuse for terrifying anyone during an argument, no matter how important you think the topic is. No excuse. I am still in the progress of training myself not to, and I refuse to stop working until I know I won’t ever scare people that way again. So gentlemen, for the love of whatever gods you believe in…start training yourselves not to yell.
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
tangentwithtanner
