08.01.2019
Anger. Anger is a powerful feeling. It can destroy the bonds we have with other people but it can also motivate us to have courage to speak our minds about things that we don’t enjoy in life.
I’ve been afraid of my anger for as long as I can remember. I was actually terrified of it. I was a teenager who was constantly angry and in conflict with their parents but at the same time we were tiptoeing around the topics most important for me, focusing on the regular life and symbolic level of our relationships. My mother’s favourite topic I believe. How we don’t talk with each other. Great, then maybe she should’ve had something to say all those years.
I was raised catholic. I was taught that forgivness and compassion are important values in life. I was taught that when someone harms us we should turn the other cheek. And I believed that in the worst way possible. I was bullied in school and kindergarden. Not the hardcore kind of bullying that children hang themselves over, but I was fat and it was enough for kids to pick on me. And I was quiet, shy, played by myself, couldn’t get along with other boys or girls. I didn’t’ have many childhood friends, we lived in a suburban district where I had one friend one year younger who lived across the street. My parents had some friends with kids and we met together from time to time but usually I was the oldest of the bunch. It’s been lonely, really. I hated sports, I was raised to believe that I was some sort of a genius (which I wasn’t, I was better than average but not a genius at all), in an environment constantly bombarding me with contradicting communicates about body, sexuality, love.
My parents advocated love and self respect while treating themselves poorly. I’ve learnt a lot about diets moderately early since they were constantly on one, while being obese and living completely unhealthy. I was being scolded over a constant mess in my room while the whole house was usually a mess that was impossible to contain. May I add what my mother was doing my whole life was mostly trying to contain that mess and complaining how nobody helps her.
Probably the thing that messed me up the most was the constant need for finding the reason of an action/a feeling/a reaction. We were nose deep in invisible abuse bs. My parents act like big children since their parents never acted very maturely either. My role was acting like someone parent-like but not adult-like at all. I usually took the responsibility for how my parents felt. Almost always I’d say. If they got angry at me or with me I’d get some kind of guilt trip into the hateful wonderland. Combine that with catholic concept of guilt and bam you have me. Slightly egotistical neurotic capable of feeling but incapable of expressing those feelings in a healthy way. Sometimes in no way at all.
For the longest time I simply felt guilty about being so angry. I felt that if I didn’t keep repressing it I’d just hurt everyone around me. It was frustrating as hell and as I grow older more and more things make me angry. My and other people’s feelings, just stuff flying by. I can’t deal with the boiling anger and everything that’s been attatched to it .And I feel that I need that anger right now. I need it to keep surviving. Because I messed up, myself and not only myself and coming to terms with this anger is top priority for me at the moment. I’m struggling to accept it as a part of me and I’m putting energy into learning how to deal with it without hurting people that are near and dear to me. And it gets lonely sometimes but I feel like I’m achiveing something. Maybe in not such a long time I’ll be able to let go of more of my walls and chains that I still believe keep me together in one piece. Hopefully.