Feelings in general are hard to describe from one person to another. We all know that but until we actually feel the difference between what we normally feel and what someone else feels, there’s no way to truly understand the concept.
I am a very even-tempered person. So much so that I’ve been asked if I have any feelings at all, which I find annoying, which then proves I have feelings. I get angry just like everyone, but that feeling doesn’t manifest into anything other than what I end up thinking in my mind.
When I get angry, I roll my eyes, mutter under my breath, walk around with a bit of an attitude and sometimes have full conversations with myself. All of that is done in the comfort of my own home and usually when no one else is around. If I’m really mad, I let the dog out, so she doesn’t have to listen to me carrying on and on about something she only assumes is about her.
This has been my method of working through what bothers me for most of my life. The main difference now is that I am more open about it than I used to be because being quiet about an issue and never addressing it can be detrimental to any relationship.
I’ve gone my whole life dealing with the anger through self-talk and eventually bringing it out in the open or by ultimately deciding the issue wasn’t worth the effort and letting it go. This has worked for me and I’ll probably continue more or less in the same manner.
About two months ago I got an up close and personal shock to my system. I got angry in a way I don’t recall ever happening in my life; at least not to this intensity.
We have some new and different stress in our house than in the past. It’s not bad stress but even good stress can weigh on a person and make them a little more susceptible to emotional moments.
So I’m sitting at home one day waiting for my husband to get home and getting hungrier and hungrier (you can already sense the stress). I have the ability to eat out of the cupboard but don’t want to do that until I know whether or not we are going out to dinner. I text my husband and ask where he is, and he says he’s leaving the office shortly.
Now, my idea and everyone else’s idea of shortly might not match but I’m thinking ten minutes or so. He texts ‘what’s up’ and I don’t answer because I’m away from my phone or some other reason I don’t remember now. Eventually I see he answered my text and I figure it doesn’t matter since he is on his way home and probably driving… so I say nothing.
About 45 minutes later I send a message and ask where he’s at and he tells me he’s gone to his sister’s house for something. His sister’s house is in the opposite direction of our house which adds at least an extra 30 minutes to his commute, and they like to talk a lot so I’m figuring we aren’t going out to eat.
Normally this would bother me and I would roll my eyes in frustration and realize I should have said something like “hey when are you leaving I would like to go to dinner” and just chalk it up to bad communication.
Unfortunately, something snapped, and I called him and proceeded to tell him how thoughtless it was to not tell me he was going to his sister’s house in the initial text because then I would have been sure to respond and, etc. etc. I let him have it and his side of the conversation went something like “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you wanted to go out, I should have told you up front I was going here, I’m on my way”. Basically, he’s probably thinking I’ve lost my mind since he knows how even tempered I usually am and he’s trying to smooth it out.
At this point, my normal realization would be that I’m being unreasonable and I need to evaluate the situation and realize this is simply an error on both our parts.
But…
That’s not what I did. After hanging up the phone and wishing I had a land line so I could slam down the receiver, I start yelling and swearing around the house. The dog is in full “oh my god, what have I done” mode and I just keep on going.
Now I’m not a thrower… I don’t throw things when I’m mad because I don’t want to clean it up later or pay to have things replaced. Did I throw what was in my hand? You’re damn right I did.
I was holding a metal sealable coffee container that, at the moment, was luckily empty. Did I throw it in the back yard where nothing would get hurt? Of course not. I threw that thing as hard as I could towards the living room and came within inches of breaking a TV I do not want to replace. It bounced across the room and landed near the front door.
Did I stop and say to myself “wow, dumb ass, that was a close one”? Oh, no, don’t be silly. I stomped over to the cup, picked it up and saw that it was dented from the TV table and stomped back to the garbage can where I stomped on the foot handle and slammed that cup down into the garbage. It bounced back out of the garbage, which pissed me off even more, so I kicked the can and broke off the lid.
I’m in full “gonna break someone in half” mode when I hear this little voice in my head say, oh so quietly, maybe you should stop before you really break something. That pissed me off more but I’m now fixing the damn garbage can and yelling at it all the while. I get done and continue walking around with my blood pressure pounding against my brain.
You know what happened next… the headache started kicking in. Now I’m angry with a headache from the blood pushing through the top of my head and the stomping around is beginning to aggravate my feet and lower back. I’m finally regretting my freak out event.
Once I settle down and start taking in deep breaths and getting my mind to calm down a bit, the little voice squeaks “that was ridiculous”.
Sigh… yes, yes it was.
After my husband got home, we had a conversation with me fully calmed down and I explained why I was originally upset and that we need to communicate better. Oh, and by the way, I nearly broke the TV. He was surprised because I don’t get mad easily but I needed to talk to him about why I was upset and also that I knew full well that my reaction was not justified but that it still happened. We all get mad… I guess that includes me.
I’ve thought about this since then and when I was in the middle of the freak-out, I felt completely justified in how I was reacting. I could not talk myself down and didn’t want to. I had a right and a damn good reason for yelling and throwing stuff and scaring the crap out of the dog. It was normal, it was how it was done and I was damn well going to do whatever I wanted.
The feeling of anger was overwhelming and illogical. There was literally no reason for feeling that mad but I felt so very angry and so very justified in it when it happened. The heat of the moment, the mental rush, the surge of physical strength, and the pure justification is still something I can look at and realize exists.
It doesn’t exist in me on a regular basis because I’m not typically that mad and even if I am mad, I’m logical about it and realize there are two or more sides to a any situation. Look at it, discuss it, make changes where necessary… that’s how I deal with anger and differences of opinion.
It baffles me to think there are people out there who feel that way all the time. They are angry often or they are made to be angry by the smallest of sparks. It’s normal for them. They get jacked up and they react in that same way without any acknowledgement that they might be wrong or they might be overreacting. They honestly feel justified every time they get mad.
For these people, everyone else is wrong or trying to make them look foolish. They snap on a dime and those around them are simply out of luck if they happen to be in the room. Knowing myself, I probably would not have reacted that way if anyone were at home. We would have had an elevated discussion but even that would have been mild compared to how I reacted when he wasn’t there. We rarely argue but on the rare occasion that we do, it doesn’t take long for us to snap out of it and break the argument off and take a deep breath.
Social media is filled to the rim with angry people. Many of them are craving the heat, the mental rush, the surge of physical strength… the power behind the feeling of anger. What they don’t think or care about is the after affect. That moment when the headache hits or the back starts to relax into spasms or they are alone because no one can live with them.
It’s a high for them. When they’re pissed off, they can do anything on earth. No one can defeat them; they are right and they are justified in being a complete jerk. They may never admit they are wrong. They may never notice that they overreacted or hurt someone’s feelings; many of them search out someone to hurt because it makes them feel good. Some of them graduate to physically hurting people if the mental abuse they dish out isn’t giving them the high is once did.
I cannot imagine being so angry so often that I lose myself. So insanely mad that no one can trust me. That’s truly the issue; you can’t trust the blatantly angry person.
It’s not fun walking on eggshells because the person you’re with loves being one of these anger addicts. Just like any addict, others can’t live a good life with them which will, of course, only make them mad.
This post was originally seen on Alexandria (aleksandreia.com).
