Anger Management
What do you do when you get angry? Do you sulk? Complain? Blow up? Drink? Run away from the problem?
As a recovering Catholic, I tend to blame myself for whatever it was that caused me to be angry, I make excuses for the other person. I think that everyone I love is SO good and SO perfect that they didn’t mean to do what they did to piss me off. I’ll think, Maybe I’m being sensitive or emotional. perhaps I didn’t communicate well and this triggered a series of events that led to me getting all pissy! I start to feel sorry because my anger might make them feel bad! Is that ridiculous? How self-deprecating, no?
Actually, let me condition this. When I get angry at people I don’t know or care about, especially in regards to politics, I don’t ever feel sorry about making them feel uncomfortable. It’s only when I’m angry at people I love do I see their side in the issue and blame myself.
Boy did my mom fuck me up in the head. I was always to blame when things went wrong. If I had friends over at my house and they were causing trouble, it was always my fault. Even if I were trying to get them to calm down and behave, if she walked in on them breaking furniture or something, somehow (and EVERY time) I instigated it. I was always the cause of problems.
My mom was so non-confrontational and SO "humble" that she would rather blame her own kid and therefore, have the family take responsibility for problems than to throw blame on others.
Only ONE time did she stick up for me in my ENTIRE life and that was when my friend’s car was towed in San Diego on new Year’s eve (side note: my friend Tara and I both lied to our parents about going to each other’s house and took off to San Diego, we parked it in a bad spot and it got towed and we took a cab back to Tara’s house where she told her mom that the car was stolen! Boy was she in trouble! it ended up simply being towed!)
Anyway, Tara’s mom called my mom to say that I was responsible for half of the towing costs ($75) because I was with her when the car was towed. My mom said that as a non-driver I would have no idea about parking spots and was not responsible. This was the only case where my mom’s cheapness trumped her humility.
So there you have it. Still til this day do I blame myself. I’m having issues writing an "I’m angry because" email to a very close and dear person because I don’t want to make them feel badly. But I’m angry! Perhaps when I calm down I can sit down and write my thoughts without being self-deprecating and apologetic…
thoughts?
September 30th, 2005 at 7:59 pm
I rarely blame myself for being angry, and most of the time I shouldn’t. Neither should you. The only thing anyone should ever blame themself for is how they handle it. Anger is an emotion, a feeling. I believe that no one is wrong for their feelings. We don’t know how to control them. No one truly enjoys feeling bad, whether it be anger, sadness or any other negative emotion. All people have the potential to be assholes (including you, yes…but you need to be able to recognize when this is the case). I would say that I have an anger management problem and I handle it in a variety of ways. My fault is that once I am angry with X I tend to take it out on anyone (or anything) else in reach until it subsides. That is wrong. Being angry with someone you love for mistreating you is expected, especially since it is these people who know how to do it best. Don’t blame yourself for how you feel. Express it (and stick to it). You shouldn’t endure the stress of feeling bad twice in these instances. That’ll take years off your life.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
Oh, and by the way…I’m sorry to hear that your mother was always non-confrontational with everyone excpet you. My Grandmother was usually the same way when it came to my friends.
October 1st, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Hmmm…I dealt with this before myself. The best advice I can offer:
Try to TALK to your mom instead of writing to her. Spoken words can be just as healing, and are far more easily forgiven than written words if they’re misunderstood. I speak from personal experience on this one.
Of course, if you’re more concerned with venting anger, you might want to do what Mark Twain used to do: put EVERYTHING into writing with complete disregard for the feelings of the party in question. Then marry someone who will burn the letters before they’re ever sent.