Anger Management

I've never thought of myself as a particularly angry person. I can certainly be irritable and, one might say, "pissy." A lot of those times overlap with hormonal cycles, but don't you dare suggest that because that is solely my observation to make.

There are a number of times, though, when I look back in on my life, that I have become temporarily almost blinded with a rush of anger I felt powerless to fight, and my reactions seemed to be involuntary and unstoppable. I believe I remember each and every one of them in stark detail, and they do not represent my finest moments. However, when I look back on them, I can see that they were often just an outlet for a build-up of grief or stress or, in at least one case, physical pain.

I also see that I really could have benefited from mental health intervention, or talk therapy, pretty early in life. It might have made me realize that talking to people about the shame I felt concerning my weight, or the irrational fears I had, would have been a good deal.

Instead, I mostly always just let things pile up on the inside, often failing even to pinpoint exactly what I was feeling from one moment to the next, because doing so would make me feel weak or ashamed.

Anyway, NOW I'm ashamed at the outbursts that ended up happening, and yesterday, for the first time ever, I just let that feeling of "fight or flight" buzz in my chest all night, knowing that when I woke up this morning, my body would have "reset" and I would be fine. And I am.

But because I want people to know that I understand it's likely I should be clinically diagnosed -- and I'm NOT being flippant here; I do believe I have undiagnosed mental and/or mood disorder(s) that, had I been aware of in my early adulthood, probably would have made life easier for myself and those living around me -- I'm going to list every incident where I've given in to this hostile take-over of fury, and, if I know the cause, I'll pinpoint that, too. I don't understand all of them.

1) The earliest one I can remember is when I was a junior in high school (so 1988 or 1989). I was "dating" (he couldn't drive and we couldn't go anywhere alone because of that) a kid who had a best friend who was a girl. I straight-up hated how connected they were. Anyway, I'd seen her making out with her boyfriend once, and she'd asked me not to tell the guy I was seeing because she thought it reflected poorly on her, like she was some kind of slut. The whole situation is so very Disney middle school drama. Anyway, there was an ill-advised (for me, because I require nightly sleep) lock-in at our church, and I was bummed because he was spending so much time at the bowling alley with her, talking to her, blah blah. Phil Collins's "Groovy Kind of Love" came on the PA and I hid in the bathroom crying. The girl came in there to check on me and was talking about how great this guy was, ending with, "Aren't we lucky to have him?" Ugh. Cut to Monday at school... she didn't go to our school, and I was just tired and grumpy from the weekend. The guy approached me first thing, wanting me to like apologize to her or something for being distant. He said, "She's trying to be your friend, really she is." That's when my lizard brain took over. I think I yelled something like, "No, she's no!" and walked away, slamming my fist into the cinder-block wall on the outside of the library. Dumb. Juvenile. I think this was just anger at the insecurities that proximity to someone I viewed as "better" than me stirred, and her extremely close relationship with a guy I liked. She ended up being the "best man" in his wedding.

2) The next one was on the eve of my first wedding, so this would have been early August 1992. After the rehearsal, a bunch of us went to my friend's boyfriend's apartment to play "How to Be a Complete Bastard," a ridiculous game we'd acquired at Crazy Eddie's, the one place in Fort Smith where you could buy sex toys and crude merchandise such as this. It was a fun game, until one of the truth/dare things involved my affianced letting a girlfriend of mine shave one square inch of hair off of his fairly hairy leg. Of course, you can't shave one inch; no razor is that small. It was a fair patch. I'm not 100% sure why this made me so angry, I had a melt-down. I think I told him it looked stupid and we were about to go on our honeymoon so it would show on the pictures, but that's ridiculous. I think it was maybe just the stress of getting married, even though it's what I really wanted at the time. Also, I was probably a little jealous of the boldness of someone shaving another person's body to win a game, because I was competitive but I don't think I could shave someone else. Good thing I'm not a nurse.

3) Around 1995, I was working at Sam's Club and I don't even remember what lead up to this, but I do remember walking into the freezer, throwing my gloves into the air, and swearing for the first time in my life. That was just a bad situation. Poorly-run store, my marriage was falling apart, my co-worker was disgusting and inappropriate and attempts to report his sexually inappropriate discussions to management resulted in my younger-than-me area manager telling him, in front of me, that he needed to knock it off because I was getting him (the manager) in trouble. And the store manager told me and another co-worker that our complaints were creating a division that was just as bad as the guy who was sitting in the cooler, letting the milk run out of the higher shelves so that women would have to lean down to reach the bottom shelf and he could look down their blouses.

4) In the late summer of 1998, I met my then-husband's parents for the first time. They'd come to Las Vegas, and we'd taken them to visit The Strip. My husband was parking in a garage I frequented, and I was trying to direct him to the spots that would require his elderly parents the least walking, since we already had a fair hike in front of us. He was snippy and basically told me to shut up. We'd only been married for about five months, but there were aspects of his personality that I had not seen before we got married that had been increasingly problematic. (We got into a fight on our "honeymoon" in Montreal and I don't remember what it was about, but do remember his saying, "You've always been insecure about your weight." It was a complete non-sequitur but weight would become his go-to... then my extra-marital sex-craziness. But that's another story for another time.)

Anyway, THIS time, I demanded he stop and let me out of the car. Yeah, his parents were in the car. I exited with a, "Don't you EVER yell at me again!" and walked into the casino, through it, and out onto the street. His mom caught up with me about half an hour later, and I did not have a plan. I just needed space and to get the energy out of my body. I could have walked home. We lived pretty close.

5) June 2002. We were on a "respite break" from Boys Town. It was super stressful, and we took an emergency last-minute long weekend off to relax. It might have been mandatory. Anyway, we'd decided to go camping at this neat place just over the border of Nevada into Utah, and it was a cool place. They had hot springs that came out from the side of a cliff, and had put a bunch of claw-foot bathtubs on a landing to collect the water. It would then overflow out of them and into a pool below. The water was rust-colored, like the rocks. D was about seven months old. Kaley the greyhound was with us.

Can you tell where we were was significantly cooler than Las Vegas in June? Yeah. It was. So, when we went to bed that night, it just kept getting cooler and then cold. No one slept much. By about 3 AM, we went to the car to sleep with the heater on.

At first daylight, when it was time to pack up and go, I don't know why the responsibility for taking the tend down fell to me. But it did. Maybe because it was my sister's tent, and I'm the one who had set it up? Anyway... in the cold half-light, every time the chilly metal poles knocked against my frozen fingers, I could feel it building up: Why am I doing this alone? (Because a baby's in the car, maybe?) Why did we waste one precious free night we had doing this instead of just hanging out somewhere easy? Plus all of the stress of knowing we'd have to go back into that house of six boys who did not like us and were products of their environments so far but for which we were constantly held responsible, as their current foster parents. It seemed like I'd bitten of a lot more than I could chew, especially as they'd hired us when I was pregnant and we started when D was 2 months old and I was still fully in the throes of postpartum depression. Anyway, I just screamed. No one was camping but us, and I yellllllled. I hollered, "I THOUGHT CAMPING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!" Then I got the tent folded up and realized that the lantern was still hanging on the interior. That would have to wait until later. I'd lost it.

6) Early 2003. We'd been asked to resign from Boys Town, had spent 3 months holing up in a friend's house in Spokane, WA, then lived with my parents for 2 months while we got rid of our renter so we could move back into our house. THEN D and I went to visit my grandparents in Texas. THEN our whole family went to visit D's grandparents in Montgomery, Alabama. Whew. So we were finally home and settled in, and I decided to take D to one of my favorite places, Floyd Lamb Park.

This was quite idyllic, but at some point... my keys were gone. I looked everywhere for them before walking to the ranger's shack to ask to use the phone. I called home, and no one answered. I left a voice mail that said something like, "I have a bit of an emergency so I'm going to call back in a couple of minutes, if you could pick up the phone."

In my brain, I'd already started it... picturing my husband asleep, or even purposefully ignoring my call. I walked around for a while, came back, and called again. Nothing. I told him I was going to have to call a tow truck. Later he asked me why I didn't call a cab. Honestly, I hadn't thought of it. But also, dog.

Anyway, I called a tow truck and left to kill time while we waited. I had cracked the windows so was able to at least get into the car so Kaley could rest and D could play.

Kids never notice anything.

In another twist, when I'd told the tow truck driver that I was at Floyd Lamb in Tule Springs, for some reason, his brain went straight to "Indian Springs." He drove all the way out there before realizing that's not where Floyd Lamb is, and, duh, of course I said Tule Springs. Here's a map. The tiny blue circle is where I lived. The red outline is Tule Springs. The big blue circle is Indian Springs.

The round trip took him 3 hours, while I waited with a dog and a kid and no idea what was going on. (Nope, no cell phone.) Also, I see now that it's only 2.7 miles from the park to my house, but it felt a lot further, and my dog could barely walk a block without withering. Anyway.

When we finally got home and the tow truck driver hopped up to get into the car, the dog was so freaked out she jumped straight out from about 8 feet and landed with a screech and a roll on the asphalt before limping inside. It looked to me like she'd landed on her head, and I don't remember how the next few moments happened, but I had to have paid the tow truck driver and put D to bed.

I do remember collapsing in the living room, sobbing and screaming, "WHERE WERE YOU??!" over and over and over again. I don't really have to think too hard about where this came from. However, I was also so wrapped up in my own stuff that I hadn't realized that the messages I'd left were cryptic and didn't mention whether we'd been in a wreck, if anyone was hurt, where we were, etc.

7) Now there's a break in the break-downs, as far as I recall. It August 2011, and I had gone through a divorce and was trying to see if dating this one guy was an option. We'd gotten pretty connected, and something specific abruptly changed. It's actually taken until probably the past 3 or 4 months for me to completely shed the emotion around this one, as I realize the catalyst was a group of people comprised of men I've found over time to be laughable and regret caring what they thought and giving them power over me and as I realize that if that guy and I had gotten together, we would have been each other's worse nightmare.

But anyway, I was SO freaking mad and upset that an outside person was giving input into something that was a source of joy for the two of us involved that I could not stop crying. I yelled at the guy who gave me the news. I cried and called one of the outside people involved and yell-cried at him. I cried all afternoon, including driving to and sitting through a show my cousin's wife was putting on. I was staying with my parents that night because the show was near Dallas and we were celebrating my birthday the following afternoon.

I was talking to a friend online and she told me to wake my parents up and tell them to take me to the hospital, and to tell them I was suicidal if I needed to (I wasn't). So my mom did, and I talked to a lady, and it really was a waste of time and money but she referred me to a doctor for anti-depressants. I really should have pursued therapy at this point, too, but... I'd tried it as recommended when I was going through the divorce, and it was just laughable. It was one of those things where the counselor repeated back what I said, so when I stopped talking, so did she. And we'd just sit there for an uncomfortably long amount of time. What I needed were coping mechanisms or help seeing patterns or something. I got nothing.

But here, it makes total sense. I'd gone through a pretty acrimonious divorce, I'd lost a faith outlet that had been my home for six years, and now this was getting taken from me.

8) Almost a year later, there was another deal with this same guy, who just couldn't make a clean break with me. He had said basically that we just couldn't date, though, and he hoped I valued his friendship enough to remain friends without other expectations. That did it. D had a friend over at the RV, and I politely excused myself, then sobbed and yelled at him while I walked around the trailer park after dark. I'm lucky no one called the police, honestly.

I still had a couple of mini-FU moments with this guy before totally shutting down communication. It wasn't a healthy situation. He says he only remembers the good stuff. Nice for him.

9) In December 2012, I thought it would be fun to surprise James, who was visiting me from Dallas in Austin, with his family for his birthday. His mom, brother, sister-in-law, and sister drove out from Arizona and stayed in a nearby hotel. What I didn't realize was also happening was that the injury I'd sustained the day I moved into my RV park in Austin (slipped on standing water in the laundry room and apparently ruptured a spinal disc) had started bothering me for the first time. It would hang out for the better part of a year. But I do remember getting everyone in the car and wincing as I sat down. It was a lot of pain.

One late morning, we had gone to get James's people to go visit my sister and some wanted to go to breakfast first. Well, it was taking a lot of sitting around and chatting to decide, and I'd told my sister we'd come over, and I was so overwhelmed that I had to leave the building and go outside. I have no idea what caused it, unless it was meeting (and getting reacquainted with) my boyfriend's family for the first time?

10) On the eve of the eve of James's and my wedding, I had three of these "disconnecting" incidents. The first was, well, also when his brother and sister-in-law were in town. They get the benefit of seeing me at my finest. Anyway, it had been more than three months of constant agony with my back. I was only sleeping a few hours at a time because after that, I had to get up. I couldn't sit or lay down comfortably for any amount of time and would lie down to try to sleep until I just couldn't. I made so many hurt animal noises that one time when D asked if I was okay, I had to say, "Don't ask anymore. The answer is no. I'm never going to be okay."

We'd sat down to play a game, and it was a complicated one (Battlestar Galactica, if you're familiar). James had just read through the instructions, and everyone else had taken their first turns. It got to me, and I realized I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I didn't really understand the point of the game, but I had like 2 moves and a thing and another thing I was supposed to do on my turn, and I couldn't grasp at all what it was. I admitted I was totally lost, and I started bawling. They calmed me down, and I started playing.

A little later, I was zoning out during something and suddenly James said, "You aren't supposed to look at the cards!" he was shuffling, and of which I was totally unaware. Embarrassed at being accused of cheating? (yeah, drama) I left the room, literally threw myself on the bed, and sobbed.

Then I decided it would be a good time to go to bed, so I went to lie down with D. They were still playing the game just outside the door, I'm a light sleeper, and I was hurting so bad. I tried to stop the buzz of "fight or flight." I just wanted to sleep. My body wouldn't unwind, but was winding up instead.

Finally, I shot out of bed and stomped through the living room. "I have to go on a walk." It was about 2:00 AM. James asked, "Do you want me to go with you?" Instead of saying yes, I snarled, "What do YOU think??"

He followed me out, we got a few blocks away, and I sat on the sidewalk and sobbed. I told him that he didn't have to marry me, because I knew that I was a different person with my back injury. I was just so tired and so foggy and I couldn't keep it up.

This one makes TOTAL sense but is still super embarrassing to remember.

Also, not to spoil the story, but James married me anyway.

10) Christmas 2015. We'd gone to Arizona to -- you guessed it! -- be with James's family. We were having a great time in Flagstaff, where his brother lives. We'd gone out to a cute owl-themed restaurant. This was back in the day when Mal was just NOT able to sit through a meal. It was a leisurely one, and so toward the end, I just got up with him to let him roam while everyone else finished.

This is how James and I handled meals out when Mal was little. I don't think we'd explained that to his sister-in-law. She'd just had a baby a few days earlier, and was relieved to get out and do something. After I got up with Mal, I think a couple of other people came and meandered with him and apparently she felt rushed.

After that, James's brother wanted to show James a brewery that they love, and to give his wife an opportunity to sit and relax while she had a nice drink.

I knew that there was no way that Mal would make it through another sitting anywhere, so I stayed outside and walked around with him. At some point, James came out and asked where I was going. I hadn't planned on going anywhere, but decided I'd walk Mal downtown and we'd enjoy the shops while they had a drink.

This was taken poorly by James, who thought we were just abandoning everyone. I was just trying to make it so that Mal would be happy and James could do what he wanted to do with his family.

Anyway, we met later, and the idea was to do a pub crawl or something, so they were headed to another place to get another drink. My brain exploded a little, and I told James we'd just see him at home. They offered me a ride back to my car, but it was only a few blocks away and even though the sun was going down and it was getting cold, I was BURNING UP.

Mal and I finally got back to the car, and drove to the hotel. As I was going up the stairs to the room, I saw James heading toward the building. I guess I thought he'd changed his mind. But when he got up to the room, he'd come to grab a heavier coat or something.

I unleashed on him. "Why am I here? I'm just the babysitter! I feel like my only purpose here is to trot Mal out so your family can see him, then retreat when you're moving on to something else. I could have watched Mal while you went out and had fun at home and a lot cheaper!"

Merry Christmas, baby!

11) We're almost done. Whew. This one is... I don't get it at all. But it was in maybe 2016, some time in the spring? An incident had happened at Disney World with an alligator, and I won't mention it here but if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can Google it. A short time later, something dangerous but not fatal had happened at a zoo when a small child fell into the gorilla enclosure. Anyway, a high school friend had made a joke making light of both instances on Facebook, and I was absolutely infuriated. I think I blocked him that moment and thus ends a decades-long friendship. I like inappropriate jokes, but it was cruel and, to me, made light of a parent's loss.

12) Here's another social media one, from a few weeks ago. I'm only on Nextdoor (or I was; I'm not now) as a neighborhood lead. Someone had copied a post (they didn't edit after they pasted, so it was obvious) called "Craigslist Killers" which was a PETA expose about the horrific things people do after they acquire animals on Craigslist. It was graphic. It details a few specific incidents and the point was basically not to turn your pets over to strangers. I was repelled by it, and felt that the gruesome descriptions were unnecessary, but at least deserved a "content/trigger warning" so people like myself could avoid reading them. I reported the post, and it was removed.

A few days later, the same lady reposted and said she wasn't sure why her post had been removed. Another lead from a nearby neighborhood apologized and said there had been so much good info in the post. I responded that it had included graphic descriptions of animal violence, which I felt would disturb people, as it had me.

I didn't see the backlash until several hours. They'd both said things about how you HAVE to talk in these vivid terms or people don't listen, and after a few back-and-forths, eventually one lady surmised that the reason I was so sensitive was that I myself had likely surrendered a pet without doing due diligence, so I was feeling guilty. She added, "I have no proof of this, but it seems likely." WHAT. THE. WHAT?!

I told her she was ridiculous and to get off her high horse. I told Nextdoor to remove me as a lead. I messaged the second lead and told her that people who have had trauma can have their day/week RUINED by revisiting trauma described that gruesomely.

She wrote back a lot of stuff about being a law enforcement officer and blah blah blah whatever and that I needed to make sure my kids know all of the terrible things that can happen to THEM because that's how you love them. I didn't respond.

-----Okay, break for a minute.-----

I was listening to a podcast after this wherein they quoted G. M. Trevelyan, who said, "Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you."

"A momentary madness."

That made TOTAL sense to me. The madness, I mean. But it's true. It IS only momentary. And what would happen if I just decided, "I'm not reacting yet; whatever I do is a result of madness." So.

13) We were outside eating the other night, as we try to do every night during stay-home, when the weather is nice. James had run to the store while Mal and I played in the front yard. We noticed a small maybe Jack Russell terrier, and I took a picture with my camera, came inside, and posted it to Nextdoor.

One of my neighbors messaged me that she'd come get it, but by that time it had walked down the street a bit. She told me to grab it, but I didn't get that message until later, and by the time she got out, the dog was gone.

Apparently, the lady who had been one of the ones insisting that you have to detail animal abuse to stop it had said she'd come for it, but I hadn't seen the message because I muted her, which I'd told her and theater woman I was going to do so I wouldn't have to worry about reading such troubling things.

She messaged me and said, "That's what happens when you mute someone -- ME." I wrote her back that I'd forgotten about it (I had) and that I couldn't get the dog as I don't have a way to secure it: my house has cats, and my back yard isn't secure. It didn't have a collar, either, and I'm not picking up a strange dog.

She wrote back a LONG thing that I only skimmed, but it included "threw this baby out to the coyotes" and ended with "at least when I go to bed at night, I sleep well knowing that I tried to make the world a better place."

On the one hand, it was ridiculous enough to make me roll my eyes. On the other, I DON'T LIKE BEING ATTACKED. But I just deleted her messages and literally quit Nextdoor (they wouldn't let me step down as a lead until I found a replacement and NO ONE wants to do it).

I was full of that energy, that "do something!" buzzing alllll night. I knew, KNEW that when I woke up this morning, I'd be fine. But it was a long, slow burn. I kept thinking of responses like, "Well, a coyote has to eat." And pointing out that it's actually illegal in Jonestown to harbor a stray or lost pet. Also, having people over violates the stay-home orders. I guess I was crazy to think posting a picture and location of a dog might help someone instead of being a heartless act.

Sleep came. And this morning, I WAS fine.

But it got me to thinking: What if I'm a person who damages things around me without knowing it? D's therapy helped me to see some things that, even though I know them now, I'm not sure how to fix.   D's therapist recommended I get some clinical support, as well... and I might, but it feels like I'm not sure how/when that will fit into my life.

At least I can work on this until then.

"A momentary madness."

I can breathe through the moment. I can try to notice the heat creeping up my spine before it gets here. I can take better care of myself and the ones around me. That gives me something to work on while we're staying in.