Steam is practically puffing out of my ears I’m so angry about a work-related e-mail exchange today. I read the offending e-mail right before it was time to take the boy up for his bath, so I tried desperately to be in the moment — while simultaneously taking deep breaths and mentally composing my reply — while I bathed him and went through the usual nighttime routine.
I think I have always had a pretty bad temper. I say “I think” because I also think I became pretty good at suppressing emotions like this at some point. I remember being downright scared of my feelings, and also thinking that my father and I were alike in the intensity of our anger. And I certainly didn’t think that was a good thing. We didn’t get along so well when I was an adolescent, in part because of our mutual tendency toward snap emotional responses.
One example that stands out in my mind, probably because it must have mortified my father, is once, when I was maybe 12, and we were playing touch football in a family member’s backyard. It was at a big family get-together and a lot of folks were hanging out on the sidelines and on the patio. And, as we played, my father, at least the way I saw it, began cheating. He made the same cheating move several times, and, after screaming at him about it, I exploded with rage, scratching him in the face with my fingernails. It wasn’t like I planned it. I just lashed out in some primal way.
After incidents like that — I can’t even remember the aftermath, but it couldn’t have been good — I began to think of my temper as something dangerous. And, in fact, even by today’s standards, it was. I scratched my father in the face, after all. (Still, he shouldn’t have been cheating in a game with kids, for goodness’ sake. Most parents would let the kids win. How pathetic. See? I’m still angry.) And I also remember my little brother aggravating me to the point where I beat him with a chain-link dog leash.
Even yesterday, I fell over the edge after my son deliberately spilled milk all over the floor, for the second or third time in an evening, after having been told dozens of times that “milk is for drinking.” Ok, so it might not have been completely deliberate — he was likely trying to water the little plants we’ve been trying to grow — but he forcefully took the top off a sippy cup when it had been put there precisely to avoid that kind of situation. And I’d just told him, seconds before, not to open it. See? I’m still angry about this, too. But I’m embarrassed at how I reacted then — with full minutes of screaming, which included telling him that he would never get another cup of milk again. Ever. While he sobbed.
And lately the depths of my pissed-off-ness at my husband have been amazing. We regularly spend some of our precious time on the phone, or in person, screaming at one another. Yes, it’s a joy. Honestly, in that case, I think it’s a good thing. He’s so dense sometimes that he doesn’t realize how selfish he is being, or what damage he’s doing to the family, by some of his actions.
But, generally, my anger scares me. When it’s intense, I feel it in some deep part of my body, and my reaction is to lash out physically — to scratch, hit, throw, scream. I feel like something precious and core to my being is being attacked, and I want to defend myself in some way that makes the other person tuck their tail between their legs and leave me the heck alone.
So, I’m torn. My anger does still frighten me. I fear I’m going to damage something irreparably with my lashing out. My son’s psyche and trust in me, perhaps. My reputation at my job. My relationship with my husband. But swallowing my anger only serves to make it more intense, and maybe self-directed, because I’m not honoring my feelings. I begin to think I must be pretty pathetic, if I don’t love myself enough to believe that my negative emotions, as well as my positive ones, have value.
Until I started writing this, I don’t believe that I was aware of what a role anger might be playing in my life, my eating life. Maybe I need to take an anger management class or something. Anyway, at least I no longer have steam coming out of my ears. But I do worry a little bit about the reaction I’ll get to the e-mail I sent a little while ago. Oh, well…