Anger

I don’t like anger. I hate angry people. A lot of what I remember from my childhood is related to fear of my father getting angry. It didn’t even have to be the typical yelling, or the throwing things, or the physically hurting me that made me scared first. It was the way that he looked at me. Have you ever really looked into the eyes of someone who is about to lose it because they are angry at you? His eyes turned black, his facial expression was tense, almost manic. And I was in absolute panic. I didn’t know what to do to not make him explode. Because when he had that look, there was no turning back. I knew I was going to get it.

That utter panic that was caused by seeing an angry person, and knowing that there was nothing you could do about their anger exploding on you, really turns you primal. It turned me primal. I remember trying to run away, to hide, and to also try to calm him down. Profusely apologizing, trying to change the topic, offering submission. But nothing helped, so my brain learnt to use the tool of dissociation. I just became numb and not inside my body anymore. All the things that were done to my body during my childhood, I dissociated from.

But that moment when you recognized the threat, when you see the anger. That moment of primal fear? I still get that every time I recognize anger in another person. I get instantly triggered and it can throw me into a flashback, or I just dissociate. I can come across really aloof when someone is having an argument with me. I freeze and just let it all rain down on me, not showing any emotional response. And believe me, people get even more irritated and experience it as you trying to be superior to them if you don’t react with anger as well, or at least trying to calm the situation.

I have been lucky though – I have been able to stay away from people with anger issues. My ex-husband was very chill and in our 12 year relationship we maybe had two proper fights during which he got angry. After our break-up, he became very emotionally unstable and there were times when he yelled, when he even threatened me with hurting me. I reacted with flashbacks, screaming in utter emotional pain, and hiding. I remember an instance when I had run out of the apartment we were still sharing (poor people problem) because he had been threatening me, and had gone into psychosis. So I spent the night wandering the streets. When I went back home, he was still angry, so I just sat on a chair in the kitchen for three hours. And he yelled at me. For three hours. And I had absolutely no emotional reaction. I just wanted it to be over with. He apologized for his behaviour later on, and I forgave him. I knew that that wasn’t typically him.

My current partner is very aware of my triggers and doesn’t express anger in a threatening way. Every now and then, he raises his voice, and I get triggered instantly. I am so very appreciative that he is trying to not trigger me. I am lucky that I don’t often run into angry people. And when I do, I just get away as quickly as possible.

I don’t like anger. So I have never been someone to be prone to anger. Up until a few years, you could count the times I have had an angry outburst on one hand. I can become passive aggressive, or I can strongly express my boundaries. But generally, I try to be calm, and swallow my anger. I think it has partly to do with that I got punished for showing any strong emotions as a child, and I just never knew how to express my feelings. And I fared alright with that, until my anxiety issues took over. Everything I experienced on an emotional level, no matter the primary emotion, came out as anxiety.

But the last few years, sometimes the emotion that comes out is anger. I don’t like it. I hate it. It scares me. Because it seems so uncontrollable. I don’t think the system (like, all the different parts of me) has anger issues, but sometimes triggers can lead to an angry outburst. There is yelling, rudeness, throwing things. The strong need to just smash something. I don’t want to feel that way, and I definitely don’t want anyone to be the target of my anger. Unfortunately my partner is often who triggered me by mistake, and then, boom. And I feel so so shit about it.

Logically, I know that anger is a normal emotion. Everyone experiences anger. And anger can and needs to be validated. There is a reason for it to exist: to stay stop, to establish boundaries, to defend yourself. But anger often leads to behaviour that is unacceptable. I know all that. It is okay to feel anger. It is not okay to have uncontrolled anger outbursts.

I have such a confusing and ambivalent reaction to my anger outbursts. I partly feel absolutely terrible about it. I almost feel like I am becoming an abuser like my father has been. I beat myself up about it. I can’t even validate the anger because I feel I could have reacted differently even on an emotional level. Or I should have, could have, expressed my anger in an adult, calm way – establishing boundaries in a determined way. I really don’t want to feel anger, and I wish I had more control over it. Because in a way, I don’t really have control over it, and I might not be the one that needs to actually find better ways to express it. But still, I feel so much responsibility. And sometimes I think, I should just stay away from all people – so I don’t become the abuser that I have been scared of so much all my life.

And then there is this other reaction, that could be inside me simultaneously with the regret, after an outburst. It is a sense of that I am allowed to to be angry. That what happened of course made me angry because it felt like my boundaries were being violated or I was being put down for some reason. And I still have the strong need to fucking rip the place apart. It is this strong pressure that needs to get out. I feel almost entitled to express that.

I assume that the healthiest reaction to my own anger would be somewhere in the middle – validating that it is an emotion that I am supposed to experience, and also finding healthier ways to express that feeling. Well, fuck. How does one get to that place? I rather just want it all to go away.

At the moment, I am so confused with why this has been happening the last few years, when I have never behaved that way before. I honestly never had a proper fight in my life other than maybe with my siblings when we were young. I don’t yell, I don’t get rude, I don’t throw things around. And I absolutely do not like that this is me now. Sometimes. These outbursts seem to be more common when I am in a mixed or hypomanic bipolar episode is happening. And that makes sense, because I just feel more on edge then. And well, I have become aware of the DID system only a few years ago – and ever since then, the switching, the different parts coming out – has become something that happens all the time. So I am sure that the anger outbursts are related to some specific parts. Because they just don’t feel like me. I am not an angry person. Fuck. I really hate anger.

I just feel like a stupid hypocrite. I get triggered badly, to the extreme of flashbacks, when someone gets angry with me and in any way seems threatening. And here I am, getting anger outbursts and behaving exactly the way that makes me feel like shit. My brain is such a confusing shitty place.