Anger

From an early age I have had issues with anger. As an over-emotional tyke, my reactions ran the gamut. In the case of some sort of pain or emotional hurt, my mind immediately flashed with white-hot anger and I started to cry shortly thereafter. As a teen, that anger turned into punching doors or walls and throwing telephones. While there were pretty typical things that triggered my anger it was always boiling just under the surface, waiting for an excuse to be turned loose on an inanimate object.

I remember my father punching a hole in a wall in the hallway of the home in which we grew up as a reaction to hitting his head on the corner of an open cabinet door. This stuck with me as a way that a man might express his anger when things got tough and served as all the excuse that I needed for acting out on the anger I often felt.

While my childhood and teen years were relatively great in a big-picture sense, I had a lot of deep-seated insecurity and hurt. I was an overweight, nerdy white kid and until eighth grade I went to schools where I was surrounded by people that were NOT LIKE ME. I unspectacularly tried to play sports or find some other non-nerdy niche without a heck of a lot of success so I eventually just tried to be the funny guy. That at least seemed to help bridge the gap between my “Revenge of the Nerds” existence and the Michael Jordan/James Dean/Miles Davis super cool kids by which I seemed to be surrounded.

This didn’t always work and I spent more time feeling hurt and angry than I did feeling liked (although I never lacked for familial love). My desire was simple: I just wanted EVERYONE to like me. One or two other guys thinking I was cool weren’t enough; to be honest twenty or more people probably wouldn’t have been enough to overcome the horrendous self-perception I held. As a natural-born fixator I couldn’t see the friends but could always remember the insults and as a result I stayed angry even when I seemed happy.

When alcohol was added to the mix in my late teens my temper went from volatile to full-blown explosion in 0.2 seconds. I was a wild card, and to be honest I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was attention that I viewed as respect or admiration; in truth I was a train wreck in the making so people often couldn’t look away. What would I say this time? How would I react? Who would I cuss out or threaten? What would I smash?

That edginess was my way of insulating from my insecurities, which had honestly only been magnified by the injuries from my wreck. I knew I’d never feel physically whole again and much worse than that my mind, so long the defense upon which I could always rely, would never again be such a capable ally.

Much of the anger I felt was dissipated when I was forced in treatment to come out from behind the mask of alcohol, drugs and rage to which I was so accustomed and to get honest with myself and everyone else. I was humbled and broken, mentally and spiritually beaten and humiliated and I was tired of lying and living out of my emotions.

Another factor in my life has had what some who don’t really understand it might find to be a counterintuitive effect: my time training in mixed martial arts. While I don’t get into the training room at SSF very often right now, my mind is never far from it and I certainly haven’t forgotten the constant ego-checks and the lesson that anger doesn’t often (if ever) serve to do anything besides make you tired.

I do still get angry. At times I get very angry. I get angry with the people of this world with closed minds or hearts. I find moments of rage when rejected or slighted.  I hate myself each and every time I fail or fall short in the least way. I am a man of faith who gets angry with my Higher Power when things happen that I don’t understand.

The difference is that now I neither have to dwell in it nor run from it. I can and will acknowledge it and seek out its’ roots. I know that most often my anger is a direct reflection of something that I dislike within myself. As with most everything negative that exists in my world my issue begins with me, whether it’s a matter of ego or insecurity (or both. If you’ve hung on with me this long you already know the addict’s persona is that of an egomaniac without an ounce of self-esteem).

A horrible picture of a man is that which is painted while he is controlled by his emotions. That doesn’t have to be me today. I hope it won’t be again, but if it does I know how to get right back to the place where I belong. That path is always clear and will exist no matter the collateral damage I perpetrate.