i wrote this in may2009…. i had hit my rock-bottom and was beginning the process of getting back on my feet. i still had a lot of anger at that point (obviously), but at the same time i was working my ass off to find out what was really causing all of the insanity in my life and the extreme emotions that i was experiencing on a day to day basis.
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this is my attempt to control my anger.
i can either get it all out or hold it in longer and then go psychobitch on someone.
cuz im so pissed right now that i can barely breathe. and my heart is beating harder and faster than i would have imagined possible. i want to say these things out loud, but i know that the person i need to say them to will not listen unless i stay “calm,” which isn’t possible when i have emotions this strong. thoughts and feelings that i have held back for years and years. scared that they didn’t make sense to anyone else. and scared that i would spend so much energy and time on putting words to something that would be shot down within 2 seconds, or that i just wouldn’t be heard. who knows, maybe you will stumble upon this one day. or maybe one day you will be open to hearing me actually say it. if i can even put it to words..
well..here goes i guess..its gonna be choppy, but keep in mind this is about 18 years worth of anger and pain and frustration that i’m trying to translate into words rather than just the jumble of thoughts and conclusions swirling around in my head..
i fucking HATE hypocrites. i hate when people deny things that they know are true. how am i supposed to trust you and believe that you care about me if you deny ever yelling at me or swearing at me? you want specific examples. um hmm lets see does THIS MORNING ring a bell?!
i hate when people jump to conclusions. i hate when people assume they know everything. here’s a wake up call. YOU DO NOT FUCKING KNOW SHIT ABOUT ME.
maybe if you actually listened for once you would know a little. yeah you know facts and things about my life but you do not know ME. who i am as a person. what makes me smile. because if you did and if you meant everything you say, then we would not be in the predicament would we? NEWS FLASH! i never STOPPED trying to find the right kind of support for my situation, even after being told that someone would find something that was a better fit for me and then call me and keep me updated, when in reality what happened was they called my mentor and told her that it just wasn’t a good fit. i haven’t heard from anyone about any of it [besides my mentor] since i went to that meeting. and its been what? a month and a half? almost two months now? so much for calling me in a couple of days. but i didn’t give up. i still haven’t stopped looking. so how dare u fucking say the shit you said to me today? talking to me as if i was just another stupid little girl who didn’t know anything and who was letting everyone control her. BITCH PLEASE IM STRONGER THAN IVE EVER BEEN IM DETERMINED TO MAKE MY LIFE BETTER IM DETERMINED TO DO SOMETHING WITH MY LIFE IM DETERMINED TO HELP PEOPLE WITH WHAT I HAVE LEARNED THROUGH MY OWN MISTAKES AND EXPERIENCES. SO DONT EVEN FUCKING THINK ABOUT SAYING SOME SHIT LIKE THAT TO ME.
you see me as weak for the mistakes i have made. but guess what? at least i can learn something from them. at least i’m trying to change and not just SAYING that i’m trying to change. for such a long time i have been working on controling my anger. im not going to lie and say that im great at it, because im still working on it. but at least i don’t blow it off and ignore how much it hurts people and then all of a sudden “try” to “change” when someone different is upset by it. i can’t even express to you how much it hurts that no matter what i did or how much it bothered me i could never get you to even consider changing.
just because our responses to your anger were different does not mean that i deserved it any more than any other person. my reaction after a while was in self-defense. i had to get angry too. i had to show you how shitty it felt to be sworn at every two seconds. i had to show you how shitty it felt to have someone screaming at you and giving you the impression that everything is your fault. i felt as though i had tried everything else and that this was my only other hope in showing you how much you were hurting me and how much of an affect these things had on me. unfortunately, it did not work out as i planned. you still didn’t understand. but i became so accustomed to anger and felt so much safer with anger as my “armor” from the world, that i carried it with me for years. if anything negative even came my way it was as if a switch were flipped in my head. *click* RAGE. part of me hated living like that, but i was so confused about what was “normal” or what was “right” and what wasn’t alright. all the lines of what is acceptable started to get fuzzy. my head was filled with conflicting, spinning, racing thoughts. i made myself dizzy and more confused every time i tried to figure it all out. so eventually i just gave in. this is normal. anger is normal. yelling is normal. this is what people do. even to those that they care about and love. [[can you even imagine how it felt to see that when someone else was bothered by your swearing and yelling, even though it wasn’t directed at her, you began to change for her. can you even fathom how much it hurt to see you make an effort to not even swear around her, but still yelling and swearing at me as if i wasn’t good enough for your new “changes.” and i know if you were to read this you would get angry right now. but stop and just listen to what im saying for once. I’M NOT DISCREDITING YOU FOR THE WORK YOU DID TO CHANGE, AND I AM ACKNOWLEDGING THAT YOU HAVE MADE A LOT OF PROGRESS WITH YOUR ANGER, EVEN TOWARDS ME, BUT THE POINT IM TRYING TO GET ACROSS IS THAT ITS NOT ALRIGHT FOR YOU TO YELL AND SWEAR AT ME WHENEVER YOU WANT BUT THEN GET MAD WHEN I ACCIDENTALLY SWEAR IN FRONT OF HER. AND THEN WHAT DO YOU DO? YOU YELL AT ME! CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT KIND OF SENSE THAT MAKES?! CUZ TO ME THAT JUST SEEMS HYPOCRITICAL. I APPRECIATE THE CHANGES THAT YOU HAVE MADE IT JUST FRUSTRATES AND HURTS ME THAT I TRIED FOR YEARS TO GET YOU TO CHANGE, I DID EVERYTHING I COULD THINK OF. AND THEN I LEAVE FOR NINE AND A HALF MONTHS AND COME BACK AND U FINALLY DECIDED TO MAKE A CHANGE, BUT NOT BECAUSE YOU REALIZED THAT YOU WERE HURTING PEOPLE AROUND YOU AND THAT ITS NOT FAIR TO THOSE WHO YOU TAKE YOUR ANGER OUT ON, BUT BECAUSE HER ANXIETY MADE HER VERY SENSITIVE TO YELLING AND SWEARING.
but that’s not my main focus in what im trying to put to words here. i’ve talked to you about that before. many many times. but you never want to listen, because it is hard for me to talk to you about it after holding in that anger for so long…there is a lot that you have done or said to me that still hurts me to this day that i don’t bring up because i don’t feel that you would listen, let alone care about what i was saying.
[[but anyways, moving on]]
did it ever occur to you that maybe i was susceptible to certain things because of what i grew up around? yelling and swearing were just another part of my daily life. to me? that was normal. that was how people treated you when the “loved” and cared about you.
who knows, maybe you actually forgot all of the shit i went through because of you. maybe you just don’t want to accept that there is more than one person who hurt me [a lot] throughout my life. i don’t expect you to ever accept that you have had an effect on how i turned out. i turn to anger because i thought that was what i was supposed to do. not only was it “safer” but i figured it must be helpful in some way. i mean, you’re very successful, so if i conduct myself in the same way that you did around me all of my life, maybe i could be successful too?
now don’t get me wrong i am not BLAMING anyone. i am aware that i made my own choices and that no one is responsible for my actions and decisions but me. however what i am saying is that you DID have a big effect on the way i behave/behaved throughout my life. maybe effect isn’t the best word…i guess its more accurate to say that you have “significantly influenced” my behaviors and choices since i was a little girl. i just took things to a different level i guess. the traits i picked up from you presented themselves differently in me, but when i look back and think about how the hell i ended up here, i can see.. i learned at a very young age that anger was the answer. swearing makes you feel better. yelling helps you calm down. i’m sure you did not intend to teach me these things. i do not believe that you even were aware that this is what i was “learning” from so much of my childhood “environment.” i estimate that for about 97% of my life, my primary emotion was anger. can you imagine how surprised i was when in anger management i was told that it wasn’t even an emotion, that it was a secondary emotion? i did not want to believe that there was something behind my anger. “oh. no this can’t be me they’re talking about” i thought, “i’m just an angry person. that’s just how i was born.” throughout the nine and a half months that i spent in utah, focusing on my “issues” and what was behind them, i realized how much hurt i was holding in.
apparently young ally didn’t like being yelled at all the time. and the anger was an attempt to block out any hurt. i guess i had always known that, but i never realized how extreme it was in my case. i literally felt NOTHING but anger and rage and frustration. hell, i was even diagnosed as a rage-o-holic. though that “diagnosis” was not a technical or official one, it was the only way to even come close to describing the toxic levels of this secondary emotion. a poison that lingered in each and every cell in my body, contaminating my blood while forcing its way to my heart. pumped through each and every vein and vessel from head to toe, this parasite left my heart covered in countless scars.
soon those scars fuzed together, mutating my heart into one made of stone.
because that was the only way that i had known to protect myself.
protect myself from dangers unknown.
my perception on reality was skewed by my anger. once i realized that not everyone was angry all the time, the first thing i hoped for was that YOU would be able to overcome YOUR anger issues. it scared me to think that i might not have my anger to protect me anymore. i might actually have to FEEL the hurt that was caused by the constant yelling in my childhood and adolescence. and what if i changed but you never did? would you continue to take your anger out on me? would you continue to scream and swear at me as if i was nothing? because without my anger as a shield, that is what i felt. worthless. nothing. nada. a piece of shit. a mistake. the problem child. everything was MY fault. logically i knew that all of those things were not true, but emotionally and psychologically, they made sense. why else would someone be talking to me like this?
after digging deeper into the hurt and pain behind all of my anger, i realized that i was more comfortable around people who were as angry as me.. or actually… people who were as angry as you. i didn’t trust someone if they were able to control their anger. in my head, they were fake. so is it really that much of a surprise that i, with my own anger, hurt, and doubts of myself, could get caught up in the games and manipulation? is it a surprise that even though things started out great, i was more comfortable when things started to go wrong and the anger that i saw in myself and in those who had a big influence on my life, started to come from a person who was supportive of me through all of my insanity?
i have developed HUGE trust issues throughout my life, but along with them came a desire to hold on to some of the people that hurt me the most. who else would stick with me through all the CRAZYNESS? i realize now that that is not logical, but it doesn’t make it any easier to let go of someone who helped me though a lot of my issues, even though they hurt me so much. i DO have a lot of anger towards them. and i DO have a lot of anger towards you. and it FRUSTRATES me that you try and put all the focus on ONE PERSON who hurt me, when in fact, you yourself hurt me a lot too. it may not have been in the same ways, but i hope that one day you will understand what i am trying to get across to you.
the way you talked to me and treated me and tried to keep me “under control” was NOT ALRIGHT. there are issues that have stemmed from that that i am still not able to address or even put words to.
i just hope that one day you can begin to understand. i’m not looking for an apology. i just want you to accept that you were a big influence in my life, for the good and the bad.
i know this is focused on the negative but these are just things that i need to get off of my chest. things i can’t say to you. things i wish i could say to you. things that have taken me YEARS to put words to.
to this day i still feel as though i have disappointed you and as though i still am the “difficult” one.
when all is said and done, maybe that is really my biggest fear..
fear nothing. trust wisely. 