When Anger is Enough

Here is where I would write why I’ve been away from writing for so long, how it’s good to be back, and some goal that I would have for writing again. Let’s hold those thoughts for another day, why don’t we... In the meantime, I’ll be here with this.

I’ve been thinking lately about a session with my therapist that involved a pillow and a rubber hose. It was supposed to be an exercise in expressing anger, but mostly it was an exercise in uncomfortable silence interspersed with awkward giggles. 

Despite very simple instructions, I could not – Could Not – hit that pillow with a rubber hose. Looking back, I can better name that day’s emotions: embarrassed, frustrated, ridiculous, stupid, alone, vulnerable. I did not walk into our session feeling that way, at least not that I recall. Instead, those feelings swirled themselves up out of nowhere when I was told to hit a faded throw pillow with an arm’s length of rubber tubing.

Thing is, I’m not that great at getting angry. I mean what did that old pillow ever do to me? I just chalked the whole exercise up as one for the “didn’t work for me” column on my therapy card.

2015. Unresolved Anger. (Photograph). April 17, 2016. 

from: http://eccentriceclectic.wordpress.com

I don’t like feeling angry. I don’t like what it does to me on the inside. I feel out of control when I’m angry, completely exposed. I didn’t grow up around a lot of anger – a reality I’m only just beginning to appreciate as much as I should. I am unbelievably lucky to have the privilege of basically being a stranger to anger. No one in my childhood used anger as a way of controlling me. Not that I didn’t make my parents mad sometimes. But there’s a huge difference between someone being mad about something, and a person who manipulates and controls through anger and fear. One is completely normal and even useful. The other is abuse.

Still, anger was never my first stop when something didn’t go my way or when someone treated me unfairly. I was more likely to shut down, to turn into myself, or to hide from whatever was happening. My “fight or flight” response was a little more “laugh or leave.” Either I’d turn the situation into a joke (sidenote: it took a while to stop making jokes at my own expense) or I’d find a way to back out. 

Over ten years ago, I had a relationship that went incredibly sour in ways that overwhelmed me. In one incident, I stood on the receiving end of an anger that I had never had to face before. My shutdown response was so strong that I laid down in a public lobby and slept for two hours. Even in that relationship, when I had every reason and right to get angry, I chose two years of silence, excuses, pacification, and submission. I chose to hold on to pain, hurt, humiliation, and so much more, rather than express any anger.

And to tell the truth – I thought that made me a better person. But it didn’t. It mostly made me a doormat and a liar.

Because even though I really WAS angry, I just couldn’t BE angry. I couldn’t handle those emotions, the same ones that came up in a whirlwind when my therapist told me to hit a defenseless couch cushion. I could not be angry, because if I was angry then I was vulnerable. If I was angry, it meant letting someone see me at my most ridiculous, even if that person was myself.

Learning to be vulnerable, angry, and ridiculous is changing my life. I have learned through many mistakes, uncomfortable therapy sessions, and bumpy relationships that I will not always come out on top. 

I wish that anger led to answers. Because I have a lot of questions right now. I’d like to know why love isn’t enough to change the way we speak to each other. I’d like to know the exact moment when a child will have the light of hope snuffed out. I’d like to know how to stop that moment from happening without tearing families apart. I’d like to know if we will ever create adequate words for when impossibly bad things happen.

I’d like some sort of promise that if I just get angry enough an answer will come. I would slay a thousand defenseless pillows for a just a glimpse. 

I wish that vulnerability had a guarantee. Sometimes it just hurts so damn much. Then other times, it’s the only thing that saves me from completely losing a grip on my soul. Isn’t that what being vulnerable is? Letting your soul out to play and hoping against all odds that it will find a soft place. That somehow it will both fly and find roots?

But there is no guarantee to be had; there are no promised answers. There is just what is left at the end of the day. There is just this ridiculous band of misfits that continues to tie their boats together. We are creating our own safe spaces, where cracks of daylight are caught and shared among the needy. We stand on the water, as the ridiculous children we are, and fling our arms out because we somehow know we are made stronger through trusting the water despite the waves.

I’m going to be unpacking this idea of anger for my whole life I think, learning how to bring it out into the light of day. But at least I don’t have to do it alone. 

Khan, F. (Photographer). 2011. Tied Up. (Photograph). April 17, 2016. 

from: http://blogs.wsj.com