I’m angry.

Well, no change there then. But angry in a different kind of way than you might expect. I’m forever angry because i was always made to feel like i had no right to be angry, because i was always at fault and it was me that caused everything bad in my family. I’m angry that i wasn’t allowed to be angry, and i’m angry i was pushed around and hurt in the first place. I’m angry that i have been abused and taken for granted. It’s carried on into my adult life and only now i am strong enough to demand i not be spoken to in an abusive way or treated like a disposable fast food packet doubling as a dartboard. And when i am hurt, lied to or treated with disrespect i get very angry about it.

Anger’s just a feeling. It doesn’t mean you will destroy the world even though you are pretty certain you will by the way you feel. It’s just a feeling that needs to be expressed, and it’s terrifying as you feel like you will careering out of control if you do. In some respects i am lucky as i am so used to anger that i can take virtually anyone’s. Get in the gym with me and you can be certain i can take whatever you can dish out and a lot more on top of that. Anger is something i understand.

But i have never, and i repeat, NEVER, attacked anyone who i believed that didn’t actually deserve the full force of my anger. I have never attacked anyone physically or emotionally who i believed to be totally innocent, without any leading cause or provocation. If i have attacked you, the chances are you attacked me in response to something pretty fucking bad you’d done. If it was right, just and fair, i would have sulked and been irritable. But if it was extremely hurtful, cold, insensitive or unprovoked, you can guarantee a very destructive response.

Anger’s just another way of shouting to someone that you feel they don’t care about you. Most people who have known me for a long time will know all too well that if i’ve attacked someone, they have done something to merit it. Most people i have asked about what they think my “character” is always mention “honest” or “truthful” as their first descriptive term. No, i’m not 100% righteous in always been honest all the time, but it is absolutely a key value of mine. If you are saying or doing something that is hurting me, i can never attack anyone who i sense is being absolutely honest. There is nothing i can say or do to the truth as you become reconciled to it very quickly.

I’m also a pretty crap Christian when it comes to anger and turning the other cheek. I really, really refuse to turn that cheek over for another slap. I take a leaf out of the Satanic Bible when it comes to rolling over like a spaniel – that if someone slaps you across one cheek, smack them 1000x harder back to make sure they know you are not to be disrespected or abused, and will never try the same thing again. It’s what i learned to survive. Hurt me in a way that i can sense is selfish, dishonest or makes no real sense and i will really hurt you back. It may not be very spiritual, but it will keep my kids safe.

You need to read that one again. I know life hurts and you can’t have everything you want. It’s NOT the case that you can’t say things to me that may hurt because i’ll lash out. It’s only when i sense bullshit, coldness, dishonesty or total confusion from the person who’s hurting me. If it’s a rather dramatic approach to the situation that hasn’t been thought through or is evenly cowardly, those things get to me more than what you’re actually saying. The angry response will be more about your cowardice than it will me being hurt as i’ll get over it.

I learned in school that the bullies would always come back for another piece of you if you showed them you would accept their violence. Telling a teacher never works out to be anything other than a way to advertise yourself for more abuse. The only way you won was to make it more of hassle for them than it was worth. And it took more than one occasion because they would keep coming back. I got up and smacked them back 10x harder each time they came for me, and eventually became a bully of the bullies. It’s what i will teach my own kids.

What’s been happening to me lately is that i’ve been coming to understand why i have been putting myself into situations where i attract people who are abusive (and maybe don’t mean it or know they are doing it), and once it’s started, not being able to pull away from the situation itself. I always wondered if i had a sign on my head saying “abuse me” in capital letters.

What’s happening is that message of “you may not abuse me” is sinking down into my soul to form part of me. I’m learning that not taking any shit is a part of my character, but opening myself up to abuse is a part of my emotional programming. There has always been this immense conflict between those 2 things in my own heart and mind and it’s consumed vast amounts of my energy trying to reconcile them. It manifests in a strange Jekyll & Hyde way, but once the programming has been resolved to my character i think it will lift.

And i guess that’s a huge problem we all face and don’t understand – that what we’ve been programmed to do is fundamentally different to who we are inside.

I’m angry because i have been treated like i’m somehow illegitimate for the last few months, and that i wasn’t allowed to be angry and hurt about that, and nothing got done about it. The severity of that anger got me painted out to be a monster. I’ve been attacked and hurt, and then attacked back, to be called even more of a monster. But i’ve also been made to feel very guilty for being angry in the first place.

There are many abusive and manipulative people out there who have totally programmed their children to believe they have no right to be angry. They’re wrong. Everyone has that right. No excuses, no controls, no conventions, no special circumstances. Everyone has the right to feel wronged and be angry about it. You won’t lose who you love by being angry, and even if you feel out of control you won’t be.

But what’s changed in me is going from both ends of the scale in one month alone – from being totally loving and supportive (i was told i was trying too hard) to say “fuck right off” (when i was told i was scary). I’ve started to see where the manipulation comes in when it comes to controlling people by making them feel guilty. Maybe i’m reaching a point of moderation and honesty here. Whatever i said and did i was wrong, which got me thinking.

It’s a very potent combination to use the “i’m a poor helpless victim who isn’t responsible for any of this and doesn’t deserve to suffer your hideous and unwarranted aggression” and the infliction of some idea that you are a bad person. It’s a control structure. It’s a way of keeping someone’s anger at bay. Playing the victim is a nice way of avoiding any responsibility, never having to deal with other people’s real problems with your behaviour and getting a whole load of attention in with the bargain.

The consequence of you mistreating me is that i will be angry and upset about it. If you have behaved in a way that has upset me (and reasonably), then you are responsible for what you have done and can resolve that anger by genuinely apologising, and crucially, making it better.

Nothing makes me angrier than someone knowing there is a problem, knowing the answer and just sitting there and doing nothing about it. It’s pointless. If you can prevent the pain or avoid the problem, you act to deal with it before it strikes, not just sit there like a rabbit in the headlights going on to complaining about what a mess things are.

I do have a reason and a right to be angry. It’s normal and expected to feel a hell of a load of anger for being sidelined. And i also agree that anger has to be proportionate, because i have been guilty of over-reaching many times and doing too much damage. It’s a fine balancing act and i get it wrong a lot. Maybe i can’t control you, what you feel or what you do, but i can control me. And that means that if you abuse me, you’ll get a massive emotional punch back and/or i’m walking out. If you think i’m being unreasonable, then tell me and explain why. Otherwise, you may just find yourself on the end of a pretty vicious smack in the face you thought i was too weedy to give you.

I noticed this new trend in me to take no shit quite a few times over the last few days. Tonight i was just walking through my dad’s place to leave for the night and i got a whole load of abuse. I was pissed off in a big way, but the sheer force in how i dealt with it shocked me. I made it very clear that he had no right to talk to me in that way, totally refused to answer his interrogation and stated it up front that i would answer him if he approached me with respect for me being a human being and not a person to be abused. But it was said very harshly indeed, not like some kind of new-age wishy-washy thinker trying out assertiveness for the first time. It was from the gut – DON’T ABUSE ME.

So i guess i’m getting back to basics. It doesn’t matter how much i care about you or how much you supposedly care about me, you can get fucked if you think you can abuse me because i’ll lose you, them and everything else before i lose that part of me that knows it’s worth something.