forget love; i wanna know what anger is…
I was given a homework assignment at my last therapy session: Forget about why I’m angry in any given situation, but try to make note of how I know I’m angry. At first, this felt much like asking someone how we know that the sky is blue. I don’t know; I just do. That would be the answer of my anger-neophytic self. The whole point of this exercise, and of my sessions of late, is to introduce me to Anger 101. I imagine it’s difficult for the average person to comprehend, but I don’t know how to be angry. Sometimes (typically), I don’t know how to recognize it for what it is.
I thought that I had been given the perfect opportunity to do this assignment today. Something happened, and everything pointed towards the conclusion of “I am angry”, or so it seemed. According to dictionary.com, anger is defined as such:
-noun
- a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.
Strong feeling of displeasure? Yes. But wrath? Ire? No, not really. I can recall times of experiencing blind rage. That was drastically different than what I felt today. So if I wasn’t angry, what the heck was I feeling? Let’s ponder annoyance:
-verb
- to disturb or bother (a person) in a way that displeases, troubles, or slightly irritates
Well, to be fair, I was more than “slightly” irritated. I was a lot irritated. I may have overreacted a bit… but I’m still at the point where I feel entitled to have felt wronged. Check back with me in a day or so, and I may see things differently (but probably not).
So what keeps me from making the leap from annoyed to angry? One thing keeps rising to the surface in all these ponderings of mine: Fear. Fear of… I’m not sure. What I’m sure of is that it is a paralyzing fear that causes me to get stuck in my obsessive thoughts. Fear that has, over the course of many years, led me to develop OCD tendencies. I’m not overly thrilled with having to acknowledge that, but I suppose it doesn’t help to ignore the fact, either. And don’t get me started on OCD vs. OCPD vs. anal retentiveness. That’s a completely separate blog post.
Fear.
Fear that I will be viewed as being overly sensitive because I get angry about things that (according to others) don’t matter? Ah, but that’s another thing I’m already good at – justifying my way away from being angry, because the issue at hand “isn’t worth it”. But if I convince myself that it isn’t worth it – that my feelings in regards to a specific circumstance aren’t worth it, I am essentially telling myself that I’m not worth it.
I’m telling you, it’s rough peeling away all these layers…
