I'm afraid to be angry
I had only ever known anger as a weapon.
TW: This piece contains brief reference to self harm.
I’m the oldest of three siblings. I’m an eldest daughter through and through, and I’ll never let you forget it. As a child, I was rife with the need for control, perfection, power, validation, and pride. In many ways I still am, though perhaps not as overtly. I want to be seen and heard, and the emotional lifeforce manning the switchboard in my mind makes sure I am. If the switches are flipped in any deviating order, the whole system will combust. Anyone who tries to touch or take over is a threat, and must be treated accordingly.
I’ve had a temper my whole life. My family calls it The Wrath of Helena, a term that most often incited annoyance at their judgement of me, other times prompted an eye roll at their dramatization, or, very rarely, pinched the tender core of my being in a way that made me sick to know they were right.
My anger is a deadly, convulsive energy locked away in my abdomen. The doors shuddering in threatening pulses. I see it released in the back seat of the family van in clenched teeth and a sharp twist of the arm of my sister. In the slam of a bedroom door signaling a sour end to game night. In hot tears at the finish line of a race—nauseous with raging shame. In the thin upper-thigh scars and pillow-muffled screams coldly denying any notion of hope, forgiveness, or worth.
My anger is a weight driven by failure. My family pokes fun when a simple card game drives me to tears, when in actuality my emotions were just distracted enough for my anger to unbolt the doors and slip out, disguised as a Phase 10 loss. “See?” it tells me. “Can’t even win here.” A single shortcoming signifies foundational incapability, unworthiness, and innate badness.
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I learned how to regulate my emotions eventually. Any misstep (of which there were many) was learned to exist as a separate moment—unattached from my goodness as a human being. I couldn’t even say it at first. “I am worthy as I am.” It felt like a lie. Pure, unadulterated bullshit. A silly little phrase floating outside my body, with no resemblance to the likeness of my self whatsoever. Meaningless.
I was bad, incapable of goodness or achievement or acceptance. And that was terminal. For the rest of my life, I would have to fight to meet impossibly high standards, which would be futile nonetheless because I would never surpass them. I was doomed.
I had only ever known anger as a weapon. A bomb that could detonate at any moment, shine a floodlight on my deficiencies and erupt in laughter at my failures. I don’t know how it happened, but at some point “I am worthy as I am” (pesky little thing) had wormed its way into my body and taken over the switchboard without me even knowing. Bitch.
The utterly unprecedented changing of the guard must have caused me to black out. I don’t remember how or when. I only know Before and After. B.A. (before acceptance) and A.A. (after acceptance).
This isn’t to say I was healed with the flip of a switch. But somewhere along the way, my uncontrollable anger became a thing of the past, of my childhood. And as soon as I had the clarity to look at my rage more clearly, see it as it was—unbridled rage—I panicked.
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I drove this realization to the deepest parts of my being. Afraid to acknowledge that had ever been me. Afraid of the inevitable outpouring of shame I would face if I dared to. This good, evolved self is all I’ve ever been, and not a single word shall be spoken about the empty cell in my abdomen with scratches on the door and holes punched in the walls.
Even still, I’m terrified to name my emotions as anger. Anxiety, fine. Sadness, fine. Fear, fine. But never anger.
Every once in a while it will return. Often in moments of overstimulation, noise, despair. Sneak in amongst the static just long enough to blind me from what I now know to be true—I am worthy as I am.
In those times, I worry it will overtake me. I know what it is capable of—what I am capable of. Ugly, unfeeling anger. Is this something I must come to coexist with, as I have done with my anxiety? Will any admission of guilt for the ways my anger has hurt others call back the waves of shame that captained my head for so long? Is it strong enough to bring me back to Before?
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Whenever my family remarks on The Wrath of Helena now, my husband lightly says he’s never seen it. He hasn’t. Surely I can’t go a lifetime without it resurfacing. He more than anyone reminds me I am worthy as I am. I desire so strongly to be seen, yet shudder at the thought of it actually happening.
I can see myself now. I am not angry.
Where I’ve seen myself
Daily: comfortable silence while on my own, the still moments in between the loud ones
Media: Cry Baby by The Greeting Committee, The News by Paramore, (You) On My Arm by Leith Ross
Here’s hoping we see ourselves as we truly are and don’t run away,
Helena