i reach a point in this where i am asking myself again why i am doing it. no, that’s not quite right. i’m sitting here feeling like i am giving him more attention than he deserves. so somewhat wrestling with myself. i know the purpose and point of this is to help change my own negative reactions, but the process is to review it all and i find it to be a painful experience.
i remember what p said to me the other night. about how reviewing it often makes one feel as if one is reliving it, but in reality, it is not a reliving… just a remembering. he’s right. but stars, there are points in this that are really painful to remember.
and, of course, there is the reality that i am doing this for me, not for anyone else. and it is ok to dissect this and even remember it and yes, hurt for it, and move through it. i am moving through. this is the thing to remember. this is what matters.
deep breath. yes. that’s much better. ok. now. let’s talk about his anger.
this other would many times become extremely angry over the smallest of things, often making great and long-lasting tirades.
this other was the kind of person who expressed any stage of anger very poorly. in the initial stages, it was a passive-aggressive withdrawal… then a snideness, a sarcastic manner, then… an aggressive use of known information to deliberately injure and finally, if none of these ‘worked’ to get me to roll over and agree… the full-on tirade complete with cursing.
The thing that caused negativity here was the manner in which the progression from expecting me to roll over to insisting I do so or suffer his anger assumed so much about … well… everything.
It assumed he had the right to ask me to submit.
It assumed he was always right, and that discussion was not only unimportant, it was a challenge of his ‘rightness’.
It assumed the only possible reason for questions or disagreement was somehow personal.
These things created strong negativity in me for the lack of consideration they pointed to, and the complete lack of interest in anyone’s thoughts but his own.
It was, at core, carelessness and thoughtlessness. And it angered me in turn because … well… many reasons. Some having to do with him, some having to do with my own experiences, and some having to do with what we were trying to accomplish in that moment and how his actions so often impeded everything. Simply impacted it to the point of impossibility.
I know full well that I allowed him to spill all that anger onto me. And it was my fault utterly that I continued to experience it, because I chose to remain there and thus, set myself up for it time and again… and yes, part of the anger was for his inability to see beyond himself long enough to see what he was doing to others… not just me… I was often angry for all the ways his anger demonstrated how truly self-absorbed he was… is.
I was also angered that I could not find the words or way to show any of it to him. This, eventually, realized to be an impossibility. That isn’t how it works. The control of it isn’t in my hands and shouldn’t be in my hands. I do not want it, even as my actions in response to his anger were to those ends.
I laugh at myself. So sure I could help him understand. Oh, certainty. How foolish.
When it got to the point that being angry with him was a relief to me, I finally realized how far I had allowed him to warp my perspective. And I finally realized that if I did not let him and all of what he brought go, I would wind up just like him.
That was a wake up call of an extreme nature for me. It spoke to all the ways I have worked so hard to be other than those who birthed me. Other than the family that never was, and other than the ones who should have and could not.
Of all this list, this is the one that worries me least. Mostly because my anger these days is easily released in much more positive ways… and I doubt I will ever again allow myself to be abused by another long enough to result in the manner of anger I created and loosed in knowing this one.
Habitually, my anger rises fastest to see others abused. Or to encounter passive-aggressive behavior. Or to hear someone singing the ‘victim’ song. But even these do not often bring anger these days. I understand better today than I once did the things that call them in others. And understanding permits compassion.
Heh. I take a break and snag coffee and sit here and feel content. This one did not make me cry. Not only that, this one wasn’t hard to parse and set straight in my mind. It flowed from the fingertips easily.