Have you ever been angry? How about unreasonably angry, so much so that you see black or red, want to lash out and hurt anyone around you, then want to kill yourself? Rage, they call it RAGE. It is one of the emotions that I have had the most trouble with throughout my life. Where it started, I don't know, I mean, I think I know, but am not positive. The one thing that I do know about rage is that it led to my first hospitalization. But it also led me towards introspection and changing how I lived and interacted with others.
You know how it is when you get a sliver or thorn stuck in your foot? Maybe you can see it and maybe you can't but you know it's there because you can feel it. The longer it sits under the skin the more it festers. It is irritating, niggling away until you just can't stand it anymore. At that point you can try to dig it out yourself or have it lanced by a doctor. Either way, it has changed how you walk, how you think, your attitude, and how you act & react to those around you. Once it is opened the bile that has been building around this tiny piece of nothing shoots forth into the universe. You are just sitting there, staring, dumb-founded that such a small thing could bring forth such malignancy and leave such a huge hole. That is what rage is like.
The sliver
For me, it started out as annoyance. I was irritated that my dad had missed a bunch of my birthdays and my high school graduation because of work. It offended me that I was frequently compared to my younger brother. The rest of my family and I didn't get along very well; my dad and I were much too similar. I felt like the black sheep of the family: the odd gal out. It didn't help that I didn't fit in at school either, I drifted between the various cliques, never settling in any group. Of course, there were people that I was close to: some neighbors, classmates, and members of the church youth group, but I stuck to myself much of the time.
Festering
This I think was where the anger first started to show itself. Not so much as an elementary schooler, but it definitely escalated once I hit junior high. I would fight with my mother. There was one time while she was making Monster Cookies that she got so mad at me (I'm sure I provoked her, but don't remember that part) that she hit me with a wire fly swatter and bent it. I laughed and shouldn't have. That only proved to infuriate her more, so she took her favorite wooden spoon (cookie dough and all) to my back-side. She broke it! She was so incensed and flustered that all she could say was, "Wait until your father gets home!" I went to my room until he came home. My punishment was a size 11EEE square-toed cowboy boot right to the tailbone. I didn't sit easy for quite awhile after that.
Our rides in the car to the relatives for the holidays was no picnic either. It was an hour and a half of sheer torture for me. I knew that no matter what I said, my dad and I were going to disagree about something, usually trivial, and get into a fight. Moreover, neither of us was willing to change our point of view (can you say stubborn?) so there ended up being tense, dead silence for a lot of the drive. I was raised to have an opinion and speak my point of view. Unfortunately for me, I didn't realize that I needed to censor myself until much later in life and by that time irreversible damage had been done to our relationship.
My parents were and still are to some point perfectionists. The same can be said about me. I'll buy a journal and then won't write in it because I don't want to misspell a word and make a mess in the book. I have several btw, all blank, though there are plenty of thoughts in my mind, I can't get up the nerve to put pen to paper. Using a laptop is easier for me, even if I screw-up, it is reversible and doesn't show. I'm afraid to disappoint others and that in turn makes me cross. Not with those around me, but with myself. Why can't I just get the balls to go for it? To blunder in front of others and show that I am human just doesn't work. I need to be perfect, I'm expected to be perfect (only by myself, such an irrational thought). Failure means defeat and humiliation, and increasing anger. It builds, staying bottled up inside until the pressure is so great that I explode.
Lancing
I've already told you about how I tried to strangle my brother in the introduction (first post). It was a form of release and I felt better after I did it just not about the act itself. There were several times that we went through this process, my brother and I, but that one was definitely the worst. He wasn't the only one to feel the brunt of my pain either.
Many plates, glasses, bowls and other objects have been severely damaged at my hands. There have been dents in made in cars, items toppled, and sports equipment bent and broken. I've bitten myself, dug fingernails into my skin, and slammed my head into wooden and brick structures hard enough to leave indentations, bruises, and draw blood. To say that I was a danger to myself was an understatement. I was my own poison, being eaten away and killing myself from the inside. Comprehending what was happening was beyond me. I had been taught to hide any emotions that were negative and only show my "good" side. I was a human doing, a walking husk, living from one emotion to the next.
The breaking point came when Jen asked for a glass of water one night. I saw red, then I saw black spots. What the hell was I? Her servant? There for her every beck and call? F%#K NO! Did I say any of this to her? No way! Instead, like a petulant child having a tantrum, I stomped into the kitchen, whacked a glass on the counter, filled it with water, plodded back into the living-room with said glass, slammed it onto our end table and stormed away. She was confused, all she had done was ask for a glass of water, not for world peace. I on the other hand was enraged; filled with hateful, crazed wrath that she had asked me, actually dared to ASKED ME!, for something so stupid when she could have gotten it herself. It took everything in my being not to shove my fists and feet through the closet door. The desire to lash out was immense, my vision was blurred and colored, and Jen was walking right into the path, about to become collateral damage. I screamed I think, I cried I know, I was hot, so very hot that I knew my face was bright red. There were no words in this place, no way to express what was going on, only complete and total fury, the urge to cause destruction. It took every last smidgen of control that I had not to harm her. I pushed past her, ran down the stairs, grabbed my keys, and headed for the garage.
Now, my car has always been a place of refuge for me. A place of safety and tranquility, I had the music I enjoyed close by and the comfort of the steering wheel in my grip. I loved going on trips, despite the awful rides of my youth, watching the scenery go by and stopping to investigate new places whenever the whim hit. When I got in the garage all I could think about was driving away and NEVER returning. And by never I mean suicide by car. I saw and felt myself driving as fast as I could down the interstate and crashing into a concrete bridge abutment, leaving nothing but a tangled mass of metal, plastic, and flesh. It was the only way out that I could see. This was my waking nightmare and I knew if I got in that car I would be dead. I sat on the hood as derogatory thoughts blared in my head. "Your no good. You don't deserve someone like Jen. Jen deserves better than you. What a loser. You're worthless! Nobody loves you. What a pile of crap you are. You and Jen would be better off if you were dead. You're a coward and a failure, a real disappointment to everyone. You piece of shit just do it and get it over with." I kicked the chest freezer, threw stuff, shoved the car keys into my thigh, anything I could think of to get rid of this torment, and keep myself from getting in the car. If that happened all would have been lost. I don't know how long I stayed out there crying, listening to those evil thoughts. To me time had become irrelevant, only a struggle with my inner demons. When I thought I had enough control, I went back in the house, straight into the bedroom, and went to bed. There was no acknowledgement of the damage I had just caused Jen, it was all still too raw to be able to admit. I slept fitfully that night.
The next morning I knew that something needed to be done. I was suicidal and worst of all I had wanted with all my being to hurt Jen, the love of my life, my rock, my soul, my partner in everything. That was something that I just couldn't live with and someone I couldn't live without. I needed help and I needed it badly. As I sat bundled in the fetus position on the couch I admitted to Jen that I felt unsafe and needed assistance and to actually be hospitalized. Not once did I look her in the eye. I was ashamed of myself for what I had thought and done. On that very day, May 18th, I was admitted to the locked Behavioral Health Unit. I stayed there for a week. It was strange because once I got there I felt safe. Hard to think that such a sterile, rigid environment made me feel that way, but it did.
I've been through a bunch of different groups to help me deal with issues better and they have helped immensely. Words are now my shield and I try to use them first to avoid another disaster. Also, there isn't the same build-up of frustration and rage. I still get upset from time to time but it is a far cry from where I was before. It took me a long time before I was willing to drive my own car. It scared me to think that I had been on the edge and peered into the abyss. No need to tempt fate more than I already had.
So dear reader, you and Jen will be learning about what was going on for me at the same time. Right now she is sitting just a couple of feet from me, an arms length at most, totally unaware of what transpired, from my side, that day. I have never shared nor volunteered this information. It is only now that I have started writing this blog that I have had the courage to own up to what I did and tell her what happened.
If you see yourself in this narrative, don't wait like I did, get help now. Please, if not for you, then do it for those around you.
Jen,
This is for you. You are my rock, my safety, my heart, and my home. I am a better person because of you.
I love you to the Moon and back!
Monster Cookie Recipe
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