You Wouldn’t Like Me When I am Angry

Hey there folks!

 

For a significant portion of my young life I was a miserable son of a bitch. It is not fun to sit back and have to accept harsh truths about yourself, but I think it is a necessary step in self development and improvement. You see for me the problem was anger derived from depression.

 

I have come to realize that my brand of socially awkward makes me an acquired taste, so to speak. It is not that your are going to not like me initially, you will more than likely be indifferent towards me. However, over time I will grow on you, so on a long enough time scale I never have problems making friends. Basically I am never going to be Mr. popularity, but I will eventually find my place amongst any group of people.

 

The way this has all come to make sense to me is that I need time to get comfortable and find a shared interest with those I am around. While I certainly do not lack for ego, I am not a boisterous personality that tries to impose my ego on others I do not yet know. Once I am comfortable around you I am going to let you know that I am the shit and you are lucky to have me around, it just takes me a minute to get there.

 

This ego of mine directly affects the inevitable depression that comes along with being socially awkward and just plain strange. While my depression may start out with me feeling sorry for myself and moping over one thing or another I always have this voice in the back of my head that says, “fuck that”. Slowly but surely my feelings of inadequacy and doubt turn into anger.

 

As I have gotten older I realize that this anger is like a cancer. It starts out small in one area of your life, but it aggressively attacks everything around it and before long you can see its tendrils in every aspect of your day. The worst part is that once it takes hold it creates a self sustaining loop. The anger changes your behavior and outlook, which brings about the feelings of doubt and inadequacy that in turn fuel the anger.

 

In my case the anger did not result in violence, because by my nature I am not a violent man. My anger is cold and calculating. I am going to assess a scenario and try to find the lynch pin so that with one fast and lethal strike I can bring the whole thing down. To better explain, there was a point in my life where I wanted to find that one phrase that would just cause I person’s world to fall apart. I knew this was the kind of thing that had to be tailored to an individual so I would sit back and watch people, listen to them speak just so I could learn more about what made them tick. For whatever reason I just wanted to look into someone’s eyes and watch as their soul shattered.

 

One of the positive results of my father’s death is that it really shook my entire world up and made me reexamine everything. As a result, I have been able to move away from the anger of my youth. I realize now how much time I spent caught up in things that just did not matter in the grand scheme of things. Since I am no longer so focused on myself and seething in my anger I can pay more attention to those around me and I see how it affects them. I find myself trying to help those I care about learn how to let go of the anger and move past the pain to varying degrees of success. Like most things in life someone cannot just tell you how to change, you need to truly want to change.

 

Some times it can make things difficult if I am around people who are caught up in their own anger. I almost feel like a recovering alcoholic in so far as there is this dark period of my life who informs who I am today, but I cannot be around that kind of stuff anymore. I cannot stop myself from being angry ever again, and sometimes anger is a healthy response. However, I can stop anger from taking control of my well being and disposition.