Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Speak

 “Speak when you are angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.” (Laurence J. Peter)

Dear Anger,

I can’t control you on my good days. You are a parasite inside my body that eats at my skin, my bones, and my muscles until it eventually becomes who I am right now. You can be unreal and painful at the same time. I don’t know why you chose me to destroy but you did, and it hurts. It hurts more than the being punched in the stomach, or the ridicule I get for allowing you to be in my life.

Self-destruction is uncontrollable in my current condition. I can’t control you when I want to, nobody can, and your magnitude is overwhelming. Your power knocks me off my feet whenever it decides to. It’s always a surprise. I can’t feel you coming on. You just show up, like a bad memory, which you unexpectedly create.

You leave the faces of my loved ones in pain and confusion. You aren’t me, but only I know that. I will always understand that, but people start to think you are me. Those horrible outbursts over minuscule things start to make people take a second look at who I am, or who I’m becoming.

There’s no explaining the feeling you create inside my body, as I shake with fury as I lash out at those I love most. Then there’s the embarrassment of what I did, how I acted, and who I hurt because you are not who I want the world to see.

You are the disease that nobody considers because you’re controllable even when you aren’t. Whoever doesn’t have you living inside them will never understand the havoc you wreak in my body.

They don’t know I suppress you every chance I get because I have more calm days than annoying ones. On my calm days, my mind can overpower you and your urges. You are always living inside me as unkindness, harshness, unhappiness.

You are who I try so hard to hide from the world. You are who they talk about in texts and e-mails with other people. This is the me that couldn’t be saved no matter how hard anyone tried because your hate is stronger than my love.

The Real Me

“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your energies on answers -- not excuses.” (William Arthur Ward)[i]



[i] Adapted from: “An Open Letter to My Anger” by Liv Munro




 

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