Anger and How I Have Changed

[Summerstone]

I was watching the "I Am Adam Lanza's Therapist" video just now and really connected with the neglect that Adam undoubtedly went through as a child. Looking at my own self, I have come to realize that most of the anger in my system is a reaction against the injustices and pain my parents put me through. This profound anger has manifested itself in many, many unhealthy ways for me as an adult. I wrote about this Anger some in my blog and also noted the ways in which I have changed. Here it is:

http://www.stevensummerstone.com/anger-and-how-i-have-changed/

ANGER AND HOW I HAVE CHANGED

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I have some of this. Some of it healthy, some of it unhealthy. The healthy springs up as a response to abuse from others, especially those I am not familiar with. The unhealthy springs up when I have been with those I care about and the situation, upon looking at it later, has not merited anger. The unhealthy anger springs up when I perceive I have been abandoned in some way by the other person. This is very painful for me and it is painful and scary to those who are confronted with my anger. This is anger that has not been redirected at those who hurt me growing up and left me with the anger: my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, my older cousin, my teachers, and my coaches. Instead of being redirected, it sits and it stews and it melds with my identity. It is only when I approach the anger with deep compassion and caring that I am able to redirect it and allow it to become healthy, and often, to melt away entirely.

I am changing but I am not done. I have been in bi-weekly therapy sessions for 2 years. I plan on spending money and devoting at least 4 more years to working in therapy with a professional counselor. My wounds are deep but they are healing. I grieve at least once a week and the freedom it brings me is both exhausting and liberating. I have completely let go of the idea that crying makes me a sad person, it does the opposite.

Anger is my biggest trailhead, my fiercest trigger. Followed by this is shaming. My father was an angry man. My mother was full of shame. My father abused me the most. My mother abused me the second most.

It has been five years since I started journaling in earnest. I have been seeking self knowledge since I was 18 but it did not occur to me to write down my thoughts until I was 21. That was the kind of fog left to me by my childhood. Specifically focusing on anger, in those five years I have seen some incredible changes:

-5 years ago I was blowing up at my angry and bitter roommate because we had a dispute about where a couch should sit in a living room in relation to a TV. Now I don’t watch TV and don’t intend on having roommates ever again (aside from my life-partner).

-5 years ago I lived in a ghetto and lived beside families that screamed while the father beat his children, couples where the woman would scream because the man had pinned her and was choking her, and a little boy who roamed the complex because his mother was too busy doing meth and having men over. This all seemed strange at the time but it did not seem profoundly tragic and painful as I can see now.

Almost exactly 5 years ago: the angry person that hid behind his music. Most of my pictures from around this time are similar.

-5 years ago I was in a friendship with a married couple that acted as caretakers for a large group of young adults like myself. I needed these people to help me remember that I wasn’t going to go off the deep end and let my anger consume me. Now I can see they were just as lost as me, maybe even more so. They really helped me but I don’t need that kind of friendship anymore.

-5 years ago I was smoking bunches of marijuana because it dulled my anger and allowed me to introspect. Now I don’t need that medicine.

-5 years ago I was in a friendship where I cajoled the other person into making use of their talent and in return, they treated me as a sort of savior. We were drawn to each other out of the pain of both having been bullied and neglected by our own parents. Now I am not in a friendship with that person and will never engage in the same type of friendship again.

-5 years ago I was trying idealize my parents and ‘forgive’ them for their trespasses against me in order to ‘move on’. Now I see the body of damage that my parents left me with.

-5 years ago I was playing on the intramural soccer team of my ex-girlfriend who had slapped me across the face 3 months into our 13 month relationship that had ended exactly a year before. I fumed with jealous anger at the boys she would bring to the games and she would revel in my pain. Now I am in a 3 year long relationship where both parties work every single day to empower ourselves to speak openly about our emotions when there is uncertainty, rather than inflict our conclusions.

-5 years ago I was a Statist (a minarchist). I thought the tree of liberty should be refreshed with the blood of patriots now and then. Now I see this as a lot of misdirected anger on the part of a very intellectual historical figure.

-5 years ago I numbed my anger with endless violent video games, violent movies, and angry music. Now I am repulsed by violence and unhealthy anger in games, movies, and music.

-5 years ago I wrote songs with lyrics such as, “I’m a swirling Tornado, baby. Gonna’ drag you down. But you’re not gonna feel good, you’re gonna’ be put down.” Now I write, “I’m living the best kind of life. The kind where you get to sing and smile. It’s a party everyday when you sift away the clay, what’s left is gold.”

 

I literally couldn’t find a picture of me frowning or looking very serious in the last 2 years.

The list could go on and on but these are the examples that are most present in my mind right now. I subjected myself to a lot of anger and I engaged in a lot of anger. Now I have this wonderful thing happen where the anger wells up in me and then I’m immediately curious and interested in why it’s there. It’s not a perfect system and some unhealthy anger slips through but it’s a far cry from the angry monologues I’d engage in as recent as a year and a half ago. I can’t even remember the last time I called someone a name out of anger! It’s been years!

I write this as a celebration of a lot of hard work. I write it because I hope someone will read and gain some perspective on their own anger. I write this because some of the best growth I’ve done has come from admitting my problems, pains, and growth publicly. I played a show about 4 years ago where I told everyone in the venue about my addiction to Internet pornography. The experience was so completely freeing (and also instrumental in helping me work through the addiction) that I have adopted an “air the dirty laundry” attitude about my issues.

I know I have a lot of anger to process, still. There are oceans of it. I have some powerfully supportive allies, both internal and external, to help me voyage across the oceans and fish out survivors from the waters. I feel happy that there’s such an adventure in front of me!

[Stephen C]

Massive congratulations, Stone. 

[Summerstone]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read this, Stephen [{]

[Stephen C]

 

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read this, Stephen /emoticons/emotion-24.gif

 

You're welcome, thanks for sharing it. [{]