When Mandy Gets Angry

So, last week, I got angry.

Like, really angry.

I don't know if I've gotten that angry since I moved out to college.

A lot of it ended up being petty. And it built up because of a lot of things.

But it made me ponder my anger and the different levels of it.

Not a lot of people know this, but I actually had major anger issues as a child. I've actually kicked both my sisters into walls before. But I grew up and started learning how to not let myself get angry. Or when I do get angry, how to keep it under control.

So when I got so angry last week, I decided to try and figure out why I was so angry. I just learned about emotions recently in one of my classes and so I've started trying to figure mine out.

*Disclaimer, I know this is actually probably common, but it was a major epiphany for me.

When I am angry, I am almost never actually angry. It is some other emotion. There have been times that I have been angry, and that was the emotion. But usually that is only if someone is hurting someone I care about.

When I am angry I am usually at least one of two things.

Hurt or scared.

I don't mean physically hurt. I actually don't, typically, get angry when that happens. But if you make a cutting comment, or do something that hits an emotional nerve, that is when the anger starts. And the more hurt I am, the more angry I get.

And fear. If I'm afraid that you are going to see me hurt. Or if you are going to see me weak. Or if you are going to see me stupid. Or if you are going to see me scared. I will usually cover that with anger. I think partly because a lot of people have said they get scared when they see me angry, and so I have control over some kind of fear.

To note, the reason a lot of people say they get scared when they see me angry, is partly because I rarely let people see me angry. I try to be the happy, supportive person around people. part of me learning to control my anger was learning to walk away when I started getting angry.

I wanted to start figuring out why I was angry. I knew I had a very short, fast, high temper and I started realizing that really stupid things would set me off.

Not bad for an 18 year old, right?

So if I started getting upset, I would leave. I would go put myself in time out, as it were. So that I could calm down.

Now that I've gotten that part down, I started trying to figure out why my anger levels would be so different.

I would get frustrated, and I do get frustrated quite a lot, but I also let it go fairly quickly. And I'm even starting to learn how to not let things get to me as much.

But when I get really angry, one, I have left people long before. Not cause I think I'd hurt anyone, but because I don't want people to see how angry I actually can get. But two, it stays and I get incredibly defensive and aggressive.

And I finally figured out, it's because I want to cause the pain before someone sees that I'm hurt or scared of it.

I don't mean physical pain. I just know how people work enough to say down right mean things. And if you corner me when I'm angry, I will say every mean and below the belt comment I can come up with. And I know where people are insecure.

Knowing people is good and bad.

I could easily mess with peoples emotions in a negative way.

But here is where the cool part is.

I don't want to.

I don't want people to hurt. I don't want to get angry. I do not like being angry.

Which is why I'm trying so hard to figure out why I get angry. So that in the future I can break it down and figure out if I'm hurting, what is hurting and how can I fix it. Or if I'm scared, what am I scared of and how can I face it.

This world is already full of negative, why add my anger to it?

I'm just glad I'm learning how to figure these things out.