I've been angry for so long I didn't know that I was as enraged as I was. Right now I hate my parents. I hate my husband. I hate my kids. I hate most of the people I used to work with. I hate people who are no longer living for things that they've said and done, and I may even hate you. Some time ago I bought a book called Anger Free. I started reading it because I need some basic steps to help myself get through this. I need a way to release the anger and I'm currently resisting the idea of a punching bag probably because I don't really want to let go.
But my therapist said that I was so angry I was going to die just from being angry, and I could blow off her opinion since she isn't an MD, but what she said is true. The anger is poisoning me and I have to get it out and let myself heal. Another part of my assignment from my therapist was to write about the things and people I'm angry at. It's hard to know where to start, but I'll go back to college and write about my then boyfriend getting a vasectomy without telling me. He then lied about it, and I knew that I wanted kids back then so we came up with the money to have that reversed.
The process wasn't quite as clean as I just made it seem. First I was crying because I felt so betrayed. I'm not really sure why since so many people I know lie, but when I learned the real reason he was acting so strangely I made the decision to break up with him. My mom went over to his place with me. We went through and picked up the odds and ends I had left there, we weren't living together, but I had clothes and books and food over there. I felt like my life was over and my heart was broken.
Now I can only wonder what would have happened had I not taken him back. That wasn't the first time he had lied to me. Once he told me he had been at work when I came home and his car was still parked in the garage. There was a wet towel in the bathroom so I surmised that he hadn't really been at work, but when I asked about his work day casually, I recoiled at the lie. I'm not sure why I put up with people lying so frequently, whether that's because I'm so used to it, or I don't believe that I'm worth the truth, hopefully writing this will give me some insights there.
Another time my husband was complaining about needing a laptop for work. One day he had one and I asked about it so he told me it was from work when the truth was that he had used money we didn't have to buy one for himself. He's an only child, I'm the oldest of five, and while neither of my parents will leave me a dime, his father has two very nice homes, one near us, the other in a gated community down in Florida. Today my chiropractor asked if I was more bitter than angry. I don't think so, but I could be.
When I lived at home, my dad would spend money without telling my mom. They would fight about things like him bringing a motorcycle home. He wanted it so he bought himself a bike knowing that our family needed that money to cover our basic living expenses. This happened when I was in college and I had a poorer understanding of why people who are in abusive relationships stay instead of leaving. It was winter and very cold when I had terrible abdominal pain. My mother thought that I was having a miscarriage so she screamed and yelled at me. I've written about this before, but I need to say it over and over and over again, she sucks. She has lied to me and I don't trust her and I would like very bad things to happen to her at my hands. I could write a lot about terrifying things for Halloween, but not as part of a quest.
I have so much anger inside that the idea of killing someone doesn't bother me. There would be a living body, then a dead one, and I would feel regret and remorse, but also a wonderful release and I believe that I would feel that for once, I have won. I have triumphed over the people who lied to me, stole from me, put me down, slapped me, hit me, undermined my authority, denied me love, and perhaps that's what this is mostly about. I need to learn how to love with limits. I'm tired of my children walking all over me and not listening to me because their father has continually demonstrated that their mother is a tiresome frivolous selfish bitch who sits at the computer and sleeps all day.
It's not true, his picture of me is not any more real than the ones I have of myself. And people can change. I know that I can, but I know that Rome was not built in a day, and this will not blow over just because I have written a few words here. So my children are crying and when I asked my husband why, he told me that it's complicated. I fucking hate him. I wish that I could go back and unmeet him. I wish that I had saved the money from the vasectomy reversal, gone on a real vacation, and written some frivolous crap about the weather and wishing other people were there with me. I'm furious with him for being immature and irresponsible and robbing me of sleep by snoring and making me afraid to relax around him because I didn't know where the next hammer was going to fall.
I hate him because once a friend of mine brought me tomato plants and he told me he would run them over with the mower like he mowed down my raspberry patch. I despise him for buying new clothes when the rest of us are shopping at Goodwill and wearing hand me down clothes we received from others. Meals and food are important to me. When we were first married and moved here I made him an apple pie because he liked it so much. He did not eat a single bite of the pie and I ended up throwing it away after it was moldy. He bought a super expensive wheeled conveyance to help him with yard work. It's sitting in the driveway with a flat tire and I don't expect it will get fixed anytime soon.
He can't pack lunches. That doesn't work for him so he gets to go out to eat while we have to make due with whatever we have at home. Since he doesn't like vegetables and wouldn't eat them at all in the past it was up to me to try and get them into the girls. I'm quite proud of the fact that my children eat things like broccoli and just the other day my daughter requested I make this dish with sugar snap peas that she likes. I'm tired of him being sullen and sulky and telling me I'm sexy. I don't give a damn about his sexual needs. Most of the time it's easier to fuck him than it is to say no so that's what I end up doing. I can go to other places in my mind.
Those places are what keep me sane. I create characters and give them a variety of complicated situations to work through. This works for me because these people are me, trapped in webs of their own weaving with no way out except for the ways that I can give them. They've done terrible things, sometimes they're the victims, and sometimes they find that inner peace that they long for in a world that is dark, vast, confusing, and harmful. There's safe places for these people when I work with them, but I make them experience life sucking first. That's the goal when I write. To get things out, to escape into their world. They play through my mind and I've known them for so long, they feel right to me.
I could write about a lot of other things, like the day my youngest daughter was born. My husband had a meeting to go to and when I asked if he could watch our oldest he said that he couldn't. So I had to have his aunt take me to the hospital. He wouldn't even make my oldest a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and he's apologized to me, but being in labor while at home and dealing with a hungry toddler while he's fucking around in the room that used to be our old home office is not easily forgotten, or forgiven. It would make me feel better to forgive him, but I remember loathing him with every fiber of my being, and my mother too when she came to see me.
At the hospital my sisters were there for me. It didn't take long for my daughter to arrive. It was almost 1:00 when I was dropped off at the ER, and she was born at 3:48. Now I have a rebellious thirteen year old who tells me I don't care, and on some level, that is very true. I have suffered and I know that her life is very easy compared to many other teens. My eleven year old was upset after I wouldn't buy her the book she wanted at the bookstore. I bought her other books at Goodwill, but she chose to focus on the one book she didn't get instead of the pile that she did. And that's what I'm doing too. I'm clinging to the fire of the anger that fuels my rage.
I feel better than I did when I started writing this. It's not a cure by any stretch of the imagination, but I've repressed these emotions for so long, I feel like this was a bit of a spree I've been on and like a drunken shopper at the mall with her out of control spending, I'm sort of high from this in an emotional sense. I have new insight and a therapist who helps and I love my chiropractor and I really do love my children, but when you grow up with trauma and out of control parents, you don't learn how to parent effectively. Time heals all wounds and this has been a good place to start ripping some of the bandages off so I can see how deep the wounds are beneath them.
Take care,
Jess