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 |   A journey of self-improvement - or not. |
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Sup? I'm Char. You may know me from timeless classics such as
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I blog for things like
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say "how high?" Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head |
  "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  Prompt: Write about a “crucible moment” in your life. A challenging time that shaped you and altered your view on your life and/or the world. Many years ago, I was in individual therapy and the therapist asked to meet with Kira during one of our sessions. He wanted to get an outside perspective from someone who knows me well. Kira and I went to his office one afternoon and sat across from him on his couch. I was already uncomfortable because I wasn't sure how the conversation would play out. Kira and I were getting along well at the time. I was worried that something might get brought up in our session that would cause a rift between us. One of the first questions the therapist asked her was, "If you had to describe Charlie in one word, which word would you choose?" Without skipping a beat, Kira replied, "Angry." This caught me off guard. Of all the words in the world to choose, she instantly chose 'angry'. Not 'complicated' or 'troubled' or any number of other words that could lend leeway in their interpretation. Just... angry. The therapist said that was an interesting choice and asked her to expand on why she chose that word. She said, "Everything bad that happens in Charlie's life is because he's angry. At other people, at himself. His anger clouds everything." I was, um, angry?  I mean, really, I was. I thought of all the words, you had to choose one of the most negative human emotions possible? I was offended. I thought I had a lot more depth than just simple anger. I left the session feeling like she had poisoned my therapist's image of me. Now he was just going to think of me as this angry kid whose only problem involved throwing temper tantrums. But it stuck with me in the sense that I'd always recall back to that session every time I got angry. I was determined to prove that I was more than an angry person. And yet, in the aftermath of every meltdown or episode, I would find myself saying things like, "Well, I was really pissed off." I was realizing that almost all of my negative decisions were a result of me being angry at the time. During therapy, I explored with my therapist the reasons I was so angry. He explained to me that a lot of the reasons I came up with for being angry were not legit. A lot of the things that induced rage in me would be merely frustrating to the average person. More importantly, he told me that hurting yourself because you're angry isn't a normal response. The reason I'm saying all of this is because I've spent the last several years trying to trace my anger back to its roots. I couldn't figure out why things could so easily set me off. I didn't really know why I would shake with rage at the smallest things or why I couldn't sit still and be angry. Those are mutually exclusive activities for me. If I'm angry, I pretty much get physical tics. Twitching, pacing, head jerking, shaking, cracking my knuckles, eye blinking, etc. Understandably, this behavior really worries people when they're around me. They're like, "Whoa, man, you've gotta settle down." But 95% of my rage comes out in self-destructive ways, so it's not like I'm just throwing hands every time I get angry. It's just this absolute volcano that builds up and erupts against myself. I'm angry, then I'm angry that my anger is getting out of control, then I'm angry that I'm not done being angry yet. And I have to have some kind of release, almost like a compulsion, so that I can get the anger outside of me. "Crucible moments" are the root of this anger. Throughout years of therapy and self-reflection, I've boiled it down to one thing: helplessness Any moment where I felt helpless contributed to this slow-building anger problem. I can think of specific crucible moments, but there have been so many that it's easier to just break them down into two categories: 1. Moments when someone else was hurt and I couldn't help. I'm convinced this is the primary cause of my anger. Seeing someone else getting hurt and being too young, too small, or too constrained to help is what I think created my genuine rage. For example, seeing my older brothers getting beaten and being way too young to do anything about it is the one thing that has made me consider disowning my parents entirely. I can't stand to watch someone get hurt. Now if the topic of my brothers and their abuse experience comes up, I become absolutely blind with rage. Noting too that I have intrusive thoughts from OCD, a memory can just come up out of nowhere and be very intense for me. If I'm with my parents and that happens, I have to leave immediately. I can't trust myself in those situations. 2. Moments when someone hurt me and I couldn't do anything. Then to a lesser extent, I think, there were those times when I was hurt and had no physical ability to defend myself in any way. My saving grace in those situations is that I can pretty much dissociate on command. If I don't want to mentally "be" somewhere, I can "leave." I can make nothing feel real, even myself and my pain. It's much easier to dissociate through your own pain than to dissociate through someone else's. Obviously, anger is still a big issue of mine. I've recognized that it's not healthy or helpful. I know that it causes me more problems. But there's this little thing that I just can't let go of. It snakes its way into my mind all the time. And that is that people can do whatever they want to you. One instance can cause you a lifetime of flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, fear, and anger. But if you ever got the opportunity to confront that person, you would be met with confusion. It's not because you made up your experience. It's not that they're lying when they say they don't really remember it. It's that your crucible moment wasn't even a fucking blip on their radar. They've spent exactly 0 minutes thinking about it. It had no effect on them whatsoever. It didn't even register in their brain that it was something to be remembered. They can tell you about a detention they got back in high school. They can tell you about a road trip they took 20 years ago. They can tell you about the office Christmas party 5 years back. But when it comes to your crucible moment? They can't recall. Something that means everything to you means absolutely nothing to them. And that's what keeps me heated. Stoic Thought of the Day: "Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more harmful to us than the injury that provokes it." -Seneca |
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