Break the Cycle

Obstacle: Identity Crisis

Reports of me going into violent tantrums go back to my toddler years, as I was cited for biting my classmates in pre-school. After pre-school, my anger ebbed for a few years, but shouting matches and defying teachers proved to be new effects of my anger. There was an ebb after fourth grade, and then I locked myself down in sixth grade after my grandfather's death. After that, my anger became manifest in more destructive ways: fighting, violent artistic expressions, physical destruction of inanimate (and sometimes damn expensive objects) and even getting fired for arguing on the job. After high school, I began inflicting more of the anger on myself to prevent future firings from jobs. On the rare occassions I inflicted it on someone else, had my words be weapons, I'd have been sent to the electric chair for multiple murders.

So what's the point of this mini-bio? I typed it out to show how long I've had to deal with my anger. It simply boils down to a lifelong trait. Thus, I've been reluctant to get my anger under control. It's become so much a part of me I honestly don't know what's underneath when you remove my anger from the equation. Underneath might be a sweet, caring and intelligent person, but I don't want to be known for those things (well, I'll take the intelligence part ). What I wish to be known for is something I've mined from my years of anger flare-ups: intimidation. I know it's so stereotypical, but I am trying to compensate for being short, not to mention protecting myself from an array of potential predators (mostly female). I have been known to give people looks that would indicate my blood was boiling right behind my irises and that they better be ready to run like the wind. I do not take crap from people, and I am not afraid of utilize an aggressive, even threatening, posture to communicate this point. If the fuckhead can't take the nonverbal cues, then I have no choice but to drag out the big guns: vicious language that impales the target straight in the gut and (if all else fails) beating. I usually can't use the beating one, but there are few occassions for it these days. Verbally, though, as I've said before, I seriously believe I have the ability to make Saddam Hussein cry and piss himself. Others...won't have a chance to write a suicide note. Simply put, I can be scary as hell when I want to be, and I'm damn proud of that. I really am.

As well, anger has tinted many of my stances on major issues. I've always been pro-choice, but becoming pissed at violence of the Christian idealistic hypocrites who bomb abortion clinics, I became pro-abortion. Anger towards bipartisan slacking inspired me to go into politics. The stupidity of average American kids? Anger spurred me to begin arguing for a national curriculum for public schools. How about IB curricula at every level of school? People coddling those with disabilities also pisses me off to no end, and I have already devoted a journal entry or two to it (see "No fucking clue" ). So as you can see, anger for me has become a tool, much like how early man harnessed fire power. I've used it to form a great deal of my persona *nods to Steev the Friction Wizurd *. Steve nailed it in an earlier comment so now the question becomes "Where do I go from here"? Yeah. To abolish something that has been such a huge part of my life is both something that needs to be done and also possibly the riskiest venture of my life. I fear I'm not going to have the power or ability to intimidate people as I currently have, and I feel subtracting my anger may sap me of the passion I'll need later on in life to wage a vigorous political campaign and later execute a significant term in office. I fear no one will perceive me as a force to be reckoned with, and that's what I want to be. I'm not the little girl who was regarded as disabled because she didn't talk at the standard age. I refuse to be seen as timid and not as capable as everyone else. I want to be seen as a formidable force capable of kicking collective ass as needed. Intellect and work brought me part of the way to that goal; anger, though, was the primary fuel. It's like the nation's oil depency, in a way, as both quagmires ask the same basic question.

How do we get out of this?