Anger Is A Smoldering Fire

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Anger

Anger was not the first emotion I remember as a child, but anger was the emotion I quickly learned was not to be outwardly expressed to others. I was accustomed to anger in my household growing up. I knew it well. The anger always sounded aggressive and felt intimidating. I could see eyes of anger and knew the look well. I could sense the presence of anger as it often seemed to be always around in my household.

I had seen my parents angry. I had seen others angry. I had been angry, but for some reason, anger was an emotion that seemed to be the least tolerated from others at least when I expressed it. I was never quite sure why this was so when I was a child. I wondered often if it was because anger was such a powerful emotion. I had seen anger get the best of people to the point anger would be blamed for both thinkable and unthinkable acts. Anger was blamed for so many actions until I grew to expect that anger was just a normal part of life.

Anger was a powerful emotion for me, indeed. At times I could become so angry that I could not contain it. Yet, I was taught to leave it unexpressed in all its glory and power. I was told that anger was essentially evil, and to express it was a sign of disrespect. Just imagine how much I had to hold in. I have narcissistic parents. I grew up in an abusive environment. So anger was with me at all times.

Anger followed me everywhere. Yet, the expression of anger was deemed as a sign of disrespect, and disrespect of any form would not be tolerated in my household. Yet, anger bore into the fabric of my household quite often. Even if I held my anger in, others often did not. Anger was akin to flames of fire. At any given moment, I never knew when the anger of another was upon me. Often that anger was silent, intimidating, and controlling. Anger was the upon the floor whenever I felt I had to walk on eggshells. Anger was built upon a minefield of explosives. Just one wrong move could signal trouble.

Learning The Signs Of Anger

As a child, I learned very quickly when someone else was angry, but I often had a hard time identifying signs of my own anger. At some point, I began to recognize what I saw in others, I could easily see in myself. As an introvert, I learned to gauge my own feelings because I had to keep them all inside of me. It did not take long for me to see the signs of my own anger. I had to act quickly because I was not allowed to let anger manifest at all. My parents would always look at my face to check for my anger. My parents could always tell. They said I had a “mean” and obstinate look about me.

I would pout and fold my arms tightly, and this posture showed my defiance more than anything. Signs of disrespect would not be tolerated from my parents. I was not allowed to show anger even if I was actually angry. I had to pretend that I was okay. I said I was fine even if I was not. I learned to lie about my feelings. I had no idea the time that I was being gaslighted into believing what was not true. If I was told that I was not angry but I was, I simply accepted it, and over time, I learned to mask so many emotions that I did not even know what my emotions were anymore.

I learned very quickly when anger would begin rearing its ugly head within me. I could feel it in various parts of my body. My body would tighten, and I would clench my fists. I would tighten the grip of my teeth and hold my mouth in a tightly closed position. I would feel my jaws clench and tighten, and this always made it difficult for me to speak even if I wanted to speak. Anger would stiffen my neck often making it uncomfortable for me to sleep.

The worst of the anger might rise to my cheeks and heat them to a high temperature. Then I would tilt my head back to fight the emotion from visibly rising to my face. Most often, my anger attempted to express itself in tears. Because of this, I learned very young to train myself not to cry. It did take me a while to master this technique, and although I think I did well, I know I did not do well enough because my parents could often tell me when I was about to cry.

The feeling of anger would settle within my gut and just bubble there like a hot bowl of fiery soup too hot to touch. Those feelings of anger would settle and simmer, and I would fight desperately to keep my anger from boiling over. More often when I was alone, I would just sit and cry. I would cry without sound until the heat of my anger subsided, and when I could not contain sound, I would cry into a pillow or just whimper to a whisper.

I would also cry without tears. I would cry on the inside and let my cool tears drip into the hot streams of my anger until I felt strong enough to cope without an explosion. If tears arose to my eyes to fall, I willed myself to stop them before they ever flowed from my eyes. It was easier to take on a stance of defiance and toughness even if it pained me to do so, but deep down I felt myself fading away on the inside as if the very essence of who I am as a person was being buried within a deep grave.

When anger became too much for me to handle, someone else might fall into the path of my sarcastic words. I often mumbled how I felt to myself. It was a display of my unwillingness to remain silent. I would often make my younger siblings the victims of the anger I felt by shutting them out of my world and subjecting them to my mean and critical spirit. Of course, this did not fare me well because I was always reprimanded for being disrespectful. I also did not like being the mean “big” sister because I loved my siblings. However, I never felt that I had any rights to my own anger or any other feelings.

After a while, it became hard to know when I was angry. In fact, I would often not know that I was angry until I had reached the point of letting my anger flow over into a huge explosion. When this happened, I was always held accountable, and not that being held accountable for my actions is wrong since I should have been held accountable, but I would become even angrier because while I was held accountable for my anger, others often were not held accountable for theirs in terms of their behavior. I was a child caged in by a growing rage, but I also felt this as an adult too.

Anger Turned Inward

When I was 9, I tackled anger that was beyond my ability to handle, and I did not know who to turn to about it. So I turned my anger inward and fell into a battle with depression. By this age, I had already learned how to dissociate from feeling much of anything, but “life” circumstances happened and narcissistic abuse continued on. I had intense anger. Although I often felt that this anger had no specific target, I usually felt anger towards an unfair world for so many reasons. I had a lot of anger against my parents and anyone else who participated in my abuse.

Most of all, I felt anger towards myself for not being able to stand firm and tall enough to be able to unchain my voice to speak about it. The anger was smoldering. The anger was boiling over. More than wishing life was over for anyone else, I was wishing my own life was over. I was very unhappy, and I did not know what to do about it. All I could do was feel angry and be angry. In a sense, I felt that I had become “anger” in the flesh. Anger had taken control f me.

The intensity of the flames of the anger I had only grew over time but was always hidden. The anger was always hidden away. I was able to compartmentalize my feelings and disconnect from them. Dissociation was one of my main coping mechanism for survival. Outsiders had no clue. My family often had no clue. Although they knew that something was off with me, they had no real notion that my anger was an inferno of molten magma ready to be released into a volcanic explosion.

Over time, my emotions became associated with the life of a typical teenager. I had always been given the impression that teenagers were supposed to be angry because it was a part of growing up. So I became the angry teenager, and to others that seemed to be normal. Yet, that anger always felt like more. That anger felt like much more because it was much more. That anger was a smoldering fire. Even for me, that anger was out of control.

I Knew I Had A Problem When …

I knew I had a problem when the anger felt unleashed in a way I could no longer contain nor control. There were times that I could not take back the things that I said because of the dark place my words came from, and I knew that I had lost control when the anger would manifest for physical harm. I never physically harmed anyone else (unless I was pressured to physically defend myself as was the case in a few volatile situations). I often turned anger inward and self-harmed because I felt I was self-destructing. I pulled and plucked my hair – a condition known as trichotillomania. I cut myself. I burned myself. I purposefully created problems for myself with my family so that I could further isolate myself.

After a while, however, I realized a lot of these self-harming behaviors did not provide me with enough relief so that the feelings of anger would subside within me. There was no pacification for the anger I felt. There was nothing. So I learned to stuff anger further downward to the point that I buried it deep somewhere within me, but I did not know how to control it when I felt that anger had become uprooted and undone. The anger would burn me deep within. I am almost certain that anger kept me wrapped within a well of fear and unrelenting anxiety. I often felt that I had no peace.

Once, instead of lashing out at a sibling when I was angry, I punched my fist through a glass window. My behavior stunned my family; they were speechless. I stunned myself. I was 18 and had amassed what felt like a lifetime of unhealed, unheard, and untouched trauma. I had no outlet except for the few ears that would willingly listen to me. The anger I felt had reached a boiling point that I could no longer control.

I already knew I had a problem, but the shock of seeing my hand drenched in blood from a multitude of scratches and cuts after breaking the glass window left me numb because I lived in a constant state of dissociation. I had not even realized that I was so incredibly angry until the I realized that my actions could not be undone. It is unfortunate that I did not even know how to ask my narcissistic family for help, but they were at the root of my problems.

That situation (punching my fist through window) was the first semblance of concern that my mother ever showed for me, and although she is a narcissist to the core, a part of me wondered if the mother in her rose up in spite of narcissism to save me. Fortunately, college was a part of my saving grace during that time to relieve me of the familial narcissistic environment, but my anger was still a smoldering fire. It followed me. It resided with me.

During my college years, I threw myself into my studies and worked various jobs to mentally survive. I became a professional student. I could have majored in anything because I excelled in all subject areas during that time. I had a thirst for knowledge just so I did not have to focus on the inner emotion of anger. Professors were literally vying for me and pulling me in the direction of fields I had no desire for, but I excelled because my mind needed to be entangled with an energy other than the anger and other emotions that resulted from narcissistic abuse, narcissistic relationships, and narcissistic any things.

I needed relief from an anger that seemed to always just be there. It was an anger that often manifested in extreme sadness and grief. It was an anger that often felt unjustifiable for me to even feel because more than not understanding it, I was not even always aware of it even though its presence was definitely there. The anger I had often caught me by surprise as if it just crept upon me out of nowhere. It even debilitated me for a time by confining me to bed rest. The intensity of this anger of was overpowering and depressing. Yet, there were others around me who could see it infiltrate my being in that it was often stated to me that I was an unapproachable person who never smiled and always looked so serious. It was more than just my face, however. Anger for me was a smoldering fire.

My Anger Is A Smoldering Fire

Currently, I feel like anger is still a smoldering fire. Although it lacks the intensity I have remembered it to have on past occasions, I know that the anger is still there. The current signs of anger that I often take note of are my various irritations with traffic and my continual frustrations and annoyances with the behaviors of narcissists that I am still navigating the pathways to eventual no-contact interactions.

I so desperately want to be free. I want to be free to express myself and my emotions. I want to rid myself of this anger that seems to have been more a constant companion than I ever realized it had been in my life. I am so accustomed to my emotions being held in and contained to the point that I do not share myself with others, but now I wonder how much of this anger seeped through onto others. At times it was quite noticeable, but at other times it could not be identified because it was so carefully guarded and hidden.

Journaling has been a great help for me, and spending time in therapy has been so very helpful in the past as an outlet for releasing my emotions. Yet, I know that anger still resides with me, and I know a lot of it has to do with the internal anger that I have often felt against myself for not being stronger in ending narcissistic relationships sooner and for tolerating so much when it comes to narcissistic individuals.

In fact, I feel less angry with others and more angry with myself because as I reflect over certain situations involving narcissists, I realize over and over how gullible I often am when it comes to these personalities. I wish I did not love others so hard. I wish that I did not love narcissists. Then I become even angrier because I realize that maybe I do not understand love at all even though I feel like I simply do not know the ability of not loving another person even to my own detriment. I feel as if I love, and I love generously. But do I really even understand love if love has always been wrapped up and given to narcissists? Did I ever experience love in a narcissistic household? Have I ever experienced love at all? Is love ever angry? No, it is not. Then why am I?

My Anger Is A Smoldering Fire

Through the thick of it all and through the thick of anger, I fight hard not to allow it to turn to bitterness. I try hard to forgive those I have felt hurt by again and again, and I work hard to learn valuable life lessons that I hope not to repeat. Most of all, I work daily to forgive myself for the continual traps that I walk right into with my eyes often wide open.

Despite all of this, anger often still remains. The anger is not as strong as it once was in the past, but I know it is still there. It takes nothing for a narcissist to set it off when I find myself going through a maze in attempting to understand the narcissistic shenanigans I encounter. Although the narcissistic abuse cycle is always the same, the faces of the abusers often change. When I see or hear the alarms sounding that I am in danger of a narcissistic attack, a flame will flicker anger to awaken itself within me. The fire will ignite, and I will feel anger is ablaze. For anger is a smoldering fire.