My Anger Turned Inward
During my teen years, my anger had turned inward. I had always heard this as being depression. I was indeed depressed, but I was also angry. I felt the two were separate from each other. My anger was an emotion which I believed and still believe was set apart from the depression itself. I was angry about situations of injustice mainly. I did not necessarily always feel the anger, but I knew it was there. It was inwardly silent.
I was also depressed, and I was battling post-traumatic stress. However, I learned to cope. I felt that the depression existed outside of the realm of anger. The anger was different. With depression, I was not just sad or angry, I was numb. Sometimes I did not know my own emotions until they eventually erupted into spewing lava outside of me. The emotions were so suppressed that when they finally erupted, I was not the only one overwhelmed by them. Everyone else around me was overwhelmed by my emotions too.
I was also very irritable and moody. Usually, though, I was just numb. I often felt that I was going through the motions of life in a very robotic way. I lived my life in a state of constant dissociation. My different selves that have evolved from splitting off as a result of trauma all worked in tandem to keep me afloat. By my mid and latter high school years, I had cascaded into a dance of silence. I had become mute. My voice was lost. I no longer had the will to speak.
Unless I was at school, I felt I had no life. So, I put all of my focus into school. My devotion to school work translated into a need to succeed in spite of the obstacles that lay before me. I stayed in my room. I listened to music, studied, and disappeared from the chaos of my family life. I sank further into depression, and I nursed the raging fire of anger within me. When my life seemed to progress beyond the madness of the issues with the martial arts instructor who had molested me and other environmental drama, I got my learner’s permit, my driver’s license, and an afterschool job.
Work and school life became everything to me, and I excelled in both. I had a measure of freedom and a measure of success. I thought I had finally obtained some semblance of happiness, and if not happiness, at least contentment. Yet, the anger still lurked silently within me and very much a distant friend along with depression. I also battled anxiety – most often to an extreme. Racing thoughts and nightmares kept me awake at night, but I kept these struggles to myself.
Struggling Through
During a difficult span of time for me after the situation involving the martial arts instructor, I stopped riding the school bus in the mornings. It was during this time that my mother frequently drove me to school. Often, our rides were silent but calm. Those silent 10 to 15 minute drives to school were oftentimes that I wanted to desperately reach out to my mother, but I could not. There was a wall. I did not know if it was a wall of my own creation or her own wall. Yet, I had noticed that during this time my mother had taken huge steps back from the cycle of drama that my life had become.
Unlike my mother’s normal behavior and our tumultuous interactions with each other, not all of my high school years were stressful when dealing with her. In fact, I found calmness in her presence even though I never specifically knew when the rug would be pulled from underneath me since she had a way of ambushing me with covert insults. As long as I was down in the dumps, she was fine, but when I made efforts to improve my life, she provided all of the necessary hindrances to ignite my anger.
During the time that I was dealing with the aftermath of the situation involving the martial arts instructor, my mother granted me a reprieve from the stress of my life when I was being sought after by “bullies” who wanted to tear me down when it came to the rumors circulating about what had occurred then. I could not ride the bus. I feared riding the bus. There was great anxiety about riding the bus. My dissociated selves even insisted that I avoid riding the bus at all costs. So, I was surprised when my mother welcomed the invitation to drive me to school.
Yet, for all that it is worth, my mother and I did not grow close during that time. There was only the façade of closeness as we remained silent with each other. Talk was minimal, and my mother never talked with me in detail about my life. If I did give her information, somehow that information would be leaked to my so-called friends who would then take it to my enemies. I was not aware of this betrayal of my mother for a long time, however.
Oddly, the very people who should have been proud of me for the positive changes in my life at the time were creating stumbling blocks for me along the way. When I worked after school, I learned that I had to help pay my keep and contribute what little money I made to the household. Anything I needed – clothes, toiletries, school items – were fully provided by me. Yet, I helped out my family and not begrudgingly either. I had already been trained to be a people-pleaser and a rescuer. I often choked back the inner tears of sorrow of never having been rescued myself.
Helping out the family was all fine and good, but my parents – particularly my father – attempted to regulate my spending. My father would carve out where my money should go and how much of my money should go there. I worked for a corporation but often felt like I was working for my parents. Eventually, I would not allow them to see my pay stubs and would hide them in my locker at school. In the end, the job was just a way for me to escape when what I really needed was a good night’s sleep. I had not really slept well since before I was nine, but then I honestly had not ever slept very well at all in my narcissistic family’s household.
Everything about my life was about being controlled by someone else, and I hated it. My thoughts, my aspirations, and my goals were always being determined by someone else. However, I tried to make the best of it, and I lived. I survived. I trailed through, and I pushed myself. Yet, I was detached and dissociated from the essence of true living. If it had not been for my drive to succeed and move out of the family home for college, I do believe I would have succumbed to ending my own life.
I am thankful for the help I had along the way. The librarian, a few teachers, and a good friend all made it possible for me to keep my head afloat. I aspired to go far, but inwardly, I was sick with anger. I was incredibly sick. I was a ticking time bomb awaiting a massive explosion. I did all I could to shrink myself or morph myself into someone else. I wanted to wear a mask, but everyone had seen the bare parts of me and had ridiculed me for those bare parts. Wearing a mask would only complicate things.
I spent some time trying to undo past damage. I tried to make things right with different people but it was all to no avail. A black sheep is always the black sheep. My heart grew to understand that it might always be lonely, and I grew sicker with anger until I finally did explode. My anger had turned inward, and it was not depression. It was anger turning into rage. It was an explosive anger – a fiery rage, and it was a valid emotion that took over my life until I finally had no choice but to deal with it.
My Voice Unchained 