I Don’t Think I’ve Directly Expressed My Anger At Anyone In My Adult Life

I couldn’t sleep last night because I felt sick about the way my reflexive hostility poisons my FB posts, my blogging, and my life. I have not directly expressed my anger at anyone in my adult life. I’ve never expressed anger at my father in my life. I just store the anger inside and it swills around and I let it go in sneaky ways and usually at innocent people. I used to express a lot of rage as an infant but I was quickly taught that was not the Christian way, so I learned to swallow those dark emotions.

I grew up watching my father incapacitate vast numbers of people. He just drove them out of their minds. I saw him reduce his critics to helpless fury. They would become incoherently angry. I thought it was funny. I still do. I grew up taking great delight in incapacitating people with anger. I learned how to say a few words and just drive them out of their minds. It’s always been my sweetest pleasure. I wouldn’t know how to live without my rage at my father. It’s like the rocket fuel that has always powered my rocket. My life would be unimaginable without it. I would have no idea about how to live. This fuel is also a poison that has nearly destroyed me and those touched by me.

I notice myself feeling hostility and rage much of the time. I just want to stick it to people. It’s not that it feels good, it’s like an addiction, like it’s out of my control. I can tamp it down, tamp it down, but there’s all this rage dying to be released. I suspect this rage goes back to my early childhood, possibly directed at my father, but what makes it so bewildering is that I have no conscious anger against anyone.

I find myself lashing out at people, but I know my rage is directed against events in my childhood. I feel in the grip of this unwanted hostility. I have my father’s attitude that the outside world is the enemy to be debunked (according to an SDA Bible scholar).

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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