A Card on the Table...

I am angry. Isn't that an ugly word? But I've said it and, according to some psychologists, that is a great step for a woman. Apparently we rarely admit to being angry. We admit to being hurt, we admit to being upset, we admit to being lonely and feeling betrayed, but we struggle to admit to when we feel angry.

I think this is because we don't want people to think badly of us. We don't want anyone to think that we are as ugly as the word 'angry'. Yet it's a natural human emotion and a natural response to certain situations. I don't think feeling angry makes anyone a bad person. I think it's how you respond to that anger that shows what kind of person you are.

I am angry because I feel that I have been treated unfairly for a long time, and that the people who should have looked out for me, who should have been fair to me, and whom I loved regardless have hurt me. I feel betrayed, and lonely and hurt, and, yes, angry.

As a result of my anger, and the shame I feel for being angry at all, I feel that people judge me. There is a paranoia and a defensiveness that I carry with me. I worry that I am wrong to feel angry and that those who treat me badly are justified in doing so because of that. This leads to further hurt.

Still with me?

I began this blog as an outlet for that anger, and also to put my point of view out there, like so many others who also blog. However, I have realised that I vent only when I'm angry and this makes me sound ugly. I have also realised that I don't want to be defined by my anger. So I decided to stop feeling ashamed of it and to do something about it.

Step one was admitting to it. I told my partner how I feel. Step two was explaining why I was angry. I did that. And you know what? He understood. It's nice to be understood. Now we're working on step three together: trying to fix the things that make me feel angry and hurt and betrayed and lonely. It's a long list of things; it's amazing how much women can silently put up with for years before they finally explode. It's a slow process, but we're getting there, and he's trying, and that means the world to me.

Last weekend, Jason inadvertently did something that ended up causing me a lot of physical pain. For the first ten or fifteen minutes of pain, I felt guilty that I might be ruining his plans for the weekend. After that, I felt angry at him for putting me in that position. We were two miles from home. He sat me down on the grass verge by the road and walked home to get the car to collect me and put me safely onto our couch with a bucket of painkillers and a mug of tea. He was gone for ten minutes and I was angry for five before I decided there was no point. If he had thought about what he was doing in detail, I would not have been in pain. However, if he had, for a second, considered the pain he would eventually cause me, he would never have done what he did. Besides, I've had enough anger this year to last me a lifetime. He was careless with me, but he regrets it - and what's more, he worked to make it up to me. He got back with the car to find me, still in pain, but joking about it now and smiling instead of cross.

Anger can be a useful emotion, when it drives us to act, when it makes us do something about whatever it is that is causing us pain. After that, it becomes destructive. I'm grateful that I have this blog as a place to vent, but I'm also glad that the things that made me angry are being fixed, so that I don't have to feel angry anymore.