Post 17: Me and My Anger Isshas

I know all ya'll think I am perfect.

And that's a good thing.

You know, there are people who, when they cuss in my presence, they apologize.

That makes me feel special. (And I suppose they don't know that I tend to open my Good Book of Cuss ever so often. Sigh).

But there are things that I just don't like about myself.

And if you've read my blog long enough, you should've picked up on it by now.

I have severe anger issues.

And that is something that I absolutely HATE about myself.

For I would like to be like everyone else, always bubbly, happy all the time.

Go to sleep smiling. Wake up smiling.

But I'm not like all of ya'll.

I get angry.

But I must admit that I've gotten better in the past few years... MUCH.

I'm "special" with my anger, too.

Now, my Mama is someone who I consider extremely violent. I mean, she and I don't get along. I know if I say the wrong thing to her, my tires would get slashed, and my windows will be busted out. The last big blow up we had, well, if my brother wouldn't have been there, to seperate us, then I would've been fatally hurt.

People tell me to write a letter to my my mother. I say, "Uh, you don't know my mother."

My Father, from what I know of him, and having spent some time with him early last year, is a very quiet and docile man. He and I have a lot of the same characteristics. I am extremely quiet like he is. We have the same sense of humor. I looked at the man, and I could not imagine him having an angry bone in his body.

Now I have both of these people's genes. And you know what that makes me.

"Special". Very special when it comes to my anger.

I am VERY passive-aggressive. VERY. VERY quiet with my anger.

If I'm mad, I just don't talk to you. I don't acknowledge your presence. And this gets confusing, because I am rarely mad at folks. Rarely. This can get confused with situations where I'm not mad. I know good and well that I don't need to be bothered with you, and I am ghost.

But I was never allowed to express my feelings growing up. So it is rare for me to express them now. I just do the passive-aggressive thang. And if you push me, and keep pushing me, well...

I will verbally whip your tail. And I'm putting it mildly, and as PG as I can.

Believe that.

That is something I don't like about myself. And it has to be some genetic craziness. (I am a closet geneticist. I am fascinated by genetic implications.)

But like I said, I've lightened up. The older I get, the more I lighten up.

Especially since I understand something that I heard about 5 years ago:

ANGER is an expression of FEAR

I heard that when we had some crazy long series at church on negative emotions, and how to handle them. I thought to myself, "That is bogus! He need to move on to something else!"

But when I thought about it, it really wasn't.

And once I got an understanding of it, I began to solve a few of my anger issues.

Right now, I'm not angry about much. Interestingly, my anger has pretty much been centralized in a couple of different areas over the years.

One of the anger issues is concerning me and my Mother. I won't write about it, as it is such a distant issue to me right now.

The other anger issue surrounds my job. And you've been witness to that recently.

Uh, let's just say, the anger you saw late last year resided just beneathe my skin.

The anger some five to seven years ago ran bone deep.

But that phrase above, the mysterious anger-fear connection is rather interesting...

ANGER is an expression of FEAR.

In other words, anger comes from fear.

FEAR is the root of ANGER.

And if you turn that sentence around, it would sound funny.

FEAR is an expression of ANGER.

Na'wl man... Look at that real close. That don't sound right. Has to be the other way around.

I remember, back then, I REALLY chewed on that phrase. Chewed on it like a wad of that hard bazooka gum.

I didn't believe it.

Until some mess went down at work.

We had (and still have) something crazy going on at work:

The white people don't work as hard as the negroes.

It is what it is. Nothing anyone could do about it at the time.

But, I got caught up in the mix.

For, I, LadyLee, am extremely brilliant. I am very knowledgable. Really, I am. 'Tis true.

And the white people knew this. (If they didn't, they wouldn't have messed with me).

To make a long story short, I was working like a DOG in my own workgroup. And it is already pretty upsetting to watch the white people of another group sip lattes all day, take 3 hours lunches, and enjoy life.

(Shoot, we had a white dude in our group that didn't do much work. I wrote about dude here on this blog before. It still upsets my boss when I tell her she need to stop "Breast feeding" that dude.)

Well, a situation came up where there was special work that needed to be done in another group (the white people's group), and they wanted ME to do it.

ME. LadyLee. LadyLee who already worked 12 hours a day. LadyLee who works 12 hours a day with a chronic illness. TIRED LADYLEE.

Pissed me off.

And I let it be known. Talked plenty sh**. (Please excuse my language.)

And my boss wouldn't protect me. (Still lost on that. I guess she needed to look out for her ownself.) These jokers would say stuff to her about me, and she would, I don't know, believe them?

WOW.

Man, this was on my mind 24/7. I was always pissed about it. I think I mighta prayed about it, but they were some anger tinged prayers that went no furhter than the sound of my voice.

Man, I was HOT. I'd get so mad that my ears would get hot.

And you know when people talking about you. You know, you walk down the hall, and you speak to them, and they don't speak.

That REALLY made me mad.

Bustas!

Anyway, things got worse. I was working like a dog, and having to have a front row seat to these white people enjoying the good life.

And something happened one day. And I can't remember it, but my workload was about to get jacked up with something the white people could be doing, and Man, I tell you, I was so upset that I left work. Told my boss, look, I'm turning in a leave slip, and I'm out.

I left work, and I was so upset and angry, that I don't remember leaving work. I don't remember getting in my car. I don't remember driving.

I just remember pushing a cart around the local Who.le Foods store. I was sooooo upset and pissed that I don't remember anything.

And I truly understand what people mean when they say they black out and tare up stuff.

No I didn't tare up stuff. Just disappeared for a few days. (Did this a few times prior to that, I think.)

But I remember leaving the grocery store and sitting in my car at a stoplight on Courtland street, and hearing very clear in my heart.

"What are you afraid of?"

And that right there to me was a very profound question.

And it was there, at a stoplight that I understood one thing.

Don't deal with the anger. Deal with the ROOT of the anger. Deal with the FEAR behind the anger.

And that is something I had to seriously sit down and deal with.

Because I knew right then, if I could face the fear and deal with it.

Then my anger would dissipate.

Sounds far-fetched don't it.

Next time you're angry, sit down and think on it... and think about it from the point of view of what you're afraid of.

(And if you read Terry's Cheap Seats post today, you will understand that it's just not a time to lie to yourself. It is a time to be TOTALLY honest with yourself.)

You may ask, "What were you afraid of, LadyLee?"

I will tell you what I was afraid of. And this is something that I have never admitted to anyone, only to myself.

I was afraid that they would work me so hard that I would die.

And I was mad about that. Because I like my life, and I don't want to die because some job stressed me out so bad that I fell out dead.

That is a HARSH thing to admit, even to myself. But hey, I'm revealing the dark side around these parts up in some of these posts, and that is a look on my dark side.

I was already working hard. Now you want to work me harder.

And I have lupus, which is very much a stress related condition. If I'm stressed, I get sick. I start having complications. And honey? I don't care for complications at all. And I deal with that when I am working too hard. Gives my doctor a fit, and she and I have battled over my working like a dog.

But I had to deal with that. I had to admit it to myself, and just start praying about it.

And I had to anniliate that.

For if you destroy the ROOT of the tree, you're not going to have anything associated with that tree showing up - no leaves, no fruit, no branches, no pine cones - nothing.

No healthy thriving root = no tree.

Kill the root, then you kill off the fruit. Anger is the fruit of fear. (Well, one of the many fruits. Now THAT'S something to pontificate.)

And that's what I saw with my anger.

The more I dealt with my feelings of fear, the better I got concerning my anger.

And it was one of those things where I was like "God, I'ma do my part, You do your part, and we cool. We straight."

For I understood that my anger was getting in the way of things. Which meant my FEAR was getting in the way of things.

FEAR is the great paralyzer. It will keep your feet, your heart, your mind, your spirit, EVERYTHING, just stagnant... stuck in one place.

And FEAR is the reciprocal of FAITH.

If fear is there, faith is not present.

So... let's just say I realized how important it was to be agressive with my fear.

I got aggressive. I spent the time necessary dealing with it. I didn't talk to anyone about it. I think me and my doc had a convo, but that's about it.

And due to that, interesting things began to happen.

I was left alone at work. They blackballed the mess out of me (which was cool), but I got out of it what I thought was an impossible situation. Shoot man, that's all I wanted.

And something else very interesting happened in the process of me making a sincere effort to deal with my fears...

One of my most important instructions concerning dealing with my anger issues.

One of the most important answers to a prayer I've ever received.

(Stay tuned...)