I am going to admit something very personal. I have a very difficult time with anger. I have trouble feeling it; I have trouble expressing it and I have a LOT of trouble when it's directed at me. It's such a difficult emotion for me. I have (and have always had) difficulty with the entire emotion of anger.
With most people, this is not such a hang-up. Something happens that affronts them and they become upset. They get mad. They yell. They throw things. They vent. Then they get over it and go on with life. I wish I could mimic this cycle. With me, it goes more like this: Something happens that affronts me and I become upset. I get mad. I keep it inside and stew over it. I become indignant, then resentful and that leads to feeling bitter and then I feel guilty and ashamed...so I withdraw from activities and people and then I become terribly depressed, which leads me back to resentfulness and bitterness and perpetuates my very dysfunctional cycle. The fact that I've FINALLY (after about 44 years) figured out the pattern means that there might be some hope, with God's help...for changing it.
I was raised in an environment and culture where "nice girls" and "ladies" didn't really have the right to get angry. We could quietly endure and we could shoulder the responsibility for making someone else angry (as in, "Baby, WHY do you make me hit you?")......but when it came to our own feelings of anger, we were taught to swallow it down, along with our pride and to above all else, "be nice." Be a "good girl." No unlady like displays of yelling, screaming or throwing things. No ugliness. No scenes. Good heavens, we're NOT that kind of women! Only non-God-fearing, hussies and loose, brazen women would dare to act out (or as my Mamaw would say: "show-out") in such an uncivilized manner! Godly women were supposed to at ALL times remain dignified, composed and gracious. Bless their hearts.
To this day, I find myself silently following those archaic, insane and emotionally destructive guidelines. Someone hurts my feelings? On the inside, I'm fuming, I'm crying and screaming. I'm stomping my foot and spitting and my face is flaming red with indignation. I'm flipping them off. I'm calling them every bad thing I can think of. I'm restraining myself from throwing my shoulder out when I shoot my hand over to slap the ugly smirk off their smug face. I want to yell and cuss and cry and let them know exactly how wrong they are and why what they said wounded me so deeply.
But of course. I don't. Usually......I sit there, stunned for a second......then I compose my face into what I can only hope is a serene smile and become very, very quiet......and then at the first chance I get, I slink away to lick my wounds and berate myself for not reacting appropriately. After the fact, I can think of a million things to say....witty, intelligent, one-line zingers that would put even the most crass offender in their place. In the heat of the moment.....I just sit there like a mute manikin with no feelings at all...a painted smile frozen on my face. Dignified and composed on the outside...runny jello with a side of boiling arsenic on the inside.
NO wonder I have such a problem with depression!!! My goodness! It's not healthy to suppress and repress and outright deny all those negative feelings!! I don't know why I can't seem to break out of this pattern. When I'm not angry, like now.....it all seems so clear-cut and logical. In the face of hurt (intentional or perceived) it all goes flying out the window. I can't think a sane logical thought. I freeze. I am at a loss for words. I might be capable of a few tears.....but that only serves to humiliate me further. No one wants to show how emotionally weak and vulnerable they are to someone who's verbally bashing them right there on the spot! How pitiful, right??? The worse thing EVER is when the person I'm angry with wants to be all emotionally healthy had "talk this out." Man, oh man...those words strike terror in my heart and my mind becomes as blank as a clean chalkboard; incapable of forming lucid sentences, incapable of expressing anything genuine or thought-out and so I usually just end up crying and hating myself for doing it.
I am a fairly intelligent person capable of insightful thought and I can draw logical conclusions and can function in the business world and in my private and public life......until faced with becoming angry. This, I don't do well. I know I don't do it well.....and I've resigned myself to the very real truth that I need to study "How to be Angry in an emotionally Healthy Manner." Wish I could just take a class...If a local University offered to the community at large a class entitled "Anger Management for the Repressed Christian Southern Woman 101," I would be first in line to sign up!
All my life I've heard the Bible verse that says, "Be angry, but sin not!" from Ephesians 4:26. But honestly, I have no idea how that plays out in real life. How angry can I become before it turns into sin? How do I express said anger? I thought my way of dealing with anger was fine....until I read the rest of that same verse that says, "Don't let the sun go down on your wrath." I'm going to hazard a guess that my method of running away from a fight and then going over and over what was said in my mind until I resent the person I'm angry with and then ending up miserable for days.....isn't exactly what this verse has in mind. Touche. Guess what...even though I didn't "pitch a fit"....my anger still turned into sin, didn't it?
Another "anger-scene" that always comes to my mind is when Jesus confronted the money-changers who were defiling the Temple by cheating the worshipers and charging outrageous fees for the required sacrifices. He yelled at them. He called them out, overturned their tables, scattering their merchandise all over the floor and then Jesus chased them out of the Temple.... with a whip!!! That doesn't sound very composed or mild or serene to me at all. I certainly can't see myself overturning the conference room table at my office, scattering charts and care-plans all over the floor while I chase my lazy clinicians out of the building with a bull-whip.......any more than I can see myself knocking over the dinner table at home; the cornbread and sweet-tea flying willy-nilly over the hardwood floors while I chase my husband out of the dining room while snapping his backside with his Sunday dress belt! (And yes, I was going for the giggle there....I actually do realize that there was so much more at stake with the defilement of the temple .......especially in comparison to my own petty hurts and perceived injustices). But the Bible goes on to say that Jesus was sinless. He was angry...and He let everybody know it....but He did not sin. That is fascinating to me!! When I was a little girl (and honestly....even now) that Bible story always bothered me. Maybe it's the comparison in my own mind of being spanked until I had whelps and bruises down my backside with a belt by my own angry father as a child....maybe it's just that in my own mind (from what I've been taught my whole life) that righteous anger shouldn't "show-out" like that. But, the Bible is very clear on this.....He did not sin!!!! Blows my mind. Honestly, it blows my mind!!
So, what does this mean for ME? Obviously, I'm not going to start overturning tables and carrying a whip around.... but I really DO need to get a handle on what it means to "Be angry, but sin not." This is an area where I need some HELP and more than a little grace to overcome a lifetime of emotional dysfunction. I need to learn to confront the things and people who are hurtful, insensitive and mean. I am so tired of the destructive cycle that I so often (read: too often) find myself caught in. I allow people to walk all over me (in the well-meaning manner of being NICE) and I end up doing way more than my share of the work and carrying more than my share of guilt for things that I sometimes shouldn't even own. I'm tired of being Sad-Sue the Door-Mat. That said....I don't want to become (Please pardon my use of the word, but NOTHING else quite fits) a real 'bitch' either. I want to learn how to put into action the command to "Be angry, but sin not." Right now, I just don't have a CLUE what that looks like for me.
I'm asking for your prayers while I dig into my Bible and study and try to figure how how this works. On second thought....maybe we ought to pray for everybody that comes in contact with me while I'm figuring this out as well! It's bound to get a bit messy.
Trying to keep it honest...even when it's ugly,
Amanda
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