likesacookie

This is likely to be long-winded, so I apologize. I'll try to keep the reading clean.

In my house it was considered rude and inappropriate to express anger. My parents NEVER fought when I was growing up until they split up when I was fifteen. Also something I'm still angry at 10 years later. My parents would send me to my room if I "mouthed off". That was the Worst. Punishment. Ever. I would sit in my room, so explosively angry, just sitting on my bed twiddling my thumbs and sobbing like the little girl I was. I would have rather been screaming and throwing things, but that wasn't allowed. When I was feeling very brave I would throw a soft stuffed animal against my bed so it didn't make any noise and they would have no idea that I had thrown something. I understand my parents position in raising me this way. Nobody wants a bratty child. I was never bratty for it, either. My parents never beat me. They didn't abuse me. I got spanked on occasion. I got sent to my room. Got privilages taken away, but I was always terrified of making them angry. I was always sort of wussy like that.

This continued on through my school years. People would make fun of me, and I wouldn't say anything back because, a: I wasn't clever enough to be funny, b: I couldn't think of anything to say, and c: I knew if I acted angry they would only laugh at me. I showed up to the two fights I was called out on. I could have gone home the other way. I could have avoided the fight by hiding. Instead, both challengers were no-shows. I always wondered if they would have laughed at me less if they'd known I was there to take them down. Maybe quiet little me was more of a fighter than they were.

I always play the piece maker. My heart actually palpitates at the barest hint of displeasure being expressed.

I am angry though. I have been angry my whole life and it's not going away with time. Instead it's building. My dog is afraid of me. He's always been weird and skittish anyway, but I've never been anything but sweet to him and he crawls on the floor when he's around me now. He looks at me like he doesn't trust me. I need to fix my methods of handling anger before they overwhelm me and I do something really stupid.

I needed a place to go where I could say everything that I'm angry about, without judgment.

I am angry that my dog simpers around me when I love him so much. He's like a child to me. I am angry that my home is a mess, but I have too much anxiety to lift a finger right now to clean it. I'm waiting to receive my medications.

I'm angry at my father who left me when I was fifteen under the pretense that it was better for me. He had been nearly the perfect father up until then. He drank, but wasn't an angry drunk. He made me and my mom laugh. He played with the animals. My 4 year old best friend had the biggest crush on him and was determined to marry him when she grew up. Of course, she also ate dirt. But my dad left me with my mother who has Lupus, fibromyalgia, gout, stroke, seizures, major depression (didn't set in until he left), and was on all sorts of medications that changed her behavior. Three weeks before I was 15 I became a mother to a disabled 47 year old. I lost the rest of my family in that mess too. They didn't see that I needed help. They were only worried about my mom. I'm a little angry about that too. She was very sick at the time, so I don't blame them too much.

My father left the state, but told me not to tell anyone he was going. That lasted about an hour and a half, when I broke down in the middle of a family dinner and I felt so guilty about telling, even though I couldn't keep it in. I think he was drunk when we had this conversation. I tried several times to tell him how angry I was and how awful the situation was, but he just told me to grow up.

I met my future husband shortly after that. We got married when I was 19. We couldn't have liquor at our wedding, not because we were underage, but because his alcoholic mother would have consumed it all. I'm angry about that. He was an abusive sorry excuse for a human being. I'm angry about that too. I thought I could handle it. Eventually I just became weary and wanted out. A messy divorce followed that still isn't finalized because he dragged his feet. Angry again.

To this day I rarely yell or even raise my voice. If I do raise my voice I am still polite and always say exactly what I mean. And then I get walked over and people say that I never tell them what's on my mind. Upon making an effort to yell they understood that I just don't yell.

Here's my current dilemma though, if you've made it this far; my slumlords want my partner and me out of the apartment that we're in because we don't keep a tidy lawn, as far as I can tell. They're pushing us out by raising our rent astronomically and demanding things that it's not even legal for them to demand. We have come up with a game plan and I'm not too worried about the schematics of that situation. I am worried about my emotional issues. I am angry in a white-hot way. I am having dreams about screaming and yelling and crying and beating on people, because I'm so angry and it's not coming out any other way. I want to be polite and take the proverbial high road, but I've taken the high road all my life and I feel like poo because of it. I still feel angry at those people and I feel like I've never told them what I was really feeling. My base question is: Do you think I should contact the slumlords and tell them what asses they are and tell them where they can go, or should I let it ride out in silence again?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.