I have an anger problem. Just saying that in such a simple way makes me deeply anxious.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

I’m not certain quite when I became fully aware that I have a problem with anger. Sometime during my first marriage, maybe. Once my violent ex-husband had broken me, the coping skills that functioned as a frozen and inauthentic fake of emotional regulation went to pieces in a frightening way (for me). It was surreal and terrifying to really lose control, and in that loss of control, I became the bad guy. I mean, that was his narrative at the time. It was me. My fault, he’d tell me.

Many many years of therapy later, I understand better, but… I’m still left with an anger problem, and I haven’t done the needful to really sort it out. I squash it, and try to make it small. That hasn’t helped. I know, factually, that “the way out is through” but actually walking that hard mile terrifies me. So I keep dodging it.

…Aaaand, since I’m not unpacking my own terrifying anger, I certainly can’t easily cope with, accept, understand, or make space for my Traveling Partner’s anger, however reasonable. So…yeah; I’ve got an anger problem. It’s my anger that I’ve got the problem with, but the result of not dealing with it has rendered me prone to being incredibly easily triggered by any anger at all.

Anger and anxiety have some sort of reciprocal arrangement. When I’m already anxious, being exposed to explicit displays of anger or aggressive posturing put me on the defensive, quickly, then mire me in panic. In more than one relationship this was used against me in a deliberate strategic way. I did eventually learn that love doesn’t behave that way. That life lesson ended a long-term relationship of more than a decade. I remember the way my Traveling Partner (a close friend at that time) helped me through it. I remember how shocked and puzzled I was that violence had erupted on the evening that would be the last of that relationship, out of nowhere, in a relationship that had never known violence before.

… I sit with that assessment realizing it might be viewed quite differently by my ex…

… I still carry the emotional scars; I respond to anger first with terror. I no longer know what might follow the terror. It’s been a long time since I’ve ever been pushed beyond the terror (and I hope I sort this out before I ever am)…

I sit with my thoughts in the autumn sunshine. My chest aches and my heart is still pounding. I feel as if I’m fighting for air to breathe. I remind myself that’s the physical experience of panic. Breathe. Just breathe. I hear the encouragement in my beloved’s voice. The breakdown of our harmonious communication was surely on me. Baggage, compounding brain damage. It used to feel easier, then I started working towards healing, for real. Now it isn’t so easy; I am accountable for my actions and my words. I’m responsible for the hurt they may deliver. It’s rough. A lot of work. I make a lot of mistakes. (I imagine I’m very hard to live with.) Authentic connected intimate communication between loving equals is not effortless, and faking it does not work.

I guess I’ve got to begin again, and start really dealing with my anger. It’s time. The clock is ticking. These mortal lives are too brief to waste on anger, but ignoring it or trying to stifle it isn’t the way forward. I squint into the sun, but can’t see past the bend in the path up ahead. I breathe, exhale, and repeat, focusing on my breathing. My beloved sent me an article he suggests may be helpful. Definitely time to begin again.