Anger

Hey Kid,

I was going to write you about drugs, because drugs are supposed to be one of those things parents are afraid of discussing openly with their children, but, honestly, we can do that any time. Later. What I'm really having a hard time talking about is anger. Anger's something I've been dealing with lately, and my inability to face it and my antagonists is part of why I've been too unhappy to write you lately.

Anger is not something I was raised to feel. I suspect this is a temptation for a lot of parents, to kill their kid's anger as soon as possible, convince them that it's not okay to be angry. When I was fifteen, and my emotions were officially going out of control, I told my mom over the tomato patch that I was freaked out because sometimes I felt so very, very angry.

She looked up from the garden hose, "Are you ever angry at us?" she said, meaning herself and my dad.
"Sometimes," I said. She looked so sad.
"You know," she said, "God doesn't want you to hold anger in your heart toward your parents. It grieves Him mightily."
"But God gets angry all the time in the Bible," I said.
"That's righteous anger," she said. "That's different."

A year later I was hospitalized for suicidal depression. Gosh, I guess I haven't mentioned that before. This is definitely something I haven't wanted to talk about. There's not much to say, unless you want to get into the grim details, but, to be brief, my parents drove me out to Colorado on the pretense of visiting relatives. And then, late on the second night of driving, led a sleepy, pillow-clutching me into what I thought was a Motel 6, and left me there. That place was my first mental hospital. I was admitted into the Christian program to deal with suicidal depression. I was depressed because I had begun to question my family's Christianity and they were treating me badly as a result, which naturally made me very angry. However, I'd been taught from childhood that I wasn't allowed to be angry with them.

The classic line from therapy goes like this: "Depression is anger turned inward."

I had a lot of anger--but I didn't know it, because I had been taught very well not to acknowledge it.

It's been eight years since that time, as of this writing. I've learned to get angry, but I still don't always know how to deal with it. Sometimes it spirals out of control and I take it out on the wrong people. Sometimes I get very sick from holding it in, and there's bile in my mouth all the time Sometimes I pretend I'm not angry, and then I feel ashamed.

Lately, I've been angry because some people were insulting and rude to me, and I tried to placate them instead of telling them that they had to stop. Worry about how to save those friendships was making me very sick, and I knew I had a problem, but I didn't know what to do about it. I began to think that maybe I was wrong to think of having you, because how can I handle the stress of having a kid who will, inevitably, have conflicts with me, if I can't handle the stress of these petty conflicts now? And what kind of anger management skills could I possibly teach you? Wouldn't I just doom you to a life of headaches and stomach ulcers?

And, kid, thinking of you was enough to make me do something about it. I went back to the people I'd first tried to placate, and I told them off, and then I told them I did not need them in my life anymore--because why would I? You might think someone's a good friend, but if you argue, (and arguing is normal and fine and usually it just means there's been a misunderstanding that needs to be worked through), they'll show you their true characters. If someone's true character is a person who thinks it's okay to be insulting, vicious, and condescending, then they're idiots and bad people and you don't need to keep them in your life. And if you're in a group of friends who see what's happening, and they don't care enough about you to point out that it's wrong for friends to be insulting and vicious and condescending to each other, then they're not really your friends either. Just go ahead and tell them where to get off--and do yourself a favor and refuse to be insulting and rude when you do it, so that you can walk away knowing you're the better person. You see, I always skipped over that part where you explain why you're angry and why what the other person did or said was wrong. I thought, why bother? You're going to walk away anyway, why risk further flaring tempers? I'll tell you why: self-respect.

Self-respect may sound like a buzzword, but it turns out life really is better when you think you're worthy of basic courtesy and love.

Now, there are people you can't simply tell off and walk away from forever, and one of those people, at least until you're 18, is me. To you I can only say: it's fine if we argue, but let's both behave like good people when we do it. It's normal and healthy to disagree. But I want to show you by my own actions that I respect your point of view and that I'll admit it when I'm wrong. My parents never did that for me, so I never learned it was okay to respect my own point of view. Now, granted, I was a teenager and sometimes my point of view was totally wrong, because I didn't know that much about life. Like it or not, you'll be wrong a lot too. But not all the time. Sometimes I'll be wrong or unjust, and I hope we'll be able to work through those times. I hope you'll feel like you can stick up for yourself. That's why I write these things to you, though, to remind myself of things parents seem to forget, so I won't be unjust as often, and so that I'll remember to respect your point of view, so you'll know how to respect yourself.

You know, you should totally feel free to make me re-read parts of this, if you think I've forgotten.

I love you so much, Kid,



C.