Anger management

For more than a decade, I didn't get angry, not a shade of it. I didn't lose my temper, I avoided confrontation at all costs and buried any anger deep in my subconscious. I put up barriers and created coping strategies which effectively banished anger for good. Or so I thought.

When daughter's mother and I split up, I remember telling myself "That's it. No more anger." I just cut it off there and then, stopped it whenever it came and dismissed it. There was so much about the relationship that was wrong and I used to get very angry. Her mother was incredibly dishonest and confrontational - on this latter point she told me shortly after we separated that she 'enjoyed arguments because they gave her a buzz'. I was very chilled almost to the point of personal pacifism, so we were distinctly opposite in many ways.

So effective was my banishing of anger that for a long time I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt it. Unfortunately, instead of feeling it, I buried it and didn't let it out and it caused, using my own analogy, a festering rotting decay in a dark, closed room at the back of my mind. This room was well sealed but eventually it became so full it started to leak and infect other aspects of my personality and emotions. Eventually it got so bad that I had to find help to get past it.

At the time I didn't know that's what was happening. It's only with a lot of hard work, introspection and reflection that it's clear to me now. Of course, it's not just the anger that screwed me up - I made a lot of poor emotional choices driven by many urges and impulses and a lot of things got tangled and blurred, but recognising and dealing with the anger was a reasonable part of my treatment. Whenever I was encouraged to discuss anger, I'd get this mental white noise which stopped me confronting it. I admitted I was so afraid to face the anger inside because it felt like a super-volcano and if I let it erupt it'd never stop, I'd hurt people and myself and things and christ, I did everything possible to avoid that.

What is obvious now is that by coming to terms with the anger, recognising it for what it is and what is represents, knowing where it came from and having control over where it's going, is very important and in fact imperative for progression. Every day I learn something which contributes towards my personal development and I'm incredibly fortunate to have found a way to be at ease with all the emotions I have. I know for a fact that I wouldn't be where I am now without resolving this key aspect of my mental make-up.