March 28, 2022
Anger
I don’t do well with it. Some people feel and express it freely, getting over it just as quickly as it came.
I can’t do that.
If I’m angry, it’s because I’m gridlocked with no other emotional options, and I dwell on it. I suppose by that point, you could say the battle’s already been lost.
My mother was always mad at me for something. Always disappointed. Nights sitting at the piano in tears because I wasn’t good enough. Criticizing the things I did, dressed, and looked. Cutting me down when my stalk grew too high. Suffocating the roots of my imagination. I don’t even remember why she hated me. Maybe she wanted a daughter. She was angry. Always angry.
Maybe that’s why I don’t do well with anger… why I’ve been a chronic people-pleaser all my life… and why I get angry myself when I do everything I can to avoid people getting angry at me yet it happens anyway.
It comes from my childhood, that deep-seated belief that I’m not good enough… that I’m terribly flawed. That would explain the perfectionistic tendencies and fear of failure… of being a failure.
When Danika rejected me, it reaffirmed the worst fears I had about myself. In that way she reminded me of my mother.
When we were just friends, hanging around at summer camp together, it was fun and light. After she said no, it triggered a darker part of my psyche… the damaged child. That’s when the obsession started to grow. I had to know why… what exactly was it that I was lacking.
I could never talk to my mother… because of the person she was, the language barrier, the fear I had of her.
But there was none of that with Danika. I could call her on the phone and talk to her… and I did. Too much. Too often. She called me a creepy stalker. That hurt me, yet fed back into the narrative that I was a screw up, drawing me in even further.
In hindsight, I realize you can’t be a creepy stalker and a chronic people-pleaser at the same time. Stalkers don’t care about the people they stalk. They seem to, but truly only care about their own satisfactions.
I cared about Danika very dearly. I still do. I didn’t want to scare, hurt or bother her for my own selfish needs. She has a great life, and I’m happy for her. I had to leave her alone, for her sake.
I had this compulsion to talk to her because she was the holy grail. All the answers to “why am I not good enough?” was contained within her. She became the judge and the barometer by which I measured my worth. She was perfect in every way… a God-like figure in my mind. Never mind the pedestal. She sat on a golden throne atop of a mighty tower, surrounded by cornucopias and magnificent floral displays.
Instead of my mother’s approval, which I’d long ago given up on, I pinned all my worth on what Danika thought of me.
Even now, years later, I think of her, and I get a pang of anger because the answer to the question “would she approve of me?” is still “not yet”.
Though, she didn’t always answer when I called. The image I have of her is mostly based on her, her values and her tastes, but along the way I’ve evolved it and filled in the blanks with my own opinions and beliefs. It has become something else… a sort of butterfly with two different wing patterns overlapping each other. That’s what I’m trying to measure up to.
It’s just… the question a shrink would pose is “well, when will it finally be time to love yourself?”
When I can stop being angry at myself? When I can stop everyone else from getting angry at me?
Maybe I do already love myself and the progress I’ve made. Maybe you can appreciate being a caterpillar while also striving to become a butterfly.
Maybe I’ll just try to be the best damn caterpillar I can be, and eventually the anger will shed itself along the way.