Recently I had an epiphany when talking about dealing with the
situation where people thought I was angry. The epiphany was: what
many perceive as anger is not always anger when dealing with me.
I'm a white male legal citizen over the age of 50 with adult children.
I have a lot of experience in many areas of life. And I continue to
learn and grow as I get older.
When I was younger I would use anger to power through things. To
exert my will over situations where I thought I was supposed to be in
control. I was afraid often that fear would come out as anger because
people were doing things that made me concerned for their health or
their welfare. And by welfare I don't mean check from the government,
I mean their health, both mental and physical.
When I was surprised I often yelled and cursed. I remember I was
asleep one time on top of the comforter on the bed. It was the
afternoon after church and I was really tired so I grabbed a pillow
and just laid on my belly and went to sleep. My wife came in and
stuck her face in my face to wake me up and it scared me. I yelled
some profane words and jumped up ready to fight. Another time I was
in the shower one of my children that likes to scare people decided he
would scare me. He discovered that was not the best idea because of my
reaction.
In those situations and many others what came out looking like anger
was my reaction to fear.
When I have expectations and those expectations are not met I
experience disappointment. Often times I'm unable to express my
disappointment in any way other than seeming angry. I wasn't brought
up to cry although did plenty of that as a child. I remember one time
when we lived 30 minutes from town in Florida mom and dad had to take
me into town to go to the store or something. It was a Friday night
and one of my favorite shows of the time, the Muppet's "Pigs In Space"
show was supposed to come on 8PM. I asked and begged my parents to
rush home so that we could get home in time for me to watch pigs in
space. Think I was 13 at the time, or maybe 14. But we got home at
about 8:03pm and I rushed into the living room and my grandmother was
watching a different show and wouldn't change the channel. I was very
disappointed. That time my disappointment came out as tears because I
didn't know what to do and why she wasn't cooperating. It was before
you can record things and watch them over and over frame by frame and
I would never see that show again.
As I got older my disappointment seemed like I was angry. When being
bypassed for promotions and details to different jobs to develop my
career I would be very disappointed and that disappointment came
across as anger to many. It was anger in several situations, but the
base of it was disappointment. And embarrassment about how things
were being done. But that's a different subject.
But as a male most of my negative emotions tend to be perceived as
anger by others. I'm slowly learning that that's their problem and
not mine. Perception is not reality. If perception was reality my
perception of a lot of things would define a very radical reality
around me.
But my grumpiness and supposedly angry demeanor is actually a fear of
disappointment and nervousness and grief and even sometimes happiness
and being thrilled. How you perceive my face and my voice is more
your problem and not mine. I am who I am.
