"That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry."
~ Bruce Banner, The Avengers (2012)
When we were young, we would go to the club, my siblings and me. One day, as we were going through the security gate, my younger sister told me that she forgot her club ID, which is her pass to the club. So, I did what any older sister would do and told the guard at the gate that she is my little sister, and she was accompanying me. To my shock back then, the guard did not believe me and kept mumbling that she is not my sister. And in just a few seconds, I was fuming with anger, not due to the fact that he thought I was lying, but because he denied the fact that Reem is my sister simply because we don’t look alike. I was furious! And in a very angry tone, I told him she is indeed my sister, firmly held her hand and stormed inside the club. I was extremely angry!
As far as I remember, I was always angry. I can’t even remember my first encounter with this emotion. It goes back as far as my own existence. It was something like “I am angry, therefore I am.” And beneath that smile of mine, there were always storms ready to flare whenever something unexpected stirred. I would feel blood boiling through my veins and that euphoric tingling sensation in my head. I was always ready to unleash those bursts of anger whenever called for or not!
The thing is, I loved being angry! Anger gave me a false feeling of power, like I was invincible. I remember Gabor Mate saying once that anger is an emotion that developed to protect boundaries. An animal would show signs of anger when another animal enters their territory; for instance, they would make a body posture that makes them look bigger and maybe roar to scare the intruder away. Did I feel that my boundaries were crossed? Maybe I was afraid, or I feared that a loved one—here, my own younger sister in the story told above—was being threatened in one way or another? To be honest, I don’t really know. All I know is I was always angry.
Although I used to take pride in being articulate, I would always get angry when I got misunderstood; clenching my teeth, crossing my eyebrows, and a small fire would start to light in my eyes. I am sure that I looked very silly, given the fact that I am a petite woman, yet I used to admire my “angry look” momentarily whenever I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror.
I was raised in my grandma’s household, and boy, she was a very strong-willed woman. Whenever something was not going the way she anticipated, she would be very upset. She was feared, respected, and whatever she wanted would happen. And for my teenage child brain, I associated anger with strength. Even worse, I associated being calm with weakness.
Among the things that made me angry was when I felt that I was not heard or understood. The frustration coming from this would make my adrenaline skyrocket in a nanosecond. Fear also made me angry, especially the fear that any of my loved ones might be in danger. Then my nervous system would go immediately into code red: Fight Position Maximum Alert!
I was angry when my father passed away. I could not fathom that he did not fight enough for his life to be with us. And for years, I held him responsible for his own death.
To be honest, I loved my anger. It gave me a perception that I could take down anyone if I wanted. And once I reached a certain point in anger, there was no turning back, like a chain reaction that could not be stopped till it’s through. In my own Alice-in-Wonderland world, I knew myself to be a violent, fearful b****, who is actually capable of anything!
Till very recent, I was very attached to my anger because it protected me at certain moments of my life. And though I am not angry anymore, I still do not know why I was.
