I've witnessed first hand what holding onto anger does to a person. It makes them bitter. You can have conversations with that person, but you never get to experience real joy with them. It's only joy to a potential that's limited by a wall of anger. It's like watching someone that's living a glass half empty kind of life. The mundane things in life are just that...mundane. It's depressing to watch that. Those small moments in life should be experienced! A person that holds onto anger has a very hard time appreciating those mundane things like a hug or a simple "I love you.". And it's noticeable. It hurts because you never think you can reach that person. It's hard to tell if the smile on their face is genuine. Joy never lasts for the person who holds onto anger. I've seen how a child's heart breaks because her parent wasn't able to show her that he cared. She knew that her father cared, but she cried most nights because the anger prevented him from smiling at her as she walked by. Her father never acknowledged her successes because he was too busy being angry at the mundane things in life to notice. Eventually I watched that girl grow up to think most people are just as angry as the ones she grew up with. Anger rubs off on people. That little girl became angry because nothing she ever did was good enough. Anger causes you to stay inside your head and prevents you from communicating when it matters. Nothing should be so frustrating that it takes up your whole life.
Personally, anger is a beast I've struggled with for most of my life. I've never really figured out how to let go of it completely, although there have been times I thought I was close. You would never know that looking at me because I'm a very easy going person. I genuinely love to be happy and cheerful. The people who know me have seen the other side of that playfulness I love so much. I tend to bottle up my emotions and not let people see the real me. So only the ones who know me have seen how this struggle with anger has controlled me at times.
Lately I've been having a hard time working through my anger, Because I don't like to let people see me angry, I keep pushing it to the back of my head to come back to for later. But every time I do this I keep adding to the crap that's already there and make everything worse. I'm struggling to break that habit. I'm a very transparent person, but opening up about myself on a real level is hard for me. I'm trying to break the habit I have of not talking to people when I need to. I believe this will help me to let go of some of the anger I haven't worked through. I stay awake at night because those thoughts that I so easily pushed back make their way to the front of my brain. And then my anxiety takes off with it. Letting go of some of that anger in a healthy way like talking to someone is going to help me in the long run. I'm legitimately scared I'm going to say something to someone one day because I'm so frustrated and I won't be able to take it back. I feel like I've gotten close to accomplishing that a few times actually. Words have such an incredible impact on people, and I don't want to be that person to use them in a way that damages someone for life.
Anger has done nothing but destroy me. Sure it has motivated me to be a better person at times, but it has killed my family, my personal relationships, and prevented me from forming new relationships. There are multiple days throughout my week that someone asks me "are you alright?" and say things like "boy you look pissed!"...but I'm not even angry. Apparently though, my heart has become so hardened from the anger, that I wear it without even knowing it. And my assumption is that if I wear it like a pair of jeans, then my attitude is also suffering. I've always had a dry sense of sarcasm and humor, but someone with an angry heart probably shouldn't be sarcastic. It usually just makes me sound like an asshole. In my case, I definitely come across as a jerk. My goal is to open up to people again and work through my anger in a healthy way so I don't become that bitter person I talked about above,
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