RWCC Challenege Day 8 Part 2: Stress and Anger and April

Greetings!

So, recently I've been under a great, enormous deal of stress. In high school, my counselor used to call me a stress monster because I was really good at holding things in and stewing over them, but as far as letting things out and expressing them I was really, really, bad at it.

I've always been aware that I don't have to like everyone (because I certainly don't like everyone I meet) but I did think everyone had to like me--or at least not hate me.

I'm starting to get over that silly idea, because now I know that if I tell people that I don't like something or anything else along those lines it shows that I have a spine and a voice--something people just assume I don't have because I've been a quiet doormat most of my life.

I was watching That '70s Show recently and Kitty said something that just made me go "That is my life". She said "My mother told me that good girls don't cause trouble and now I've grown up to be a doormat."

Exactly. I never cause trouble. I gave people what they wanted. I was very submissive.

But now, something has happened. I feel like my brain is a string on a guitar that's been wound to tightly that people keep plucking that's well on its way to snapping.

I've snapped a few times in my life all during high school--January of Freshman year. January of Sophomore year. March of sophomore year (you couldn't pay me to be 15 again). September of Senior year. All of these instances I ended up crying in my room or in the counselor's office at school because of my inability to properly handle stress.

I am still not good at it but I am getting better. My boyfriend, such a good sport, sits there and listens to me while I spew out everything that stresses me out and tries to make life better for me.

But still, there are just something that talking to your boyfriend an writing in your journal can't fix. When that fails I go and stress out a few of my characters, read/write some fan fiction, watch TV--do my favorite things. But even then sometimes I feel all of this bottled up. . . emotion.

And I just know, I know with all my heart, that I am going snap. My guitar string brain is going to pop and I'm going to lose it.

But I feel different this time. I don't feel sad or under pressure--I feel angry. I feel like someone is going to say something to me and I am going to snap and then scream and yell and tell them how stupendously stupid what they said and I am going to release all of this stress out onto them.

It will be out of character. It will be scary for everyone involved. Hide your kids. Hide your wife.

Holding in too much stress for me is a very bad thing for those around me because it makes me brave. I am a Hufflepuff. I do cowardice very well. But with too much stress and with too many people stepping on me day after day I eventually have enough of it and blow my top and "keep it real". And usually, I can present this very calmly (and with lots of tears) but the stress I feel now is different than the stress I felt before. It's angry stress brought on by the masses of stupid people I have encountered at Target and in my daily life.

Sometimes people just talk and say something so completely stupid that on the inside I scream "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!" because what they said was so appallingly stupid or ignorant or just plain ole simple minded that I feel like a ninja should pop out of the shadows and round house kick them in the face Chuck Norris style for saying it. And that's the kind of stuff I've been holding in--the feeling of roundhouse kicking people with my words the way Chuck Norris does with his feet.

Imagine 1000 tiny Chuck Norris' inside of my chest just waiting for someone to say the perfect stupid thing so that they can all jump out and attack them for it.

Do you have an accurate idea of how much anger is inside of me now? Of how much stress has been building up and what will happen if released?

I'm going to blow up the way Red Forman did on Hyde when he got caught with Jackie's pot. I will probably even use the word "dumbass" repeatedly.

I don't WANT to blow up on someone. The only thing I can think to do is gradually release the stress anger by "keeping it real" every once in a while so things don't go wrong. I mean, calling someone a dumbass and stupid can get you hit in the face, and despite how I can word things to make them less brutal when I write, I'm not the most eloquent when I speak. I don't articulate things well on the spot.

That being the case, someone can be stupid to me tomorrow and cause me to blow up that way so what can I do about that? Think about how I'm going to shout at them before I do it. However, I will keep in mind that in the heat of the moment anger can cloud judgment and how that can lead to some pretty intense words and I won't censor myself and then people will be really, really angry.

Now, I'm going to be self-centered here and say that I deserve to get angry and blow up on someone for all the years that I refrained from doing so to spare the feelings of others. I should be allowed one free angry pass for all the years I didn't tell people that their stupidity made me angry. Majority of the people I know are always talking about how they want people to say what they think of them to their face so why get angry if I do just that?

Oh, right, because I'm supposed to be a coward who doesn't stand up to you and doesn't have an angry thought in her pretty little head.

*laughs*

The moral of the story is: I need to learn to handle stress better lest I turn into this evil, angry, mean person who yells. Which is not like me at all.

Song of the day: "Mean" by Taylor Swift

Fare thee well,
April