Anger

Anger is one of the emotions we are all capable of feeling. Keeping them bottled up for long periods of time is not healthy. That is why I like changing my point of view to that of putting emotions such as anger and its accompanying emotion, fear and so on in little boxes and not living them in a day to day scenario as I had been doing.

I know someone who was raped by her father as a small child and she is still very angry at him and I think for good reason. She is 76 years old and he has been dead for some time, but she still reacts with anger to the world around her. This is a very difficult situation and luckily she can get therapy as she does have the means to do so. Childhood sexual abuse is, unfortunately, not uncommon. Many therapists have a full clientele who work with this problem. There are 12 step programs that have programs specifically for this situation and lots of books dealing with this issue. She does not take advantage of this but rants and rages against her father instead. This happened over 70 years ago. It is not healthy for her and the damage the he did to her happens to her every day. She tells me that he never suffered for what he did and her mother did not believe her which really was a shame. She said she would complain to her mother and then he would come into her bedroom at night. I really feel awful for her. It stopped when she asked to live with her aunt and uncle. They took her in. Looking at her I can see the anger in her face and the tautness in her neck and arms as she balls up her hands in fists.

I was angry too for a wide assortment of reasons and I think they were all valid, but what good was all of that anger doing me. One time I tried to picture my anger and I visualized the city I was living in flattened as if there was an atomic bomb. Some of the people who hurt me as the lady I described were dead too. I even thought of going to their graves and throwing rocks at their grave stones. One woman I knew who was raped by her father wrote him a letter saying how mad she was and then burned it. She said she felt better. One group of people visualized all of their anger into some air that they blew into balloons and they they let them go up in the air. I tried by using writing meditation and then I had that dream in which I could put all of my memories along with the emotions in chapters so I can enjoy the good parts as well as the bad parts.

Some women are angry at the way they are treated in this world including this culture. It has gotten better but it has not gone away. I have experienced this myself over the years. Sometimes it is hard to find someone to talk about these things since many women are in denial regarding this. Many women blame feminists for their husbands leaving them for other and often younger women. I have had married women who have been angry at me for not being married. I like being single. I did not realize that some women would be angry for this. The reason this is a growing problem is that many women my age have aging husbands and need to be cared for and this is a hard and difficult job. I don't have this problem and have the freedom to go anywhere I want. I also have my own income based on my employment and not on any ex-husband. I worked it this way on purpose.

I am a senior and we have health problems which I have as well. Many people are angry at having such things as arthritis and for aging. Being a woman I understand women who don't like what they see in the mirror. Heck, I don't like see the older woman in the mirror either. We all have parts that sag further south as we get older, but I don't get angry at that although I don't like it. Younger women can give us a bad time because they think we aren't worth much, but to be honest I did the same at their age. It comes with the territory.

I just don't want to feel angry all of the time and bitter at the way my life has turned out. Being old has its disadvantages but then being dead must have more. I am alive today and I lived all of those years and luckily I can remember them. I have wonderful chapters that may have some parts that made me angry but also some same chapters that created some laughter and joy. One particular dark chapter was my first marriage but it also contained the birth of my sons which was the greatest joys I have ever experienced, ever and the years in which they were growing up. I would not want to lose those memories although I would not mind not remembering their father as much. Still, he did save my life so that is not so bad but I would like to keep him in my chapters, thank you very much.

I am an avid reader and have been all of my life. I have also been a writer all of those years as well. This philosophy works for me, for now. It has made life much better, and I can box up all of that anger and be done with it and make room for the emotions yet to be felt.