What's underneath?
What I learn from confronting anger
My head was on fire.
I was angry as hell and to be totally honest, I really wasn’t sure why. And I felt ashamed of actually being angry.
My partner had gone to work, like usual and I was hosting a live journaling session at home, as planned.
Suddenly I heard someone in the house, and I saw my partner slip into the bathroom and shut the door out of the corner of my Zoom screen.
He was at home again, maybe 90 min after he’d left the house.
I found it unnerving. I’d just gotten into a nice rhythm and routine, including walking the dog twice a day in our local conservation area, eating better and booking time at our local library to write.
My routine was disrupted.
Actually, our dog had to go to the vet for a procedure later that morning, and I had to give her puppy sedatives in order to have it done later that morning. So there had already been a change in plans.
When I finished my live event, I walked into the livingroom to find my partner on the couch, sprawled out, with his head on a pillow.
He was sick. He said he hadn’t slept the night before and his head was out of whack.
At the start of last week, I’d been at the doctor’s office with a raw throat and headache. I thought it was strep throat. The doc said it wasn’t and sent me on my way. She mumbled something about it likely being a viral throat infection but offered no remedy.
I just kept going, telling myself, maybe it’s just allergies.
My partner is totally succumbs to sickness.
I ask him if he needs anything. No. I ask him if I can get anything for him. No. But he mopes around as if he is on his last legs.
He went to bed.
I took puppy to her appointment. She did really well.
We came back and puppy had to sleep off the sedatives. I thought the two of them could sleep together. Puppy wouldn’t have it when I wasn’t in the room.
My partner woke up later and sprawled out on the couch again. I asked him if he wanted to walk the dog with me. No.
On my walk, I was seething. I kept asking myself, what is underneath this? Why am I so angry? What is this lesson?
When I got home, my partner picked up on my mood. Staring at me, he asked, are you mad at me? I instantly said no, but that was a lie. I didn’t know why I was angry though so I couldn’t really explain it to him.
I tried to be nicer.
I journaled and journaled. And then journaled some more the next morning.
What’s underneath this anger? It seems irrational.
As the oldest child and only girl in our family, I was expected to look after my brothers. And when my parents split, and struggled with their own issues around that breakup, I became a second mother. I resented that role. I never really got to be a kid, I was always looking after someone else. And that played out in my relationships later.
My dad also expected me to mother him and there was backlash if I didn’t.
And then there’s the whole system that upholds women doing all the emotional labour of ‘taking care’ of children and people in general: Patriarchy.
After all the work I’ve done on myself, on focusing on my own well being, why did I have to mother someone else now?
The thing is, I don’t have to. I can choose not to. It is only my perception.
My perception is that I am expected to mother my partner, but I can always choose not to. When I ask if there is anything they need, or anything I can get them, and they say no, that is where my responsibility ends. I have received the information required to go about whatever I would like.
Being angry about something I think someone expects is pretty silly.
But it’s also an old wound, something that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. That anger is in there.
Obviously, I’ve held on to that anger for a very long time. And I’m directing it towards someone in the present.
That’s not helpful for either one of us.
But I can tell you, I wanted to keep being pissed off! I did not want to let go of it, nor did I want to go deeper.
Asking myself what’s underneath has been some of the hardest work of my life so far. But it’s also the only way I’m going to put a stop to projecting, and the cycle of shame that comes with that. And I really felt ashamed of that anger. I wish I could have recognized how I was holding on to it and why, much sooner and without putting it on to my partner.
Now, I have to apologize to my partner and explain, yes, I was angry and it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with old resentments and unacknowledged and unprocessed anger.
I’ve had a lot of anger. I held so much of it inside me.
My body is grateful that I am processing and setting it free.
I can finally let it go.