i have become the angry man

on anger being a family heirloom

i sit in my room, stare at the ended call with someone i love after i shouted and screamed at them and i think a lot about if this is the healed version of me because if it is then shit i’m truly fucked.

i thought i’ve started regulating my emotions better and i’ve healed from all the trauma and the sun is shining and my arm is healing and i’m laughing with my friends and i’m going out

but one trigger brings everything back.

everyone tells you that healing isnt linear but noone ever tells you how terrifying it is to be the voice that made your loved one scared or hurt. when all ur life u spent running away from a person like that.

i love my parents and will always respect them but god the way they used to fight has made me into this unimaginable person. when i was a kid, i used to hear my parents scream at each other to the point of oblivion, they used to call eachothers names, give death threats like it was something ordinary

at the age of 13 , i swore i would never be this way, that i will never scream at the person i love and i’ll always work out the problems. i’ll never get angry. i’ll never hurt the person by losing my temper . i promised myself i’d never scare my partner the way my parents scared eachother and scarred me.

what hurts is that i promised myself that but i kept avoiding everything instead of actually dealing with the situation going on in my brain.

i thought there would be a border between the girl i used to be v/s the girl i have become. i assumed there would be a difference in the person who used to swear she would never get angry and the person trying to keep up that promise?

now, as i stare at the ended call after i just shouted, i’m so scared im scared of the person i’ve become after believing for years i’d never be like this. it reminds me of this quote i read when i was young,

“if you’re raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house. you will find him even when he is not there. and if one day you find that there is no angry man in your house well, you will go find one and invite him in”

but in my case i never invited any angry man in, i just became the angry man.

you think that after a certain time, you’d have healed to the point where this thing wouldnt happen right? but god healing is so difficult when you’re loving someone and being vulnerable because it brings out the worst behavior in you. (ofc it brings out the best too). its easy to say ur healing when theres no one close enough to touch the wounds i never wanted to open.

i’ve grown up i’m 20 now but when my throat hurts from screaming and i’ve pulled my hair so much my scalp hurts, i become the 13 year old sitting on her bed hearing muffled voices of my shouting father and my mother screaming back.

i try to remind myself that i’m not my father or mother yelling but trauma doesn’t ask if you’ve become them or not.

i try to give myself grace that atleast i know enough to actually acknowledge what i’m doing instead of trying to reason with my screaming.

its okay to not be entirely healed, its scary becoming someone ur scared of but im willing to work on myself to not let this become my life.

this essay isnt about how to not be the angry man i wish it was tho.

i wish i could give a list of ways to not be the angry person but i genuinely cannot

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thanks for reading!