Dear God, Let Me Be Angry

I used to wake up every day and thank my antidepressants for keeping me from getting angry.

"The antidepressants keep you at a baseline," the first boy I fell in love with once told me. "They are mostly there to keep you from having high highs and low lows. They will keep you stable."

When that same boy crushed my heart in his fist a couple of years later, I didn't get angry. I cried for days, but the anger never came.

"I love you."

"I know."

It's such a cute, lighthearted geeky phrase, until it happens to you.

And then a part of you dies.

But I still wasn't angry.

Throughout my childhood, I was faced with circumstance after circumstance that not only did I not understand until I was older, I could not control many changes that marked my life. As someone who was diagnosed with autism from a young age, it was, quite frankly, too much.

I was so scared. But I nodded and took my medicine because I was told it was good for me. I smiled. There was no need to be angry.

It was good for me, right?

I slowly began to build a wall around myself, brick by brick, year by year. Those on the outside looked in through the stunning stained glass windows that I carefully put in place, only seeing glorious colors and the distorted smile of a friendly face within.

By the time the symptoms of my depression manifested, my humble brick dwelling had become a magnificent castle, with glittering windows and fortified doors. A castle that, unfortunately, had a weak foundation.

As the life I had built for myself started to crumble all around me, the anger came in wave after wave, a stormy sea hurling itself over and over at the barriers I had so meticulously slaved over.

When the antidepressants were added, they became a dam, holding back the flood. Holding back the anger. I was thankful. I did not like the thoughts I had when I was angry.

I was afraid again.

I didn't like the inferno that blazed in my soul, so I took a deep breath of cold air and my anger became ice.

Which actually made it hurt worse. But if I wasn't angry, people would be happy with me right? People would want to be around me. People would praise me. People would love me.

I forgot to mention that I'm a huge people-pleaser. I physically feel sick if someone is displeased with me. (We're working on this in therapy, don't worry.)

Unfortunately, pleasing everyone is impossible. The world doesn't work that way. There are always those who won't understand or like you, no matter what you do. But I was determined to be the first one to defy the impossible.

I had built this shiny castle for all to see and admire, no?

Shower thoughts are often some of the most profound. Tonight's bathing experience was no different. I was turning over many recent happenings in my mind.

Therapy. Memories. Current events. Random snippets of thought, swirling in my mind like storm clouds while I lathered shampoo into my hair.

My mind settled on some words I read today on an Instagram story by an author I admire: "Anger is not an evil/bad emotion as so many perceive it. It is an emotion of change. An emotion that is trying to tell you and your body that something is wrong. It is what we do with that anger that makes it good or bad. Feel your anger. Listen to her. And then use her to change the world around you for the better. Hang on to that spark with everything you've got and use those flames to burn away the bad. Do not silence her."

Do not silence her.

Do. Not. Silence. Her.

A crack formed in the worn and battered dam.

I've been listening to a lot of angry songs lately. I play barbarians in D&D, known for their ferocious rage. My hands rapidly weave thread around the hook as I practice my crochet.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

I don't want the dam to burst all at once. I don't think it actually can. But I want to stand outside my castle at the base of the dam and hold a cup to the steady flow of water racing from the crack. I want to drink my fill until I can hold no more.

I crave it.

Being angry is okay. It is an emotion that is built into each of us. Denying emotions that may be perceived as negative is only cutting off a part of us that we actually need.

We need to be angry to live.

Not all the time. But sometimes.

I'm still scared of anger. In others and myself. But I also don't want to hide in the ruins of my castle and wait until it falls and crushes me. Nobody deserves to be cooped up forever. Not even in walls they build themselves.

For the first time in so long, I want to live. I want to be angry.

Do not silence her.

Do not silence me.