I'm Angry

Well if any of my older readers saw this title they would probably wonder what else was new. I am always angry. I have anger problems. I bought a book today, Beyond Anger, A Guide for Men. Now I am a pretty slow reader and have only read 1/4 of it so far but am pretty confident that I will finish it probably by tomorrow. I have been researching things that have caused me to well be the person I am today. Its not that I have had a bad life but here I sit, alone. I never had many friends, even fewer true friends. I have had fun but it was usually short lived. Here I sit reading this book that is describing my life. It talks about the different degrees of anger and rage that I have felt since I could remember. How and why I always keep everything bottled up and keep people out. Over the years I have gotten better but am still not to where I need to be to live a happy life. I am reluctant to talk let alone post about many parts of my life but for the sake ok gettin it out of me I will post it now.

I don't remember much of my childhood being a small child. I mostly remember getting in trouble for stealing things from family members, kind of a bad thing to be my earliest memory. My parents fought a lot. The would scream and throw things and my mom would get me out of bed at night and take me to her friends house where we would sleep on many occasions. When I would get in trouble for things I would get spanked which I still think wasn't all that bad, most of what I can remember was deserved and not really excessive. I've always claimed to be neglected, but maybe that wasn't actually the case. Perhaps they just never really asked me how I felt about things and since they never asked I didn't want to burden them with my problems since they had enough on their own. I learned to bottle up everything and just let it be instead of expressing my hurt, anger, depression, or whatever. Because I carried all these emotions around with me I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around. I had 2 or 3 friends. Then if any girl showed any interest in me, I'd go into overkill mode and talk about being together forever when I'm 10 or however old I was. Then scare them off. Then be depressed because I can't measure up to anyones expectations. I would get full of rage. I remember my first kiss. I remember I started calling her everyday, this was like 4th or 5th grade. She told me to stop calling. I went out and boxed a thorn bush and a water tank thing. Another girl, another boxing match with an inatimate object. I never talked to anyone about any of it, not even my couple friends. I'd just hold it until it slowly faded into the background. As I got older I realized drugs were an easy escape from the pain and reality. Then I have a baby and stop doing the drugs. With baby momma though the rage between us was BAD, it was just like what I watched with my mom and dad as a kid. We would scream and throw things. I am pretty sure I never told a soul but I used to be so angry at my son as a baby. He costed money, I had to work crappy jobs to try to support my family, he took away my dreams. I remember once he just kept crying, wouldn't stop and I shove the pacifier in his mouth so hard it cut his gums. I was just so furious. Then I ended up joining the military. A year away, time to think, time for myself to continue to punish myself for acts such as that. Thinking everyday he is gonna remember that day. Then family finally gets to move here with me. Things were ok for a little while but then everything went back to fighting. When my son would act up or not listen I would spank him excessively, a couple time leaving welts on his but for about a week. I am crying now while typing this but I must get rid of this burden... I even choked him once because he wouldn't stop crying. He was only 2 or 3. How could I do this to my own child. I wasn't drunk, I wasn't on anything but was just furious, nothing was going my way and I just did it. I still can't believe it, I have blocked it out since that day. I had to lock myself in the bathroom for about an hour because I feared for his safety. I didn't even realize that I was doing it. His mom wasn't there, no one ever knew. When she finally left me, thats when the drinking really started. It numbed the pain. Not so much the pain of losing her, but the pain of losing my son. Even though I couldn't stand being around him much I wanted to learn to be better. And I did a little. I have not spanked him since they left. I try my best to watch the verbal attacks to. With me being this way to my own son how could I expect to deal with someone elses kid. I met HB a couple years later. I was a different person or so I thought. My anger has gotten better over the years since then. I am not a violent person. With her I tried to do everything in my power to be completely open, honest, and talk about my feelings with her unlike what I did with my ex. I wanted everyones feelings to be out and free of resentment. Everything was great even with her son there. When he went to his dads, we had my son for a little bit and some anger issues arouse which I did post about. I talked to HB about them a bit and tried to keep from carrying the burden. Then we had time alone, no kids, just us running around loving each other. I felt so free and happy. Then her son came back. He was a little older and a little mouthier. I tried to talk to HB about how I flet but she felt like I was attacking her child. So I stopped talking about it. The burden was back inside. I started yelling at him. She would get mad at me. I would get angry with her for being mad at me. Instead of talking about it, it just kept building until she had to choose her son. Which I don't resent in any way. I completely understand. But I know the relationship ended because of this anger, that I never really leaned how to express other than yelling and throwing things. Then when I did tried to talk about it, my opinion and feelings were resented so I reverted back to keeping them inside instead of just finding another outlet to point these feeling to get them out.

I am getting help, I am reading, researching, finding out how to get anger management classes and therapy when I go back to Ohio. I just with I could salvage HB and I's relationship. I will keep trying in hopes that she will want to. She says she can't force me to change, but I want to change, look at what I've done, and this is only the bad stuff there are many smaller things. I've just been afraid to get help. If I tell anyone what I did to my son they would take him away from me. If I talked to people in the military I would be kicked out or something bad would happen to me. But the truth is because I didn't seek help I only made things worse. Those "punishments" would have gotten me the help I needed and then things would have gotten better for me and my relationship with my son and eventually my relationship with HB. Last time I was in Ohio I had a talk with my parents about me being the bad guy with my son. I told them I am tired of it, her trying to get me mad so I yell at him on the phone for him to listen and act right. I am done. And now I will be getting the help to keep me from breaking that promise.

To be continued....