Dealing with anger - Confrontation on the Beach

I had good holiday the best in many years not trapped in my own mind. It is a relief especially when a few close friends are going through some major stuff. I am grateful that that time has passed for me.

I had lunch with my sponsor today. I reported my new freedom from despair but I did have to tell her about my encounter with the angry person.

She gave me some words of wisdom to not take it personally. It always does feel personal when you are being attacked. My response has always been to feel I deserved it or I should have done something differently.

I learned early that it is best to avoid the wrath of the angry person at any cost and to keep your feelings in check if you wanted to stay under the radar. In my previous post I wrote about my ex-husband and how he was my first angry bully, but it occurred to me after my post that my first encounter with the angry bully was my stepmother.

She is bad to the bone and probably the last person on my list that I have some resentments towards. Can you tell? She didn't like me but really she didn't like anyone then or now.

I never knew anyone that could go from a smile to rage in less than 10 seconds. I remember once at the beach I told my sister something my stepmother said about her and the next thing I knew my stepmother was charging towards me. She grabbed my chin and got close to my face and started screaming that I was going to destroy my fathers happiness and she would take their baby and leave forever. I wished for just one second that she would.

I disappeared emotionally after that. I didn't want to hurt my dad's chances for happiness. She never took responsibility for what she said that day or any other day. It was always my fault and she knew her anger scared me so it was easy for me to become the scapegoat for anything bad that happened in our family.

I have been faced lately with a lot of angry people giving me a chance see how I always assume it is my fault and also an opportunity to face them head on. Really scary.

I can stop being the kid on the beach being paralyzed by an angry person. Stop being willing to do anything to make things better. But when someone is angry I can admit it does still scare me. I have to know they aren't interested in talking and any reason or explanation falls on deaf ears.

As a kid I wanted desperately to be liked by my stepmother and ever since then I thought I caused people to not love me or like me. It was my fault  when people left me and I worked hard to figure out what I had done wrong. A child's view brought into adulthood.

I have learned that I am lovable even if nobody but me believes that.  I learned that everyone lives in their own head and you are not responsible for what they are thinking if they don't tell you. They have their story and sometimes you are just a secondary character and could at some point get written out of the story all
together.  We are only the stars of our own story.

It has been helpful writing here and realizing I am not the kid on the beach anymore and will not feel like it is my fault. I will do my best and let God take care of the rest.