{"id":8280,"date":"2014-11-20T05:26:24","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T13:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=8280"},"modified":"2014-11-20T05:26:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T13:26:25","slug":"im-not-angry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=8280","title":{"rendered":"I’m not angry"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I need is
\nA good defense
\n‘Cause I’m feelin’
\nLike a criminal
\nAnd I need
\nTo be redeemed
\nTo the one
\nI’ve sinned against
\nBecause he’s all
\nI ever knew of love
\n–Fiona Apple\/Criminal\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lately it seems like I tend to spend time being angry with myself for not being angry with other people. Anger isn’t one of the states I spend a lot of time in, so I am a little out of practice being angry in general. I don’t really know what to do with anger. <\/p>\n

Melancholy? Bittersweet? Happy? Peaceful? Content? Sad?
\nAll feelings I am good at. I am very experienced in all of them. I can deal with them. I can live with them. <\/p>\n

Anger, though?
\nI try to avoid it. Oh, I get irritated. Annoyed. Angry? Not very often. It’s bad when I am. I feel like it’s bad. Sometimes it definitely is not something I should act on. Other times? If someone does something shitty? Why can’t I let myself be mad at them? Why do I feel like I should be mad at myself for what they chose to do?<\/p>\n

Oh, right. Because I let them. <\/p>\n

Maybe I have what seem to me to be good reasons for it, but still. If I let someone take advantage of me or if I let them repeatedly do something that I don’t like then who should<\/em> I be angry with–them or me?<\/p>\n

And then all of the shoulds and shouldn’ts about being responsible for your own reactions vs other people owning the shit that they do jumble all up and it confuses me. Because if I am really angry with someone, it’s going to be directly proportional to how strong my feelings are about them. I’m not going to ever bother getting really angry with someone I am indifferent to. <\/p>\n

Which means that any anger that deflects back on me will potentially be a really big ball of a really strong emotion. <\/p>\n

Then there’s also the C word. No, not that one. The other one: confrontation. I am bad at confronting other people. I avoid it. Actively. If I do confront someone, I will run away inside before they even have a chance to respond. Because my natural inclination is to cut and run, I will second guess myself and give someone second, third, eightieth chances. And then hate myself for it if they don’t seem like they deserve it. Or if it feels like they are using those chances as an opportunity to hurt me again. <\/p>\n

And if I feel guilty for being justifiably angry with someone because I don’t want to hurt their feelings in spite of them not seeming to have much regard for mine? <\/p>\n

Well. I am smart enough to know that it is fucked up. On both sides. <\/p>\n

I just suck sometimes.<\/p>\n

Fuck it. I am just going to hang up and sing.<\/p>\n

I’ll work on giving myself permission to be angry another day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I need is A good defense ‘Cause I’m feelin’ Like a criminal And I need To be redeemed To the one I’ve sinned against Because he’s all I ever knew of love –Fiona Apple\/Criminal Lately it seems like I tend to spend time being angry with myself for not being angry with other people. … Continue reading I’m not angry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-29y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11162,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=11162","url_meta":{"origin":8280,"position":0},"title":"An imaginary conversation about anger","author":"Michelle","date":"April 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Why do you get so upset when you think I'm angry? 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I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11102,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=11102","url_meta":{"origin":8280,"position":3},"title":"Choices","author":"Michelle","date":"February 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Life is full of choices. Every minute, you have to decide on something. What to eat. If you should go to the bathroom now or at the commercial. If you should wear the red shoes or the black ones. 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