A range of things I have been wanting to figure out is who I am as a whole, and what makes me “me”. There’s a lot of ways of figuring this out, but most of the time, I just enjoy writing a journal, or keeping track of myself somewhere, somehow.
A few years ago, I went to see a counselor. One big reason was because of rage issues. I’ve got a deep sense of frustration that boils over suddenly. It affects everyone around me, especially loved ones, like Clarice and my parents. I realised at that time how important it was to communicate how I was feeling, and most importantly not to give in to the rage, because it would literally feed on itself. An angry person just gets more and more angry, and I say that from real experience.
While seeing the counselor, there were also other things that I started to think about, and it also led me to think harder about what I was feeling. One of those key feelings was my sense of control. I did not know, but I needed to be in control most of the time. Manifestations of this would be the need for the house to be in a certain way before I felt comfortable enough to relax, the need for things to be placed somewhere, and if it wasn’t I would feel deeply frustrated. Understanding that helped me to figure out also where I was willing to try and grow, and to change the way that I saw myself and saw the situation.
After a few sessions with the counselor, my job changed its pace, and eventually I also changed jobs. These changes were somewhat good for me, but one of key moments of learning was when I had my last rage incident. I got very very very upset, and in those moments, Clarice had to leave me alone for her own safety. I was not rational at all, and through that time, I had to really figure out who I wanted to become. Would I want to be this angry dude, or do I really want to be someone different?
I cooled down a lot after that session, and went to talk to a bunch of people about what I was feeling and what happened. Clarice also talked with me about it, and we worked through a lot of the hurts that I was thinking and feeling, and the hurts that I ended up putting on her too.
At the same time, it gave me a different perspective of Clarice, and how she was really trying so hard on so many other levels. She was working hard at work, she was trying to be as good a wife as she knew how to, and still I was being such a brat. It was quite crazy how big a change that was, because for some reason prior to that, I really don’t think I understood Clarice as well as I do now. I had to learn how to tell her what I was thinking, and ask her for actual help at the parts where I was struggling with. Through that, I think I learnt to also trust other people, starting with Clarice, because as part of the sense of control, I felt that I couldn’t trust myself to lean on her.
What a strange process I’ve placed myself through, over and over again, to find out that I need to depend and trust other people. There’s absolutely no way I would find out who I am on my own, and learning how to trust other people is really part of this process.
It’s been quite a while since my last blow up, and I’m quite confident I am a different person. It’s not the same person who was angry, and didn’t know how to control his anger. Now I have learnt my best superpower, which is to depend on someone else for all my frustrations and hurts. I mean I’ve definitely learned to lean on God, but also to lean on the people he provides in my life.
So a long about way to say how I’m learning to understand myself, is to say that I’m learning how much I need to depend on other people. Truly, a conundrum of life.