Anger-Part Two
I was eating alone in a fast food restaurant some years ago, not too long after I was diagnosed with ADD and at the next table a little girl of perhaps five was acting out horribly and noisily. A mentor of mine had a saying that to someone who is good with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. She would be just appearing to settle down and then burst into tears, loud enough to disturb my meal. It went on for at least 15 minutes while I plowed on not wanting to do the logical thing and move to a table further away. Or, complain. Finally, her father picked her up, to her protests, and took her outside the restaurant. The mother looked over at me and with a face full of tears she said, “I’m so sorry for the behavior my daughter.”
I replied that I was okay with it and then she began to tell me this was not an isolated incident and about how frustrated and defeated she felt. I asked if she had considered an assessment. (Shouldn’t everybody?) She said she wanted to but her husband insisted it was just a phase and that she was just like any othen child of her age. She seemed to be without hope and then suddenly the two returned and I turned back to my meal with a new perspective on what was actually going on and the drama of what had been to me, just minutes before, just an annoyance. I left the restaurant much saddened and perhaps a bit ashamed of my inital reaction. I’ve thought often of that day and that sad woman and how utterly without hope she seemed and wondered how many of the situations that annoy me at the time have a similar kind of back story. In my last post I wrote of the artist getting his paintings blown around by the wind, to his annoyance and then giving up trying to control the situation and going to the beach where he welcomed the same wind as a cooling breeze.
I get angry far more than I’m comfortable with but, as best I can, I now try to pause and ask myself some questions. Is my brain trying to wake me up? Do I have all the facts? And perhaps the most important question, do I really want to feel this way? Most of the time I don’t want to be angry but occasionally I let it spin out a little and then die of it’s own lack of inertia and try to return my brain to a more beneficial state. If it isn’t late at night, when I should be in bed, and my brain is trying to wake itself up, I ask if there is a better way to accomplish that. Can I go for a workout or even a walk? Am I hungry? Have I taken on too much that day? Do I need a nap?