Very rarely does anger dictate my behavior. I tend
to think that there aren’t many things that make me angry, and the things that
do make me angry don’t tend to linger for too long. Growing up, my parents
taught me it was best to approach every situation with calm and collected
attitude, especially when tensions are on the rise. They taught me that when
you’re angry the first thing to do is to calm yourself and get rid of any kind
of emotion that would lead to destructive behavior, then on must address the
issue head on in the most diplomatic and practical way possible. Anger should
be used as a tool to promote change. However those changes will not occur effectively
unless you can communicate what you want without letting emotion cloud the way
your message comes across. While this is my family’s ideal of the way to handle
anger. Each member of my family addresses anger very differently. My mother is
definitely the most volatile member of the family, although she would tell you that
my sister is the most hot-tempered. From my experience with my mother it isn't often things that happen to her that make her angry, but things that people say
about her. My mother is easily threatened by what people say, and she is quick
to respond in order to defend her honor. However, her emotion often clouds the
way she responds to anger, rendering an answer that does not get the point
across to her attacker that what was said has been hurtful. Very rarely does my
mother let her anger build up to unmanageable levels. I have a vivid memory of
when I was younger and my mother and I were fighting. I don’t remember about
what, but whatever it was, we didn’t resolve the issue before I went to bed. My
mother woke me up later that night at around 2am, and said that I had been
keeping her up because we hadn’t finished the argument, and it wasn’t fair that
I should be sleeping while she was forced to lie awake in a pool of her own
rage. I of course was not happy about her logic, but we reopened the argument
and stayed up all night until the issue was resolved. I’m fairly certain that
this was one of the few times my mother had let her anger build up and it was
obvious why. My father on the other hand, does let his anger build. My father
is a very quiet man, and while he is incredibly smart, his opinion is rarely
heard unless he is asked outright. This is the same when my father is angry. My
dad is calm all the time, and I can see that he tends to bottle up his emotions
until they are too much to handle. Then a snapping point is reached over
something very small. These small issues are the only time I ever remember my
father yelling at me (or my sister). I would get into trouble fairly often as a
kid, and my mother was always the one yell. Once she was done berating me with
emotion I would be sent to talk to my father, who then would give me a calmer,
more affective and more comprehendible response. However, there were other
instances in which my father would yell over very little things; things that I
probably should not have been yelled at for, it I was often shocked when he reacted
that way. My sister has a similar approach to anger that my father does, but
she has many more triggers than he does, and while she may feign a calm
exterior, on the inside she is full of anxiety. In this way my sister often complained
about a lot of things, and never did much to try and fix whatever problem she
was having. Instead she is more likely to complain about it and expect the
behavior to continue. When I was younger, I was pretty quick to anger, and every
time I was mad I felt so entitled to my position on the matter that it was
impossible to calm me down. There were times when I would get in trouble get
really upset about it and put my foot through my bedroom window. Now a days I
often address my anger with a calmer temperament, however this is not always
easy, and often times I am so blinded my desire to stay calm that I will rarely address the issue any
further than an initial response and a desire to repress the feelings that are
burning on the inside.
