Most of the time, my meltdowns are verbal in nature, involve screaming or, in exceptional cases, hitting objects. These days I try very hard not to be physically expressive because I don’t want to hurt anyone. However, in the past, I can recall a few instances where my frustration over not being understood resulted in actually hurting someone. Today’s tale involves how violence came about because I was being deprived of something near and dear to me, sleep.
In this story, I was 17-18 years old, a group of 5 or so friends accompanied me to my parents’ cabin, about 4 hours north of where we lived, in the woods. I was a teetotaler, so it never occurred to me that the others wanted a party place. We did enjoy walks out in nature during the days, and generally had a pretty good time. They brought some beers and while I didn’t drink, it wasn’t a big deal. They also respectfully asked me permission about drinking, and said they have brought some cigarettes and pot. It wasn’t my thing, and while I wasn’t freaked out about it, it made me somewhat uncomfortable. They were pretty good guys, and offered to do it out in their car even before I said anything. No big deal. So we had a pretty good outing, all told. I don’t remember too many issues, and I think everyone was generally pleased.
That night, I was exhausted, and went to sleep around midnight. One of the group, Kris, was a VERY loud laugher, the kind of piercing almost annoying laugh that is only tolerable when you are friends with the person. However, when he was in the next room, and I cannot handle not sleeping, it was brutal. I told him a couple times that he needed to keep it down, and I don’t remember how forceful I was initially. But at 3:30 in the morning, I lost it. I ran into the room, grabbed Kris by his shoulders as he was sitting up on the bed, and slammed him against the wall, almost calmly saying, “I TOLD you to stop laughing. I can’t sleep.”
Kris was shocked. He didn’t fight back (not his nature), but it was a LONG talk. I recall being numb myself. There was no part of me that thought my actions were wrong. I had told Kris to keep it down, he hadn’t, and thus he got his consequences. Only after we talked for a while and I calmed down, did I realize how wrong I was. I never again hit another person in anger.
Failure to understand where these feelings came from caused me to keep EVERYTHING down so I wouldn’t hurt anyone else. I watched this even more closely as I started dating my wife, holding down all emotions so I wouldn’t erupt. The problem was that I turned to other things to help cope with the feelings I wouldn’t let myself express, which I’ll talk about in some future posts.
Feelings: loss of control, anger, frustration, fear
What I learned:
1) Violence is never the answer
2) It can be helpful to explain to someone who is doing something that may set you off that you have some anger issues, and if they keep it up, it may cause you to react unpleasantly.
3) ALWAYS apologize for violent outbursts, no matter how ashamed you are or how much you think the person deserved it.
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