Dear Polly,<\/p>\n
I tried to stop being so angry, and now I don\u2019t know who I am.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been angry for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, my dad bullied and abused me, and my depressed mother didn\u2019t have what it took to protect me. So I became a master of revenge tactics and self-protection. I was like a tiny girl Machiavelli with a big attitude. Then I went to school and found myself in argument after argument, always on the lookout for my next big feud. When I joined the world of work, my anger thrived like a weed. It\u2019s not an anger that punches down (more often than not, it\u2019s directed high up at the people who hold all the power), but it\u2019s anger nonetheless, and it\u2019s exhausting.<\/p>\n
Recently, I decided I didn\u2019t want to be this red-hot ball of rage any more. So I quit my job, parted ways with an old friend, and cut ties with some toxic people, all in an attempt to take away the anger from my life. I stopped checking the Twitter accounts of people I hate. I started taking long, deep breaths before I entered a high-stress interaction.<\/p>\n
But I feel so empty now that I don\u2019t have that anger. It\u2019s like without something (or someone) to push against, I just can\u2019t get moving. For months now, I\u2019ve felt completely hollow. I don\u2019t even get any real joy from food anymore (and I used to love eating almost as much as I loved fighting). I thought that taking the anger out of my life would show me my true form, but all I see is this listless, depressed shell of a person. I hate to admit it, but conflict gave life.<\/p>\n
Can I be alive without being angry?<\/p>\n
Yours sincerely,<\/p>\n
Red-Hot Ball of Rage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Polly, I tried to stop being so angry, and now I don\u2019t know who I am. I\u2019ve been angry for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, my dad bullied and abused me, and my depressed mother didn\u2019t have what it took to protect me. So I became a masterRead more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2759],"tags":[2760,1979,2762,2761],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57041,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57040\/revisions\/57041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}