The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: anger

  • The Body Check Scale

    So I get to work early, thinking I’d be a good little newbie. I turn off the alarm and turn on the lights. Upon her arrival she immediately starts in. “In this office we do NOT use the florescent lights!” Such fury. Such angst. I turn off the left switch and turn on the right.…

  • That Rage Place

    Maybe it’s because we can now hide behind the relative anonymity of social media, maybe it’s because we find less and less need to look one another in the eye, but it seems to me that more and more people are going to that rage place with relatively little provocation these days. A typical Facebook…

  • Changing My Favorite Color

    When I was little, if you asked me to choose a favorite color I would have said purple without hesitation. Purple, purple, purple. Everything around me had to be purple if possible. I didn’t care if it was a pastel or a dark rich shade, as long as it was purple. Then, sometime around age…

  • Gaining Your Temper

    Temper [tem-per] noun 1. habit of mind, especially with respect to irritability or patience, outbursts of anger, or the like; disposition: an even temper. 2. heat of mind or passion, shown in outbursts of anger, resentment, etc. 3. a substance added to something to modify its properties or qualities. Everyone loses their temper once in…

  • How to Become a Battered Woman

    My whole life I’ve looked at battered women with sadness and pity, but I have to admit that I always viewed them with a certain level of disdain. I’d never let that happen to me. Never. How do you get in that position? How do you let someone disrespect you like that, harm you like…

  • “I’ll have your job!”

    The other day I walked into a pharmacy at the tail end of what sounded like a stormy customer service incident. The customer shouted “I’ll have your job!” to the clerk as she made her exit. The clerk looked down sadly and shook her head. It’s not the first time I’ve heard someone make a…

  • Bully for You, Maybe, but not for Me

    Bully for You, Maybe, but not for Me

    I am done with curling up in a ball.

  • Black and Blue, Literally and Figuratively

    I have a black bruise on my knee the size of a fist, and I’m angry. Really, really angry. The reason for my ire is quite simple. Sexual harassment. Yesterday I had to squeeze past a guy I know to reach for something. He was sitting in a swivel chair. When I turned back to…

  • Embracing Negative Emotions

    “Few situations –no matter how greatly they appear to demand it – can be bettered by us going berserk.” Codependent No More, Melody Beattie Most of us have been taught that there are negative and positive emotions. Anger, sadness, grief and frustration are bad. Happiness, love, joy, and bemusement are good. Because of this, we…

  • The Black Sheep in the Family

    Every family has one. A relative who refuses to play by the rules. Someone who causes unbelievable heartache, unspeakable scandal, and enormous amounts of frustration. Someone who generates really, really interesting family stories. In my family that was Uncle Dave, my mother’s little brother. When my mom was young, she was bedridden with whooping cough,…