literature

Anger Management

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Please come in.

All right.

Now sit down.

Aren't I allowed to lie down on a couch or something?

Whatever is most comfortable for you.

I'll sit.

OK...  so why did you come here?

Because the police told me to.

I see.

I shouldn't be here.  I don't need a shrink.  The police can't actually order people to attend counselling without a judge, just make suggestions.

Yes, and if the police make a suggestion, you follow it.  And don't call me a shrink.

Sorry, it's just...

Go on.

...I sometimes write computer programs for fun--

--as opposed to--

Please don't interrupt me.  Like I was saying, I sometimes write computer programs for fun.  One day I wrote a version of the famous ELIZA software.  You heard of it?

I think so.  It pretends to be a Rogerian psychotherapist.  Not too different from myself, except I think Carl Rogers was a bit nuts.  Like the people I treat, in a way.

You're supposed to be psychoanalysing ME, not yourself.  Anyway, I wrote a version of it in qBASIC--

--sorry, what?

qBASIC.  A programming language.  And you know what?  It was just like a real Rogerian psychotherapist - it talked in circles and kept asking my about my mother and Oedipus complexes.  And it didn't mind me calling it a shrink.

And yet you wrote it yourself.  I'm not an expert--

Why are you here, then?

Now YOU'RE interrupting ME.  If you had let me finish, I would have said, "I'm not an expert in COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, but doesn't that mean it's artificially intelligent?"

Hmm.  In a sense, yes.  But it's not like a person.  It's no more intelligent than a vastly overblown slide rule.

I don't even know what those are.

Then with all due respect, you're either a hell of a lot younger than you look, or you spent most of the 60's stoned off your head.

Alas, I wish it were the second one, but aside from a bag of weed when I was 17, I've never been into drugs.

Which leaves the first option.

It's probably true.  I've never been that clean in the face.  Makes me look old.

Aren't you supposed to be asking ME about MY life story?

I suppose so.  Let's begin.

Splendid.

---

So why did you come to me, really?

Well, I sort of...  lost it.

Like how?

I lost my temper.

Does this happen often?

Yes.  Well... not really.

Please go on.

It doesn't happen often.   But...

You can say anything to me.  I'm not allowed to repeat any of it.

Well, I've had anger management issues since... well, my whole life, really.

Have you learned any techniques that help?

Oh, sure.  "Count backwards from ten", "take deep breaths", all the usual shit.

I take it they don't work.

Not really.  It's like this.  I get angry, and then I use some technique, and it works.

But...

But I'm still angry.  It doesn't take my anger away.  It just delays the reaction to another time.

Ah.

And I keep-- I kept-- having outbursts.  But lately I've been able to bottle up my anger and just... store it.

But it doesn't go away.

Until it all comes out in one terrible outburst.

This behaviour is well known, actually.

To me more than anybody.

Don't think you're the only one.  I have the same problem.

How do YOU deal with it?

Hearing my clients' pain and suffering usually blows MY problems right out of the water.

You know, that just doesn't work for me.

And why is that?

My job consists mainly of converting my own suffering into blockbuster novels.  Funny, I set out to do sc-fi, but it's the romance that actually sells.

Actually, I've read one yours, I think.  "Dancer", right?

That was actually mainly autobiographical.

You mean you actually met your future wife when you were 12?

You mean my soon to be ex-wife, right?

I though it was that conservative running for prime minister you assaulted.  She had nothing to do with it.

There are two holes in that theory.  The first is that the candidate is my father in law.

I'm sorry.

He means well, but being a former VP of a mining company, he doesn't seem to get that taxes make the world go round, and abolishing them is stupid.  That's not the reason I broke several of his bones, though.

What's the second reason?

Well, I've done some pretty stupid stuff in this life, but this is only the second time I've assaulted someone I'm close to.  He IS the guy who got my career going, you know.

Tell me the second reason.

The first time, it was my wife I hit.

---

How did this happen?

Well, we were both thirteen.

So you were just boyfriend and girlfriend at this point.

Yes.  Now, to get a clear picture of my mental state I was in at the time, here's something I wrote a few weeks before it happened:

"Dear Whoever-finds-this-letter,"

"Do you have a problem?  A bad problem?  One that you complain a lot about?"

"Well I can tell you a very good place you can stick that problem, because mine are worse.  I had a guy tell me today that he was angry because he had to redo a math test."

"You think that’s bad?  In the past three months, I’ve had to redo an entire project, deliver a presentation minus my powerpoint (and my script) and be expected to get full marks, and pretend to be sick just so I could get a break from my insane (not to mention politically incorrect) teacher making erroneous statements about everything and making the class memorize them, punishing anyone who questions her (if you’re interested, she also blames everything bad that happens in the class on me)."

"And that’s just the stuff that’s already happened."

"I have to write a paper on the robber barons of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (leave it to my teacher to assign you to something that doesn’t exist).  It must be a four page essay.  It’s wednesday, and the paper is due on monday.  Although it might be retconned to tomorrow if my teacher is feeling cruel.  There is no information on the topic because the CPR had no robber barons.  But never mind that."

"And also never mind that I suffer from ADHD, clinical depression, SAD, and probably schizophrenia too.  And my grandmother is dying from cancer.  And I’m getting victimized because I have a problem with my school installing spyware on my computer.  And I can’t tell anybody any of this."

"And you think redoing a math test is bad?"

"So, to recap, my life sucks, everybody is making it worse, I’m going insane, and there’s nothing I can do about it."

"This is not a suicide note.  I’ve got too much to live for, or so they say.  No, this is far worse."

"This is a letter from hell."

"Yours truly,"

And then I've signed my name.

That sounds bad.  Why didn't you see somebody like me then?

I've always been pretty antisocial.  I have a problem just telling strangers my name.  I didn't think I'd be able to confess all my secrets to somebody I'd met 5 minutes ago.

Your parents, then.

I would have had to tell them about my girlfriend.

That was a problem?

Her mother, of whom I now am - I mean, formerly was - a close friend of, tried keeping her away from me for the first few weeks after she told her.  Too protective.  I got paranoid and thought my parents would do the same.

You told them eventually, though.

I told them when I was 16, and not a second before.

I see.

Anyway, a few weeks after I wrote the letter from hell, I was working in a group on building a Martian base-- a fake one of course.  It was a school for gifted kids, but we weren't THAT smart.  And she was supposed to be in the group, but she was running errands for the yearbook photographer.  Of course I though that she was being lazy or something.  Your know, chatting online.

She did that a lot?

Oh yeah, all the time.  Normally I don't mind, though.  As I was saying, I thought she was being lazy, and I got sort of surly. I was harassing the other members of the group.

A well known psychological phenomenon.

Which just confirms my theory that I'm a walking mess of psychological problems.

You don't really believe that.

No, I guess not.  So I was in a terrible mood when she finally arrived.  And I was being completely abusive, saying terrible stuff to the group.

A teacher didn't interfere?

Not until later, when the damage had already been done.  So at that point, she grabbed me, and said, "Stop".  Just that one word set of a powder keg that ruined my life for the next two months or so.

What happened?

I said "let go".  And she said, "no".  I said it a second time, and met the same response.  And then I did something I keep replaying in my mind, keep think, "why", keep thinking--

What did you do?

I punched her in the face.

---

What happened then?

I ran.

Keep going.

The next thing I knew I was running top speed out of the building.  And then... after that I found myself lying on my side in some bushes.  And I sat there for-- I don't know, it could have been thirty seconds or thirty minutes.  Probably about ten minutes, actually.

And then...

And then I walked out into the field, and a teacher found me.  He was kind.  He put an arm around my shoulder and told me it was going to be all right.  It was a lie, but at least it was a kind gesture.  So I got led back into the building, and the whole time I was panting and shaking, which is the closest I ever get to crying.

I probably shouldn't say this, but again, a well known psychological phenomenon.

And they told me what happened, and I told them, and when it was done nobody, including myself, knew why I did it.

Perhaps this was the root of your anger problems.

No, I've always had them.  But you know, I've also always suspected there was some deep psychological flaw that made me the way I am, something that, if healed, would make my life perfect.  But I guess I'm just sick in the head.

NO.  DON'T say that.  Negative reinforcement will only make it worse.  In fact, I want you to try this.  Repeat after me: I am not sick in the head.

I am not sick in the head.

I am not a walking mess of psychological problems.

I am not a walking mess of psychological problems.  I feel like such an idiot.

That's good, it means that I'm getting directly into your subconscious.

Sounds like technobabble to me.

...sorry, I don't follow.

technobabble: noun: Incomprehensible technical jargon.

You some kind of human dictionary?

That's cruel.

I'm sorry.  Go on.

Well, punching her was the beginning of the end.

---

So what happened next?

I apologised over email.  She imposed... "consequences".

Like?

"Don't go near me for a week".

She must have been angry.

It's rare for her to hold grudges for more than an hour, but yeah, she was.

Did you reply to that?

Yep.  It was really cruel, what I said to her, in an ironic way.

What--

--did I say to her?  Really deeply respectful stuff, but I was so frustrated at that point that it was like candy dipped in acid.

And how did she respond?

Badly.  I'd never seen her so angry.  She said she'd been to hell and back because of me, and then dumped me.  I sent her an email pouring out my REAL feelings...

How did that turn out?

OK, I suppose.  Turns out it was "that time of the month", and she sort of overreacted.  She forgave me, but I still had to follow the "consequences", and, as she said, "trust was lost".  I don't think she acted normal until about two months later, when our... "anniversary" was.  And even though we've had out ups and downs, she managed to forgive ever since.

Until now.

Yes.  Until now.

---

So tell me about the actual incident.

You read the news, though, right?

All it said was that you assaulted that Conservative prime-ministerial candidate.  But I want to hear it from you.

Well, he was my erstwhile lover's-- sorry, my wife's father.

Why did you do it?

Well, it happened like this.  He was rallying at Stanley Park, talking about how he was going to lower taxes and all that shit.

So you didn't believe him?

He's not a crook.  He meant it, he's a great guy.  But I'm a socialist, I LIKE taxes.  They make me feel like the government is actually DOING something.  And conservatives are usually bureaucrats.

And yet their whole platform is based on a hate of bureaucracy.

It's the only respect in which I agree with them.  But they're also usually, USUALLY, but not in this case, hypocrites, so makes sense.

So what happened?

Right after he finished the speech, after he started taking questions, I started cross-examining him.  I comes naturally to me, both my parents were lawyers at some point.  My mom still is, despite being 61.  And my dad's still a judge, but they're all old coots anyways.  Except, you know, my dad.

Was the cross-examination rude?

It was biting and forceful, but no, not rude.  He was happy to see me, and even happier to answer my questions.

But then...

I wouldn't stop.  I kept getting sharper and more cruel, and finally he asked me to talk to him in private, because there were other people wanting to ask questions.

That sounds eerily like the University of Florida taser incident.

Except there were no police at the rally.

So nobody stopped you.

Right.  And finally he said the words that did him in.  "That's enough, son.  You should stop now, before I have to call the cops".

What was wrong with that?

Well, I was practically foaming at the mouth at that point, screaming and shouting, so reason went out the metaphorical window, and he was so... patronising.  I hate being called "son".  And I just... snapped.  I started hitting him.

I thought you must have had a baseball bat, the way you roughed him up.

How did you--

They had a photo in the news.

I'm a black belt in karate.  The real kind, mind you, not that "hi-ya, you can punch people too!" shit.  I had just got it a month ago.  It took me, what, 17 years to earn.

But, still, he had broken bones.  You did that with your bare hands.

When they told me there were bones broken, I nearly fainted.  And I never faint.  My body doesn't allow any kind of lapse of conciousness that isn't sleep, unless it involves heavy anaesthetic.

That might explain why you're a chronic insomniac.

I bet it says that in your file on me.  And the insomnia is because I can't stop thinking, can't switch my brain off.

I see.

So what's my diagnosis, doc?

Well, I'm interesting in that I have degrees in psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, although the only one that's a PhD is the one in psychiatry--

What's the practical upshot of this?

Well, it means I can diagnose you with psychiatry, heal you with therapy, and explain why you did it with psychology.  Very neat.

So let's start with the first.  What's my diagnosis?

---

Well, from what I can tell, you have serious anger management issues.

Sounds about right.  Why?

Again, from what I can TELL, you have a variant of the inferiority complex.  You can't bear to let others assert their control over a situation.

Kind of makes sense, you know?  I have a huge ego, it's no wonder.

But you're so polite.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.  I'm actually so polite to cover up for my high opinion of myself.

That's a well known--

--psychological phenomenon, I know.

You're good.

Thank you.  So I've got anger management problems.  I always knew it.  That won't take the problems away.

Well, here's what I'm thinking.  Remember when you said that my strategy for dealing with anger wouldn't work for you, because converting your suffering into stories doesn't help?  I think you're wrong.

Oh, gee, that's a nice thing to--

Let me finish.  I think that you're wrong.  And I can prove it.

All right.

Tell me: when did your career really get off the ground?

The first time a publisher accepted my book was 7 years ago.  HaperCollins published my novel Manuscript.

And excluding your outburst a few weeks ago, when was the last time you got really mad at somebody?

When I was 17, that time I beat up that guy who was trying to get my girlfriend to go home with him.  It was a few days before I had the idea for Manuscript...

You're starting to get it.

So what you're saying is--

What I'm saying is that you've been able to stave off your anger by sharing it with the world.  Your novels seem to be your outlet for your general frustration with society.

But if I'm still writing, how come the problem's resurfaced?

What sort of novels have you been writing lately?

Sci-fi, mainly.  Wishy-washy stuff, I'm going through a huge writers block.

Yes, and your most successful novels have been a realistic fiction.  I think you've stopped trusting yourself to accurately portray reality.

Now you're just guessing.

No, I'm not.  The first thing you said to me was "I don't need to see a shrink".  I've had many paranoid clients over the years, and they all say that.

So now you think I'm paranoid.

Let me finish.  You also repeatedly say things like "I think" or "I suppose".  I don't think you've made a confident statement of an event since you've sat down on that chair.  Additionally, your description of the incident with the PM candidate seemed almost storybook-like.  Something about it struck me as not quite objective.

So I'm insane too?

You, sir, are one of the most difficult clients I've ever had to deal with.

I'll be quiet.

What I'm saying is that maybe the reason you get so angry isn't just because of your superiority complex.  It might also be that you lash out when you don't understand the situation.  So my solution is twofold.  On one hand, you can deal with you anger by trying to understand it, i.e., by writing stories about it.

Which is what I've been doing.

OR, you can stop trying to tell stories.

I think I know what you mean.  I'm a Zen Buddhist, and one of the core teachings of Zen is to stop telling stories and see life as it really is.

Exactly.  The other option is to interpret what you see AS YOU SEE IT, and make up your story as you go along.  Basically, I'm asking you to stay sane.

Which is harder than it sounds.

Believe me, I know.

I could do both, you know.  Tell my story as I go along, AND share it with the world.

That would require you to speak your mind all the time.

I may need to do that anyway.

Why?

There's still the issue with my wife.

---

Were you serious?  About her divorcing you, I mean?

The issue has come up.  I'm living in a rented apartment at the moment.

I'm not a marriage counsellor.  You'll just have to deal with it yourself.

But... God.  I'm not... I can't... I don't want to lose her again.

There, there, I know how it is.  But like I said, it's time for you to stop telling and start acting.  Talk to her.  Convince her.  Cross-examine her.  People like it when you appeal intellectually to them, as opposed to on an emotional level.  Makes them think they're making the decision themselves.

My wife is fair.  She doesn't hold grudges.  It's ironic, actually, but her dad has forgiven me before she has, even though he was the one I attacked.

Girls are like that.  I think that since she forgave you the first time, she'll forgive you now.

Anyway, thank you so much for helping me.  I'm still in deep horseshit, but at least I've found a way out.

Thank you too.  You were the most interesting client I've had in years.

You're welcome.  I'll drop by sometime, maybe help you with the crazies.

There is the small matter of the bill.

Won't the police pay for it?

Probably.  I was more referring to the fact that as a writer, you owe me a book now.

Sure, I'll give you a copy of my next one.

All right, goodbye.

Goodbye.  Oh, and doc!

Yes?

You know what you said earlier?  About staying sane?

Yes?

I think I have a good analogy for anger.

Your analogies are world renowned.  Let's hear it.

I think staying sane - that is, accurately engaging your environment - is like a conversation with yourself.

So what's anger?

Anger is when you stop listening.
This a sort of spiritual successor of sorts to Merely Marching Far Away, even though it has nothing to do with it.

At 3741 words, this is the longest story I've written yet.
© 2012 - 2024 Paulwe
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