Angry Girls Never Lose

Anger bubbles up and bursts at the surface, soaking everything in sight

When I was younger I used to always get told "be the bigger person".

I heard it so much, no matter where I went, that it started to feel like it haunted me. It became a signal from the outside world, who I trusted so much more than myself, to hit the brakes. Hard. 

If being told words of validation and affirmation, cool and reassuring, are like a yellow light on the road signaling to gradually slow before coming to a stop, then "be the bigger person" was like a traffic light with only green and red lights in my life. 

When I felt worked up and angry, the feelings raw and tender would come sizzling to my brim, and those words slid out of nowhere like clockwork, slamming the brake pedal of my emotions to such a startling halt that it would shock my whole system and send the impact rolling backwards and rippling through my body with violence, when where that momentum needed to go was out, so it could move freely and cycle through without crashing.

This went on so often in my childhood that I became the one saying it to myself even in the privacy of my own contemplation.

 It would poke its ugly head out at the first winds of anger or resentment, barking like a wild dog beckoning my emotions to retreat from where they came. All I’d ever really been was angry and all I ever got for it was dinner time standing in the corner, seething with ripe emotion in silence. If I yelped in pain or anguish I was swiftly punished, shattered, and then put back into the right shape with ivory chopsticks and commands shouted at a breaking point. This reaction was internalized deeply within me, and I felt a certain sense of pride enforcing it because it was natural and all I'd really known. It was my way of proving I was "a good one". 

I didn't need my anger, because I didn't need to put up a fight. No matter what was done to me, what words were cast, or boundaries crossed, I had my secret weapon: doing nothing at all, sweetly, with a deep sigh and a wise nod. I was told I was smart and mature while adults, friends, teachers, and camp counselors all through my adolescence took advantage and persuaded me, commenting how it was the right way to be and how to was a mark of truly winning the long game rather than succumbing to messy battles that were far beneath me. 

This never felt right, but I liked how it sounded. I liked this version of myself being painted by the people whose approval and care I was desperate to win.

I wanted to be good, because I thought being good would mean I was loved, and I thought being loved meant I would not be left behind. 

I did not realize that in those moments, I was leaving myself behind, in discarded shards and pieces everywhere I went.

I thought nothing of the intense sensations I forced back down into my body, even as it's sour taste coated my tongue and my body tightened in terror. 

Was there anything wrong with wanting to get along? 

Who could possibly be hurt, when one of us refuses to attack? 

Surely this was the kind way to be a person.

And a kind person will never be abandoned. 

I was reassured endlessly of my valor and promised a brighter future with every injustice I let wipe me across the floor, and I thanked them for their wisdom. 

But I started to notice something sinister. 

Years before my body started to buckle under the weight of these self betrayals, there was a glaring inconsistency in the story I was weaving with the help of everyone around me: If the action to be the bigger person, and not retaliate, not yell, not get angry, not express my frustrations and irritation was kindness and goodness embodied...then why was there never any punishment for the other party's bad behavior? Punishment has never been my definition of justice, but I couldn't help but notice after my pride had swollen then slowly shrunk back to size, that the other party's actions were never once held as wrong outside of the conversations that were had with me privately. 

Those people around me who never chose to be the bigger person, still enjoyed the luxuries that came with what I thought was exclusive to good behavior and outstanding self control. Our mutual friends never had to choose a side, let alone have a difficult conversation. No one said a thing to them against those actions that I had been encouraged to avoid retaliating at all costs. In fact, I often saw them comforted and supported in a quiet fashion that never reflected the animosity I was promised faced such selfish and vengeful actions. I'd find myself wincing before having the chance to button myself back up and quickly construct a story of why this must be happening despite it going against everything I was fed when being begged to de-escalate rather than ask anything of the situation.

If getting angry and taking self righteous actions were so wrong, then why was I often seeing it dismissed and accepted, if not at times rewarded? This hit me sideways and I tried to pretend not to notice, because that too, is part of being the bigger person. I’d silence my brain’s calls of hypocrisy while watching the people whose affections and loyalty I was chasing sigh in deep relief when I agreed to not put up a battle, and ask nothing of anyone for the betterment of the group’s comfort. To keep the peace. I’d take emotional beatings and watch as the people giving them were nurtured and cooed with sympathy, while my own emotions were starved entirely. 

The bigger person is someone who needs nothing. 

They are self-sustaining. 

They require no support. 

They exist happily and wisely without slips of the tongue or unsightly emotions. 

They laugh at back handed comments and kill you with kindness and sincerity. 

They let everything go with ease, and they hope one day you might learn how, too. 

This became a form of perfectionism in my life that had a chokehold that was so suffocating my organs stopped functioning over time. I lashed out at my body and called it a curse. My stomach would be shot with such sharp twisting pains at the sights of friends and family that I’d find myself bent over the toilet, hyperventilating with a cold sweat prickling my neck and seeping like a poison through my pores. I thought maybe I was unlucky, and just in need of some strong medication. I went to family doctors and then eventually specialists, trailing behind the most obvious signs strung up in my life begging me to take a second look at how I’d been living. Western culture often does not recognize the true power of the mind-body connection, it’s discarded along with folktales and lost family recipes like extra weight not needed at society’s new higher speeds in favor of managing the symptoms with a temporary band aid while the root source is left to rot.

I became so caught up in being virtuous and agreeable that I forgot a simple fact: Anger is an emotion, and exists as a signal. Anger shows up when we have been wronged, something hurts us, and we need to come to our own defense. It’s not a “bad” emotion that we grow out of because we are adults capable of compassion and empathy, it exists alongside those traits with equal importance and substance.  

A kindness that comes at the cost of our own well being is never a kindness at all. 

And it's important to me that I note here that not all anger is violent, more often than not I've known it to be steady and strong when given the chance to grow and develop alongside our more socially celebrated feelings. When you are able to embrace it as neutral emotion, necessary as the next, it serves as a valuable function. It's a light that goes off when we need to take a second look, to stop and reflect, or even sometimes to get up and leave. It gets a bad rep for being ugly and childlike because most of us never learn to embrace it and allow it to grow up properly and mature with us. We leave it stranded in our childhood days, never satiated or thanked, then perpetuate those cycles of violence on the people we love, not realizing there is space for all kinds of feelings when we grow to be healthy emotionally in-touch versions of ourselves. 

I had to start with recognizing what suppressing my anger did for others.

When I cried as a baby with no awareness of right or wrong, needy or lovable, wanted or hated, it was a burst of energy asking freely and without judgment for what I needed. This feeling to action operated smoothly, and existed honestly without contemplation of deeper meaning or self conscious awareness. But mothers are humans, and mine was sick. She was short of patience, and very angry herself, whether with God, or me. Rushing me to stop crying, scolding me and yelling in mandarin at my stubbornness because what she needed was her own peace of mind, even just to get some sleep. 

When I was in my first year at sleep away camp, I was a little younger than everyone else because my older siblings were already enlisted there. I remember a girl who I’d become close friends with because we were both younger was often extremely angry, had little self control, and was quick to lashing out in violence. Our exhausted counselors gave up on getting her to cooperate, and turned to me to defuse the situation because I was mature for my age, which wasn’t true, I had just gotten good at acting the part growing up in my step family’s house as a permanent guest. 

When I was pushed or shoved and boiled over ready to retaliate, they’d rush to my side and begged me to swallow my feelings inward because I could, and my friend could not. They’d praise me endlessly, thanking me before I even made a decision, and promising me their favor and care. They’d tell me to curl up in a ball, putting my head between my knees, and take deep breaths while my friend screeched. They thanked me and celebrated my willingness to obey, and wouldn’t give my friend so much as a slap on the wrist. One day, when the counselors weren’t watching and my friend was irritated with me, I obediently balled up to diffuse the situation instead of confronting her, and she viciously scratched my back, hissing she knew I wouldn’t fight back. I ended up with wounds so deep they were raw and bleeding, and my counselors, though shocked and horrified at the severity of the situation, told me I did the right thing in doing nothing to defend myself. I knew they would say that. 

When I was hired at jobs with tight knit staff that mingled affectionately and the boundaries between work and personal life were deeply blurred by friendships and relationships, I found myself being asked to stand down when the more outspoken and tempermental coworkers started confrontations. Eye contact across the room silently begged me to say nothing when sharp remarks were fired off, and I was too worn down to realize real friends don’t ever ask you to take a beating. Real friends don’t call speaking up for you when you’re attacked “taking sides” or encourage you to stop defending yourself for the sake of the atmosphere. There’s no healthy relationships, inside or outside of work, where you allow anyone to drag your name through the dirt and spit you out on the other side. That’s not team building, office politics, or friendship at all. 

I learned that suppressing my anger gave other people their peace. It allowed them to move through our relationship without difficult choices or painful conversations. It was never for my own good, no matter how flatteringly spoken about it was. It was because acting on my emotions meant more problems, complications, and confrontation than anyone wanted, and it was easier to persuade me to abandon myself as an act of good faith than it was to be honest and brave when relationships got complicated and messy and needed to run their course authentically even at the price of comfortability.  

I also had to consider what rejecting my fury did for myself as well. Despite what was forced on me as a child, I was an adult now and needed to be able to take a harder look at my own ideals to start healing and not put all the weight on the people around me to resolve things. In truth, it had allowed me to enact an idealized version of myself that I could put on a pedestal and admire rather than doing the down and dirty work of looking directly at the pain I was running from and the avoidance of real vulnerability I was mimicking from my upbringing as well as my own ability to hurt others and make mistakes. It gave me a sense of self that felt admirable and well liked compared to frustration and rejection I’d faced when defending myself or asking to be more deeply understood the few times I’d mustered the courage to in my life. It was a painful and reliable habit that painted my lifetime in the only pattern I knew and I was unwilling to let it go if it meant I would have to deal with the discomfort of not only my own emotions but the emotions of the people in my life that would overwhelm me. It was an action that showed I did not truly trust myself, or anyone in my life to be able to withstand the pressure of open dialogue and criticism.

As I’ve gotten older and found my way into new ways of thinking and some very much needed dedicated help, I’ve realized I am very lucky my body is so loud when it comes to injustices of the heart. For such a long time, I begged it to be silent and obedient as I had been, so things could carry on in the same familiar way. But it was never comfortable. 

I never once swallowed my feelings without them burning down my throat.

The first few months of therapy felt embarrassing and the enormous amount of self reflection put on my plate was intimidating. I didn’t want to work on my emotional self, I just wanted to find the source of my pain and plunge it into cool water till the throbbing subsided. 

Every practice I found myself in, whether that was in a therapist’s office or stuck with 100 needles at my acupuncturist, the results were coming up consistent. Somewhere along the way, the promises I didn’t keep to myself had piled up and were ringing alarms throughout my whole system so loudly that not even the hardest drink or strongest medical weed could silence them as they had for many years.

My Chinese traditional medicine practitioner called me a “highly sensitive person” and told me I wasn’t suited for the frantic high pressure lifestyle I’d gotten comfortable in. I loved loud places because I hated hearing my own thoughts, and gravitated towards stress ridden service jobs and dysfunctional relationships that reminded me of the ones I’d grown up with. At first I took their medicine and advice begrudgingly with only one goal in mind: to get back to “normal”. To be able to swallow anything I didn’t trust the world to hear, even if it meant choking on it.

I wanted to be able to drink with my old friends, go to shows, hop from one messy friendship to the next when things came to a head, and retain the character I’d built for myself along with the narrative that supported it. But as silence washed in where the noise used to be and my sessions started to sink in with a tenderness that I was unfamiliar with, I started to see that not being able to go back was not a curse. 

Where I had felt resentment for the constant pain and urgency my body alerted me to, I began to see a wisdom and justice I had never recognized before.

 My body was standing up for me, even when I could not.

My body said “no” when I was scared I couldn’t.

It urged me out of painful relationships, and stood up for me when I shuffled along compliantly. I realized I was being touched with a love I had never felt, and that I had to start listening more carefully to what it asked me to see. 

I’m learning to rebuild the trust with myself I had so carelessly discarded, and I am nourishing it each day with dedication and diligent care I used to only give to other people and never to my own well being. 

It’s not always a heart wrenching therapy cry or a long written piece published to my Substack. Most of the time it’s little acts of grace and generosity like forgiving myself for not knowing better the first time, and letting myself pout when anger doesn’t dissipate just because I got the “sorry” I was looking for. Allowing myself to act like a real person rather than pretending to feel how I thought others wanted me to.

I let myself be outraged and betrayed, even for old shit that I used to think I needed to outgrow to prove something. I let the feelings fill me up and flow out of me with no rush or pressure, and I don’t ask myself if they make me a bad person anymore. 

When I rush to everyone’s aid except my own I circle back and make sure to choose myself and honesty instead, and don’t pat myself on the back for trying to please others when its ingenuine, even when that’s what is asked of me.

I used to say this joke all the time: If I could leave me too, I would. 

But now I’m showing up each day, learning to be by my own side even when those old wounds fester, so I remember trust can be rebuilt with dedication and work, and prove I love myself enough to do it. 

I’m not cursed with a body that’s too sensitive for the ups and downs of real life, I’m gifted with one that knows I deserve only the good stuff worth fighting for, and nothing less anymore.