The Power of Anger

This I Believe

I believe that anger destroys you. It is a force that drags you down a road of horrid experiences and lashes out at you in the middle of the night. However when channeled correctly it can form you into a successful individual. I know this from personal experience.

From my earliest memory of my life to the present; I cannot recollect a day that has passed without me venting my violent and blinding anger. The anger that I expressed was due to a simple fact: grieving was not acceptable.

My father is a Full Bird Colonel in the Army. This caused the family to move frequently and for me to suffer from severe losses, which many would not suffer through until they were mature enough to handle the situation.

I was told not to get attached and to just shrug things off. “The world is what it is. You don’t like it? Too bad, because you’re going to get beaten if you don’t become ‘a wall’.” In a sense my parents meant that statement literally. It became a struggle for me. I became angry and didn’t understand the feelings I had. I didn’t know that my feelings came from emotional abuse and never being taught how to cope. My anger was planted, watered and fertilized every day.

When I did get attached to people it was to the wrong crowd, people who always had ulterior motives. Move after move, city after city, school after school, I still failed my parents and myself when it came to forming friendships. The anger towards my parents for not teaching me how to cope bubbled, the anger towards my peers and their ulterior motives reeked with vengeance, the hate towards myself was about to break the dam. My daily routine of breaking inanimate objects gradually grew into a routine of destroying people emotionally and physically, finally, I turned the rage onto myself.

I began to cut myself. I received help. I went down a path that fed my anger like wildebeests to a lion: drugs. I received help again. My anger was my character, personality, it was my DNA. I didn’t know how to react to myself or any situation unless I was angry. I was an emotional landslide and did not understand why. I came to the conclusion that I was crazy and bitter.

Now that I’m ending my high school career, I’ve realized that I wasted my childhood, my most innocent years being angry, tormenting myself and others simply because I did not know how to express the pain I felt inside. My anger stole my youth and made me age faster than necessary. I’m learning to forgive myself, my parents, and those in the past, present and future for their flaws.

I refuse to live the rest of my life being angry, even though my anger has helped me to excel in sports, school, and many other activities. I will now channel my anger to form me into a soldier and serve the U.S. faithfully like my father. I WILL be a happy individual one day. THIS I BELIEVE!