On Anger: A Personal Examination.

Content warning: discussions of suicide and self harm, mental illness, mentions of crocodiles, just…Berserk, Star Wars spoilers (that are like 30 years old but whatever), X-men spoilers, discussion of transphopbia/queerphobia

Let’s talk about anger.

First, let’s talk about where I’ve been. I don’t want to get into details, because a) I’m not interested in doxing myself, and b) I’m not interested in doxing anyone else involved, even though they are the source of my anger. Basically, I lost out on an educational opportunity that I’d been a part of for five months very suddenly—following myself and my husband being in the hospital, back to back, and without any warning at all—and while they gave the school many reasons why, those are excuses covering up what actually happened: I’m different, and those differences make people uncomfortable. Asking for my pronouns and way of being to be respected were apparently too big an ask, and now I suddenly find myself with a lot of free time, not enough money, and a lot of paperwork to deal with.

All the struggles, all the sacrifices, all the things I brushed off and put up with just to get through the course were for nothing. Neglecting my blog, my social media, my writing, all the things I need for a different career, all for nothing. I liken what happened to an asteroid; out of nowhere, extremely devastating, and involving lots of dying dinosaurs, struggling to find food and a way to move forward. The asteroid did almost wipe me out. I am, to paraphrase an extremely (unintentionally) funny article, a T-Rex roaring at the the heat death of the world around them, fighting the dying of the light.

Now, don’t worry too much about me, dear reader. I have support, and I still have my computer. But now I have time to contemplate what happened, and here’s the thing; at the core, it really, really pisses me off.

Let’s talk about anger.

Let’s sit down and really, really talk about it. Let’s examine it through the lens of media and how it portrays this emotion. Let’s be vulnerable, and put it all out there. Let’s talk about anger.

But first, let’s introduce our characters. I’ll be referring to the people who sent the asteroid crashing into my life as “the crocodiles”. Now, I grew up on Steve Irwin, so just know that I love crocodiles. But crocodiles are ambush predators. They disguise themselves as something that they’re not to lure prey in, and once they have the opportunity they strike, closing their jaws and dragging their victim under. And they survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. There might be no consequence for the crocodiles, and I, the dinosaur in this metaphor, have to live with that. I may refer to myself as a dinosaur in this piece. While I say ‘characters’ know that this is not a work of fiction. What I am writing about, my experiences, actually happened. And it’s fucking aggravating.

And we’re going to talk about it.

One of the best quotes about anger that I can think of is: “Hate is the place where a man who can’t stand sadness goes”. This quote is spoken to Guts, the main character of Berserk (and frequent topic on the blog) by Godo, a blacksmith responsible for the hunk of iron known as Dragon-Slayer, Guts’s sword. Guts doesn’t trust many people, but he seems to trust Godo. And Godo, knowing about that trust, shares this wisdom with dear old Guts. He can see the path that Guts is going down and how destructive it is, but he can also see that Guts carries deep pain inside him. He doesn’t shame Guts for his hate, which is well earned. Rather, he meets Guts where he is, but doesn’t pull his punches.

Guts is sad. Miura makes that clear.

Who wouldn’t be, if their childhood was abuse upon abuse upon abuse, their best friend turned out to be a murderous rapist, and they have to watch someone they love suffer as a result. But, even in the first act, we see that Guts does not handle sadness well. Luckily for him, he has a big sword to swing, and a lot of demons to cut down. The fight against his demons, external and internal, will never end. And that’s not his fault. That’s the saddest part. The person who hurt him (the most) has power, and his dreams are coming true while Guts languishes, consumed by his own pain and hate. And hate is easier than sadness, because he can do something about hate; kill monsters and work up to finally killing Griffith for what he’s done.

What Godo is getting at is that anger is a secondary emotion. I’ll be honest in that trying to find a conclusive definition of what a primary versus secondary emotion is was a nightmare. Every source I looked at had a different definition. What a pain. I’ll try to boil it down to the essentials; primary emotions are innate, meaning that we’re born with our reactions to them, they are automatic, and they are the first response to a stimulus. Secondary emotions, on the other hand, are…some sources say learned, but I don’t think they’re learned, I think we learn how to react to them from the people around us. Secondary emotions are responses or related to primary emotions. Anger is often linked to fear, frustration, and….sadness.

Anger is seen as protective, and that’s not always a good thing. On the one hand, anger can spur you into action. If you’re mad about something, you want to get rid of the thing you’re mad at. That can be the first step into planning a way forward. On the other hand, anger can keep you from dealing with the primary emotions underneath. It’s protecting you from the pain of those feelings, yeah, but if you don’t deal with the problem then it’s just going to keep being a problem, and you’re just going to keep getting angrier, and angrier. And then it starts to affect your life.

In my work, both at the croc pit and in my actual paying jobs, I’ve seen a lot of people exist consumed by their anger, and having that emotion be the only thing that keeps them going. I see that when I look in the mirror. It’s toxic. I know I’m being poisoned from the inside out, but damned if I can’t stop this loop. I want closure. I want vengeance. I want to make crocodile suitcases and then toss them into a lake….

There’s still teeth marks in my leg from where the crocs bit down. There’s still an infection left behind as a result. My blood is boiling inside of me as it tries to fight the bacteria eating me alive. But no matter how mad I get, the infection is still there. Anger isn’t burning it out. Hate isn’t burning it out. It’s feeding the infection.

Back to Guts.

Guts doesn’t stay in that hate place forever in the manga. He can’t. It’s dangerous for him and blinds him to the world around him. It pushes people away. And Guts needs people. It’s only when he finds friends again, people who care about him beyond his utility as a warrior, that he can heal. He is able to put aside his hate, his own desire for revenge, because he has the chance to heal his love. Finally, something matters more than hate. I think that’s beautiful, and it sends a powerful message to the audience about hate and anger.

It’s a lesson I’m trying to learn. One I’m trying to teach myself. I’ve been consumed by anger and hate since the asteroid made impact. What are the primary emotions here?

Depression.

Grief.

Uncertainity.

…Sadness.

Those are hard to process. Hard to deal with. I’m trying to work through them, but perhaps anger is just a learned response. I didn’t want to just roll over and let the crocs bite, and anger helped me survive before. It was anger at my abuser that kept me going while I was forced to be around him, because I couldn’t be sad. I couldn’t let him see my weakness, because he revelled in the pain of others. Being angry made sure he didn’t get what he wanted. It scared him, and if he was scared…that meant I was safe.

Anger was protective then. Can it be protective now? How do I know when it stops being protective and starts being damaging? How much damage will be done before I realize that I’m being pulled back into the water by a slowly closing maw?

The prequels weren’t as bad as they were made out to be.

And now that I’ve pissed off most of my audience, we can sit in anger together. Won’t that be fun? I say that the prequels weren’t as bad as they were made out to be at the time for a lot of reasons, but the one I’m going to focus on is one of the most famous Star Wars quotes:

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda

Yoda speaks these words to Anakin Skywalker, aka future Darth Vader and father of the year, when he’s just a wee child. Oh, and he says this to Anakin after telling him that he sensed a lot of fear from him. Yeah, no shit Yoda. He was a child facing leaving behind everything he’s ever known, and having to grapple with the expectations of the adults around him. It’s not a surprise to me that this kid eventually becomes Darth Vader, considering that all he’s ever heard is that difficult emotions = dark side. And none of the adults around him bother to consider that, as a former slave and then a grieving son losing his mother, that he might have some trauma and some big, difficult emotions to deal with.

That was one of the most frustrating parts of being in the croc pit. I was around people who knew for a fact that I had trauma. I don’t hide that. The more I act like trauma is this big bad monster in the closet that we can’t talk about or it’s going to jump out and eat all of us, the more it’s going to become a big bad monster. Even knowing that, they still acted in ways that triggered my trauma response, and then didn’t recognize that I was having a trauma response. I was then punished for it by being forced out of the croc pit before I realized that hey, I was being eaten alive. Why were they surprised when I acted like prey in a trap? Why were they surprised that I, a lumbering dinosaur, didn’t know how to cope with an asteroid I was never meant to survive?

All I’m saying is that these people are real lucky that I don’t have force powers. “Darth Elka” has a real ring to it.

Yoda isn’t necessarily wrong. The problem is in how and when he chooses to tell Anakin this. Yes, fear can lead to anger. Anger is a secondary emotion that can come from the primary emotion of fear. Anger can lead to hate. See; Guts. And then hate can lead to suffering. Of course it can.

Anakin Skywalker is the ultimate example of unproductive anger. It’s not that his anger wasn’t justified, it’s that he let it control him until he became something so far removed from who he used to be that no one knew that they were the same person. But the rub is this; Anakin didn’t have to become this. No one around him ever taught him how to deal with his anger, or his fear, in a healthy, productive way. It was always “go meditate on it”, or “go spar”. Which are useful calming techniques to be sure, there’s a lot of data suggesting that meditation and exercise are good tools to cope with big emotions, but they can’t be the only techniques. Anakin went from being a slave to a soldier. He had a lot to be afraid of. But he was never taught to deal with them, he was taught to push it down and finish the next task, the next mission.

Until he couldn’t anymore.

Darth Vader is very controlled in his anger. It’s impressive, really, that he doesn’t just lash out at everything all the time, and just chooses to choke people and cut down rebels with his lightsaber. Yet he still doesn’t release his anger. He still doesn’t know how to deal with it, because the emperor has a vested interest in keeping him damaged. It’s only when he encounters his son, who is able to control himself (and he didn’t get that from dear old Dad) that he finally, finally, lets himself feel something in a big way and it spurs him into action. Was he angry that the Emperor was electrocuting his kid? Oh yeah, probably. But that wasn’t the primary emotion. It was love.

If I am continuing the thread I started, anger can become destructive if I don’t express it—or, if I don’t learn how to properly express it. Letting it consume me isn’t an option, but neither is pushing it down with distraction. There are real consequences for the people around me if I can’t.

Which, say it with me, pisses me off.

I’m pissed off that I have to do this at all. I’m pissed off that the crocs didn’t even go near my family but that the asteroid still affected them. I’m pissed that the people around me are already affected, that they already have consequences. But I can use that. I’m angry not only because of me, but because of my love for my family and friends. Family and friends that have had to see me at one of my lowest lows, who had to restrain me to keep me from rendering myself extinct and had to hold me while I sobbed in the emergency room. They shouldn’t have to go through that. No one should have. The crocs should have been more careful who they bit, since they sent dirty water splashing everywhere when they decided to barrel-roll my tiny dinosaur body in the hopes that I’d perish from the sheer force of it.

But I have to get it together. Not just for me, but for the people around me. I have to let it be the secondary emotion of something positive.

The anger isn’t going to go away. It just…isn’t. It needs to be expressed and worked through. It needs to go beyond just an infection and create something new. I can’t let the crocs win. I survived the asteroid. I can adapt to this new, darker world. But I still have to find my place in it, anger and all. If I can keep the damage minimal, what should I do next?

Magneto is defined by anger.

Given that the crocs targeted me for being queer, I find it fitting to bring in Magneto. The X-men, in recent years (and in no small part due to Ian McKellen) have become an allegory for LGBT rights, the same way they were an allegory for the struggles of the African-American civil rights movement when they were first created. I’m going to focus on the movies, because the comics history is long and different writers have their own view on Mags and write him accordingly, while the movies have Magneto’s motivations and characterization somewhat consistent. And Magneto in those films is portrayed by both McKellen and Michael Fassbender in a raw, powerful way that makes you question if he truly is the villain of this series.

He is, but we’ll get there.

For the uninitiated, Magneto has a lot of very good reasons to be angry. He survived the holocaust. In the movie’s continuity, Magneto’s powers emerged when he was being separated from his parents when they arrived at the camps. Magneto was then experimented on by Sebastian Shaw, who killed his mother in front of him just to force him to unleash his powers. Oh, and he’s a mutant, which people are openly fearful and resentful of. He’s seen what happens when the powerful hate you. He’s seen what happens when they sway the masses to their side, and how easy it is to keep a people silent. He’s determined not to let that happen to mutants, and he can see clearly that the human’s acceptance is conditional. They will turn on him and his people if given the chance.

And he will not give them that chance.

Magneto’s villainous tendencies come from how far he’s willing to go to protect mutants. He’s willing to;

• Turn the world’s leaders into mutants to force them to give a shit about mutants (X-men)
• Potentially kill his “best friend” 😉 by using his powers to kill every single human on Earth (X2)
• Go full terrorist and bomb cure clinics and take over the lab manufacturing the cure to kill the mutant child the cure is being made from (X3)
• Launch nukes at humans (X-men: First Class)
• Use robots to murder humans (including the pres-o-dent) and bring about a future that’s really shitty for both mutants and humans, but is objectively way shittier for mutants (X-men: Days of Future Past)
• Work with Apocalypse to, you guess it, kill as many humans as possible with his souped-up metal manipulation powers (X-men: Apocalypse)

You might notice a missing movie. We’re getting to that.

I was frequently misgendered and treated unfairly by the crocs. I’m not sure why it matters to a cold-blooded ambush predator, but even as my personal effects were collected they couldn’t be bothered to refer to me correctly. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost something because someone with power didn’t like the fact that I was different from them, but it’s the most devastating. It’s affected how I’m transitioning, and my dysphoria has never been this bad. I know that it might not ever get better. People still don’t accept the LGBTQ community, especially where I live. Of course I feel angry and hateful towards the society I live in. The only thing I did wrong, and the only thing the mutants did wrong, was existing at all.

I won’t lie and say that I don’t sometimes find myself very sympathetic towards Magneto. Especially right now. Society hurt me, and it created the climate in which crocodiles could thrive. I don’t give a shit what their rationale was. Here’s a pro-tip, a life lesson, for you folks out there: most people will never come out and say “I don’t like (insert marginalized group here), they make me uncomfortable, and I wish I didn’t have to interact with them”. They will have every excuse in the book to hide the truth; you make them uncomfortable because you exist. And in the case of the crocs, they had power to make me suffer for daring to be different. You didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did I. We were just born differently, and that should never, ever be used against you. But if it is….don’t be fooled by their lies. There’s a reason the phrase “crocodile tears” exists.

But I can’t take out my anger on society in any way but this; writing, and creating art.

Magneto’s anger is justified, and even rational, given what he’s gone through. But eventually, he learns to let go of it, and to harness it into something productive. The first hint of this is in X-men: Days of Future Past where Future Magneto, shockingly, sees that his actions contributed to the whole “mutants being hunted and killed by robots” problem in the future. All he wanted was safety and peace for his people, but peace was never an option, was it? Not in the cycle of violence Magneto locked himself into. His anger lead him to commit violence, and that violence rippled outwards. But Magneto learns his lesson after his brush with cold, hard, truth. This is shown in X-men: Dark Phoenix. Magneto isn’t exactly on great terms with humans, but he finally has what he’s always wanted; a safe place for his people, an island where mutants can just exist, free from humanity. He is also able to restrain himself when humans invade his home, and at the end, after everything….all he wants is for his (ahem) “best friend” to come and live on the island with him. That’s all he wants; peace for his people, and his friend by his side. His anger, his hate, spurred him into action. Once he reached his goal, he was able to let go of his anger. It helped him accomplish something, and now that it isn’t productive, he doesn’t need it anymore.

This is where I want to get to.

I cannot change society. If I could, I already would have. I cannot change the crocs. Their behaviour has been programmed into them from birth, to be killing machines incapable of trauma-informed care. But what I can do is be visible despite it, and work towards acceptance for my people, and work towards peace for myself. It’s a long journey, and it’s not going to be easy. The asteroid has made that perfectly clear. But if I keep that anger as a secondary emotion, fuelled by love for the queer people around me, maybe, just maybe, I can use it to help.

I heard a quote recently that I really resonate with. It’s attributed to Lyndsey Gallant. The quote is: “Your anger is the part of you that knows your mistreatment and abuse are unacceptable. Your anger knows your deserve to be treated well, and with kindness. Your anger is a part of you that loves you.”

My anger can be love on fire. It is a joyful poisoning. It can help as much as it can hurt. It is a sign that, despite everything that happened, some part of me still loves me. What happened was unacceptable. The asteroid was unacceptable. But, like the dinosaurs, it doesn’t have to be the end. I can adapt. I can grow feathers and learn to fly. I can carry that anger without it being toxic.

I have to believe I can get there. I have to. It’s all I have left.

Anger helped me survive for a really long time. It was justified. It is justified now. I deserve to hate the people who’ve hurt me. But that can’t be the only thing keeping me going, and it cannot consume me. I can’t let it. I can’t become a monster. I can’t give into the hate, the anger, and let it govern what I do next.

So, if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I was being mistreated in a place that should have had my back. I was in a crocodile’s swamp and didn’t realize until the teeth closed around me. I was made to feel inferior because I was born differently than the people around me. Like Guts, I made a sacrifice against my will, and like Guts, it screwed me over. Like Darth Vader, I wasn’t given space to feel and express my emotions. And like Magneto, I was forced to grapple with the fact that the world at large contributed to my small world being destroyed. I was supposed to be educated. And oh yes, this certainly has done that. You cannot trust the people around you to have your best interest at heart. That’s where anger comes in.

Let’s talk about anger.

If you take nothing else away from this, let it be this: anger isn’t the bad guy. It doesn’t have to be the only thing that matters to you. I can be let go when the time is right. I don’t know when the right time to let go of this anger will be, if it ever comes. But I don’t want to let it taint my life any further. I have to be stronger. You can be stronger. It’s a secondary emotion. There’s a reason for it. Find that reason, and deal with it. You will only come out stronger. I have to believe that.

And if I can believe it, after everything I’ve been through…well, maybe you’ll be able to. It doesn’t have to be today, it doesn’t have to be tomorrow. But when we let our abusers actions dictate how we cope, and yes, I said abusers, they win. Do not let them win. You deserve better than that.

And if, by some fluke, the crocs are reading this (and they’ll know this is about them, trust and believe), know this; I see you for what you are. You cannot hide beneath the surface forever, disguised as something innocuous. One day, you’ll be forced to reckon with the fact that you aren’t as good as you want to be, and that hatred has poisoned your heart toxic. One day, the rest of the world will see that too. One day, they’ll be angry at you too.

And, for your sake, I hope that they are able to let it go before you too are consumed by the sheer fire of it. For my sake, I hope that the fire burns bright enough to cast out the darkness you put into the world.