Anger

Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone, or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong. Anger can be a good thing. It can give you a way to express negative feelings, for example, or motivate you to find solutions to problems.

Nowadays, we live in a world where anger has become the driving force for doing wrong. Some people allow their anger to end the lives of others, over beliefs, over race, over many ideologies that we create in our minds.

Many people walk around today filled with anger and sometimes can’t explain why. I was one of those people. Walking around angry at the world and at myself. I had not even heard of borderline personality disorder. As I am sure, many people out there haven’t either.

Fueling my fire

My anger consumed me. I would get caught in this never-ending cycle of rage. Staying angry for days. Letting my mind fuel my fire by sitting and going through every event in my life that caused me to feel hurt or angry. Blinding me from reality and keeping me trapped in this circle of angry thoughts.

My mind and emotions never had a chance to settle down. Thoughts raced through my mind day and night. Every idea shoves the other for a chance in the spotlight. Every angry event had its opportunity to make an encore appearance in my mind.

In my anger, I developed anxiety, which affected me physically. This caused a chain reaction in my emotions and even my physical state. I would go into an almost survival mode. Lashing out and staying angry became my invisible protective “shield.” It kept me from getting hurt.

Being in abusive relationships creates an unnatural fight or flight survival mode in the brain that kicks in at the wrong times. Any sign of aggression becomes a red flag, and our “shield” immediately goes up. This also happens whenever we feel hurt in any way.

The issue with a borderline personality disorder is that we don’t always know when to lower our “shield.” We know it is there for protection, but we don’t see whether it’s appropriate for the situation or if we should even lower it at all.

What is meant to be our defense mechanism somehow becomes our prison. It is almost as though my own thoughts chain me down where I stand when I am triggered. I can not move forward until I learn how to slowly break those chains.

I give myself space; I take myself away from what triggers me. I then begin to mentally self-talk and remind myself of all the good in me. I allow myself to see my worth. I tell myself that I have control of my emotions. This puts me in the driver’s seat and gives me a better perspective.

Conclusion

With time and help from professionals, I have learned to work on myself. I am learning to turn my anger into something productive, like blogging and photography. This has been an outlet that has allowed me to take what others would define as a setback, to become my blessing and my peace.

To give me a way to show others that nothing is impossible if we have a strong spiritual identity, a desire to change, a willingness to accept our flaws and fix them, and seek guidance from others who are going through the same. We can achieve anything.

That is the journey that I am on. A journey that many have traveled. Knowing that you are not alone and that there will be others who will also take this journey gives you hope to walk it for those who come behind you. Creating a legacy all your own.