I was young in a household often raked by the gunfire of anger and early in my growing years, I learned to express myself in the same violent way. I used to tell people that my anger was so bad that I was not permitted to have a penknife when I was a boy. It is possible that I may have created a fiction of my young self; a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that “(t)he brain edits memories relentlessly, updating the past with new information.” It is more likely that my family could not afford the knife, but to me, my created life was sexier. My anger was real, though. I’m not sure when I decided to express myself differently, but I managed to learn restraint, caution, and calm deliberation. And, anger management.
A young woman admitted to “anger management problems” in a conversation with me; I understood what she was saying. Though I believe she was using a term she had learned in a class or counseling session, she knew what “anger management,” meant, and admitted to not really managing her own anger. I may have given her some feeble advice, but I recalled that conversation when I had a later one with a friend of mine.
I was telling my friend about a nasty confrontation I had with an opponent on a pool table. The man was someone I had seen at other tournaments — this event was a team pool tournament — and I had not liked the behavior he had exhibited those other times. This was my first direct contact with him, however, and when he made loud objection to something I had done, my suppressed anger reared up, snarling and slobbering, and lunged against the leash of civility. My response, though quiet, was excessively profane.
As I recounted this incident to my friend, I admitted that though I was ashamed of my behavior, the release of anger was cathartic. She made the observation that what she knew of me did not have room for anger. I told her the story of the boxes.
When I was a manager for a small loan company, I would be transferred to various offices, a course that led to my final posting in New Albany, Indiana. As I had done at all of my previous assignments, I put empty cardboard boxes in the storage area and asked the staff to make sure they were never removed. Though I never explained nor discussed the boxes with my staff, I imagine that they later deduced the purpose when they heard me pounding the boxes and saw the tattered and scattered cardboard. This “punching of the boxes” is what I did when my inner anger demanded outward expression. I never raised my voice in anger and when I raised my angry hands, it was to punch boxes. Afterward, I would calmly return to my regularly scheduled duties.
I told my friend that I don’t remember when I found this outlet for my temper; I cannot recall doing anything similar when I was younger. I worked at a psychiatric hospital while I attended art school, and I learned to be calm and kind and prepared for nasty outbursts. I may have then internalized the idea that my rage needed a “socially acceptable” outlet, some expression that did no damage to others. My friend laughed an impish laugh and made light of a serious subject in a way that she has: “So now, when you get angry,” she asked, “what do you tell people?”
She suggested that I say, “I’m going boxing.”