outraged

The trailer was tucked in, way down and back in a holler just east of the Piney River in middle Tennessee. There were several generations of relations living in surrounding trailers that were too close for her comfort. At night the little girl would go to bed and the yelling would begin. Momma started the nightly confrontations, standing up to be seen and heard and felt and understood. And damn, it never worked, so she kept pleading, her passion mixed with a strong set of country lungs. The little girl could hear other noises too that were sharp, loud and unrecognizable.
During the day, in her best efforts, Momma was strict, religious, and full of a guilt that she spread throughout the household to maintain a sense of control and structure. In response the little girl’s body tightened into a fiery ball of tension right in the middle of her little chest. She absorbed the circulating rage in the rooms of her home with her own rage and fear, making her even more quiet and mild mannered. She never understood exactly what was happening but, as it goes, rage became her nemesis.
At first, she tried yelling at her parents to stop. As you might imagine, that did not have an effect at all as Momma would shout, “stop being ugly” and “go back to bed.” The little girl fumed knowing how ugly her Momma was being. She became rebellious, especially after her Poppa left, abandoning the family when she was only eight years old. She did not know that her Poppa was an addict, that he went to jail, and that she had half sisters and brothers in the next holler over.
The little girl grew into an avid fighter, happy to reveal her anger at the hint of the slightest confrontation, especially with her now ex-husband and countless other romantic partners. This landed her in jail too, one time too many, so after being released the last time she was mandated to attend an anger management class. The auto-correct she learned in that class shut down the anger in her completely. She became meek and mild once again, unable to recognize even the slightest of frustrations, secretly wishing these feelings never existed.
One spring day the neighbors’ dogs escaped their fence and began to dig into her front garden. Listen, this was the one nice thing she had worked so hard to make, a nice garden. She so wanted just one nice thing to cherish. She could not have this with her own children or grandchildren, her life, her health, her work situation, so that garden was everything. She ran out the front door and started yelling. The words and intensity escaped like a bat out of hell, and she let it rip. Those dogs ran for their life, and she smiled watching them high tail it back to their own territory. It worked, but she hoped the neighbors had not seen or heard.
At work, her manager forbids her to speak at the weekly meetings, mostly to protect her from the ten other men that she works with. They all ignore her, and she hates this, by God, as she has to funnel her complaints through the manager who would address the group for her. He was really trying to keep her out of trouble, but the price felt high. Quieted again. Unheard. Unseen. Unappreciated. Outraged.
In the end, all she wanted was to enjoy the moment with some peace and quiet. She learned that this was only achievable if she were on her own with no one to have a confrontation with. Not a boyfriend or a housemate or her children. So, she spent her evenings making music and reading books that her children recommended, books about trauma, CPTSD, and parts work. By the time I met her she had a working vocabulary for her predicament, but still felt so trapped and doomed to live alone.
Our first conversations were about how frustration can lead to anger and then to rage if unaddressed or misunderstood. Could she allow the feeling of frustration without fearing jail-time or destruction? This would take time, and skill, something she was ready for. She had never related her rage to her childhood or addressed how she must have felt as a child. But when talked about the tears began to flow. At first, she tried to suppress these as much as she did the anger, so it was a slow process toward vulnerability and learning to be gentle with her own body’s sensations and feelings. New territory. Like those dogs she would have rather yelled to keep the tears away, but she is ready to try something different.
She does not think that she will ever meet a man that is kind in confrontation. But for now, she is content with figuring out that same part of herself, way down there in the hills of middle Tennessee.