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Anger Management Issues.
To begin with: I am not actually angry, for the record, just talking about it. Fear not!
If there's one thing in particular I feel I don't roleplay very well (there are a lot of things I feel I don't roleplay well, but this most of all) it's being angry. I can play sullen . . . I can play sullen well. I can play cold, to a degree. I can play gleefully murderous. But I can't play wrathful. This sounds rather strange, being as I am at least rumored to be a horribly angry, violent person ^_-. I do have an explination for it, but it isn't one that satisfies me very well, and I would like tofind a different solution to the problem than the one I currently use.
I can play sullen . . . I can play sullen well. I can play cold. I can play murderous. But I can't play wrathful
This was brought up by being in a scene last night where my character would have yelled at someone. Instead of doing the in-character thing, however, I had to bite my tongue and metagame a little bit, changing the character's reaction to things to be more sulky than genuinely angry. I've done the same thing with, well, all of my characters. With Elias, instead of being coldly furious, I had to change him into being comically childish. Liza was brusque and kind of cute in her rage, but never actually effective. My avatar character comes off as whiny (which I am, just not to that degree) rather than homocidal. It's frustrating as hell, ut currently I don't see an end to it. Why do I do this?
Because while playing angry-- real angry, not the muzzled version-- I run the risk of becoming *actually* angry. I've never done it . . . but while playing even toned down versions I can feel it lurking.
The problem is, while I have mellowed out considerably over the past year and a half, a lot of it was because I've worked around/collected and bottled a lot of the random rages. When I get angry because I should get angry, I let myself deal with it, and it goes away no problem. The issue is with all of that older stuff. I've worked through or are currently untangling a lot of the sources for that anger, and therefor I am no longer feeding it. But it's like I've got this giant lake, and sometimes the dam seeps and I get annoyed for reasons that don't apply. I won't say it's not there; I am fully aware of it's existance. But that fact is it perplexes me, I have no idea what to *do* with it. I'm stable enough now to take a look at it and go "wow, this isn't healthy, and it's taking up a lot of space, and patching the dam isn't going to work forever . . . but what the hell can I do to drain it?"
Any anger that I cannot immediately direct at something that 'deserves it', something fairly healthy, acts as hammer to put a large crack in that dam. Because in a roleplaying situation you do put a little of yourself into your character, when that character gets very angry, I have to pull form somewhere. But trying to manage that . . . I get way more than I bargain for. And suddenly stealing a little bit of fury to use as a basis for Barty's, or Bethy's, or Nadine's, and I Avery get completely enraged. Not that I've allowed that to happen for a while-- hence why I play childish whining and being emo instead. I don't want to be angry at my friends for no particular reason!
It's not a situation I'm comfortable with, obviously. As someone who (when I'm invested in a game, at least) likes to work on and tweak my roleplaying skills, I would like access to the huge range of emotion currently cut off from me. I would like to play a character that is competant, not whiny. And I really think that, like with other emotional states, roleplaying would be a great catharsis for that anger. There's just . . . too much of it.
Yar. So I sit on the banks of the lake looking cross and throwing rocks in while I try to figure out what to do with it (I am reminded of the Fellowship of the Ring . . . eek, hope I don't summon horrible beasties from my subconcious.)
I can't just let myself 'get angry' to start to work it out, either. I have no environment safe enough to do so. If I get angry and it comes from that pool, it's not something that I can manage. I can't be controlled. I don't just yell and stomp and throw things.
It is a terrifying state of being to want to *kill someone*. No one in particular. But to have the visceral urge to rip someone apart with your bare hands . . . to be breaking things not to hear them break, but to pretend they are bones snapping, skulls giving, that the uncontrollable whimpering you are making yourself that you won't realize until later you were making is someone else pleading . . . it's sickening afterwards. It is utter and complete loss of control. And none of that is an exaggeration. I really wish I could say it was, but it's not. It is a panic attack with a desperate need to make other people hurt, to establish some sort of power and control again at whatever the cost, and the quickest, most satisfying way to do that would be to physically break someone.
And when you finishing smashing things, screaming uncontrollably, you have hurt yourself by hitting things too hard, and you have to sit down because you have been hyperventilating for god knows how long. There is no calm feeling afterwards like with crying. You are shaking and your muscles all sting from too much adrenaline, your hands are bleeding, your memory of what just happened is fuzzy and you feel like you want to throw up. And mentally, you are horrified by the fact that whoever you were thinking about, anyone that popped into your head, doesn't matter if they were the source of your anger or not, you wanted them dead. Painfully. And no matter how much arge I just used, it's not actually gone. It *never leaves*. My body just gets too physically exausted to be angry anymore.
As a disclaimer, I do not actually think I would ever kill someone randomly in this state. I think I could shut myself down before that, or someone else would. But I would try to hurt people. I've jumped my own mother, for crissakes. I can't feel pain when I'm like that, either.
It's why I don't get angry in public spaces. It's why I don't drink. And it is why I don't roleplay anger. It is *too risky*.
However, just letting it sit there isn't going to do *anything* to my benefit. I know that it is there. I know where it comes from-- pretty specifically. I just don't know how to deal with it.
I also find it strange that I equate competancy with wrath, and that I can't pay a sane or useful character unless I can play him/her as angry. Hmm.
So until I can resolve this, I have to resign myself to playing characters who are ultimatly emotionally weak. *le sigh*
And that, ladies an gentleman, is why they are all such self-involved little whiners.
In closing: I have been waiting to use this icon for forever. Ain't it purty?
If there's one thing in particular I feel I don't roleplay very well (there are a lot of things I feel I don't roleplay well, but this most of all) it's being angry. I can play sullen . . . I can play sullen well. I can play cold, to a degree. I can play gleefully murderous. But I can't play wrathful. This sounds rather strange, being as I am at least rumored to be a horribly angry, violent person ^_-. I do have an explination for it, but it isn't one that satisfies me very well, and I would like tofind a different solution to the problem than the one I currently use.
I can play sullen . . . I can play sullen well. I can play cold. I can play murderous. But I can't play wrathful
This was brought up by being in a scene last night where my character would have yelled at someone. Instead of doing the in-character thing, however, I had to bite my tongue and metagame a little bit, changing the character's reaction to things to be more sulky than genuinely angry. I've done the same thing with, well, all of my characters. With Elias, instead of being coldly furious, I had to change him into being comically childish. Liza was brusque and kind of cute in her rage, but never actually effective. My avatar character comes off as whiny (which I am, just not to that degree) rather than homocidal. It's frustrating as hell, ut currently I don't see an end to it. Why do I do this?
Because while playing angry-- real angry, not the muzzled version-- I run the risk of becoming *actually* angry. I've never done it . . . but while playing even toned down versions I can feel it lurking.
The problem is, while I have mellowed out considerably over the past year and a half, a lot of it was because I've worked around/collected and bottled a lot of the random rages. When I get angry because I should get angry, I let myself deal with it, and it goes away no problem. The issue is with all of that older stuff. I've worked through or are currently untangling a lot of the sources for that anger, and therefor I am no longer feeding it. But it's like I've got this giant lake, and sometimes the dam seeps and I get annoyed for reasons that don't apply. I won't say it's not there; I am fully aware of it's existance. But that fact is it perplexes me, I have no idea what to *do* with it. I'm stable enough now to take a look at it and go "wow, this isn't healthy, and it's taking up a lot of space, and patching the dam isn't going to work forever . . . but what the hell can I do to drain it?"
Any anger that I cannot immediately direct at something that 'deserves it', something fairly healthy, acts as hammer to put a large crack in that dam. Because in a roleplaying situation you do put a little of yourself into your character, when that character gets very angry, I have to pull form somewhere. But trying to manage that . . . I get way more than I bargain for. And suddenly stealing a little bit of fury to use as a basis for Barty's, or Bethy's, or Nadine's, and I Avery get completely enraged. Not that I've allowed that to happen for a while-- hence why I play childish whining and being emo instead. I don't want to be angry at my friends for no particular reason!
It's not a situation I'm comfortable with, obviously. As someone who (when I'm invested in a game, at least) likes to work on and tweak my roleplaying skills, I would like access to the huge range of emotion currently cut off from me. I would like to play a character that is competant, not whiny. And I really think that, like with other emotional states, roleplaying would be a great catharsis for that anger. There's just . . . too much of it.
Yar. So I sit on the banks of the lake looking cross and throwing rocks in while I try to figure out what to do with it (I am reminded of the Fellowship of the Ring . . . eek, hope I don't summon horrible beasties from my subconcious.)
I can't just let myself 'get angry' to start to work it out, either. I have no environment safe enough to do so. If I get angry and it comes from that pool, it's not something that I can manage. I can't be controlled. I don't just yell and stomp and throw things.
It is a terrifying state of being to want to *kill someone*. No one in particular. But to have the visceral urge to rip someone apart with your bare hands . . . to be breaking things not to hear them break, but to pretend they are bones snapping, skulls giving, that the uncontrollable whimpering you are making yourself that you won't realize until later you were making is someone else pleading . . . it's sickening afterwards. It is utter and complete loss of control. And none of that is an exaggeration. I really wish I could say it was, but it's not. It is a panic attack with a desperate need to make other people hurt, to establish some sort of power and control again at whatever the cost, and the quickest, most satisfying way to do that would be to physically break someone.
And when you finishing smashing things, screaming uncontrollably, you have hurt yourself by hitting things too hard, and you have to sit down because you have been hyperventilating for god knows how long. There is no calm feeling afterwards like with crying. You are shaking and your muscles all sting from too much adrenaline, your hands are bleeding, your memory of what just happened is fuzzy and you feel like you want to throw up. And mentally, you are horrified by the fact that whoever you were thinking about, anyone that popped into your head, doesn't matter if they were the source of your anger or not, you wanted them dead. Painfully. And no matter how much arge I just used, it's not actually gone. It *never leaves*. My body just gets too physically exausted to be angry anymore.
As a disclaimer, I do not actually think I would ever kill someone randomly in this state. I think I could shut myself down before that, or someone else would. But I would try to hurt people. I've jumped my own mother, for crissakes. I can't feel pain when I'm like that, either.
It's why I don't get angry in public spaces. It's why I don't drink. And it is why I don't roleplay anger. It is *too risky*.
However, just letting it sit there isn't going to do *anything* to my benefit. I know that it is there. I know where it comes from-- pretty specifically. I just don't know how to deal with it.
I also find it strange that I equate competancy with wrath, and that I can't pay a sane or useful character unless I can play him/her as angry. Hmm.
So until I can resolve this, I have to resign myself to playing characters who are ultimatly emotionally weak. *le sigh*
And that, ladies an gentleman, is why they are all such self-involved little whiners.
In closing: I have been waiting to use this icon for forever. Ain't it purty?