I like to be in control of myself. I like to think that I am the kind of person who acts of my own free will at all times. I pride myself on my strength of character. I should despise myself if I were a slave to drugs or drink or tobacco, as this would take my independence from me.
There have been moments in my life, however, when a demon has taken me over, the demon of uncontrollable rage.
I must have been three years old when I first became aware of the terror and force of this anger within me. It is something that lies dormant, before springing itself upon me without warning. One cold, dark night my father went outside to fetch in a bucket of coal and I followed him. I can't recall what triggered off my display of anger but I remember losing control and screaming in rage as I thumped my father with my little fists. I lost control completely. A white-hot rage was burning deep within my soul, making me want to lash out and cause pain to the person who had offended me, who happened, also, to be someone I adored.
The storm passed and horror and remorse and shame and confusion followed. I ran in to my mother and tried to hide in her voluminous skirt but she pushed me away. I felt so vulnerable, so rejected, so helpless, so utterly drained. My father didn't say anything and I think he was as baffled as I was by my outburst. Neither of my parents had much understanding of child psychology and no attempt was made to help me come to terms with what had happened.
Looking back to that night 73 years ago, I can only imagine that my father had said something in jest that scared me. I know that, as a child, I was always terrified of the dark.
Four years later, my brother, Ted, had to deal with a similar outburst from me. I think he dealt more skilfully with it, as I have always been able to laugh in hindsight at what happened. We were on our way home from school, walking through a park and heading for the station. Ted was a tease and I didn't like being teased. I can't remember what happened but I started to scream blue murder. I was in a right rage, beyond any appeal to reason. Ted had borrowed a ruler from me in school. I began to call on some spirit of the air, "Make him give me back my ruler."
I was twirling around and stamping my feet in rage. Ted begged me to hurry along or we'd miss the train. Normally, the fear of missing the train would have overridden all other fears but my anger was consuming me.
"Make him give me back my ruler when I gave it to him," I screamed.
"Make him give me back my ruler where I gave it to him."
I don't believe I was that worried about having my ruler back. It was more a question of possessing a weapon with which to exact revenge for the perceived injury.
I was far gone when I thought Ted could reverse time! That is the logic of the kind of rage that sprang up from nowhere that afternoon so long ago. The desire to inflict pain was there, the desire to exact more than the pound of flesh due to me.
A policeman appeared and shouted crossly at Ted to take his screaming sister home. I continued my chant as I reluctantly moved on, vaguely scared of the policeman. I was beyond the appeal of logic. I understand why we use the word 'mad ' when we mean 'angry'. I was mad at Ted, insanely, illogically mad, out of control, beyond reason. Somehow, we reached the station and my anger had subsided as quickly as it had risen, but I never forgot that day. I would have felt washed out, drained, frightened and ashamed, perhaps resentful that Ted had placed me in such a situation. He would have been completely baffled. He offered the ruler over and over to me and begged me to take it but that wasn't good enough. His pleading fell on deaf ears. That kind of rage feeds on itself and multiplies like bacteria. Not only is it unreasonable but it escalates beyond control.
I have suffered sporadic outbursts of temper throughout my life but none as intense as those two occasions in childhood. At the age of 57 I was struck down with cancer, when my daughter was 13, a most unfortunate time, if ever there is a right time to suffer cancer. She and her dad were at loggerheads while I fought for my life. A huge resentment built up inside me. The two people in all the world who were supposed to care most for me were adding to my burden and making me so miserable. I dealt alone with my illness.
I recovered and began to pick up the threads of my life once more. In my preoccupation with my own problems I failed to realise that my daughter was experiencing the trauma of adolescence. Posters of pop stars appeared on her bedroom wall and I saw red. I ripped the posters up in anger. I didn't give a thought to the fact that she may have been seeking reassurance after almost losing the mother who had always been so close to her. I went berserk and started throwing her dolls and ornaments against the wall in rage. I became frightened but I couldn't stop myself. Then I stood on the stairs, shouting obscenities at the two of them. All the pent-up emotions and frustrations and resentment that were bottled up within me came rushing to the fore and I lost myself once again. I think I could have killed one or the other that day had they goaded me any further. After that terrible outburst I understood what is meant by 'crime of passion'.
After my rage had died down I again felt frightened, empty and drained. The humiliation of defeat, of having 'lost the plot' was bitter. Tears of remorse were close to the surface. The most alarming aspect of that outburst was that I, a mature woman, was so completely beyond control. That screaming hag was someone so alien to the normal me. Listening to bad language had always shocked me but there I was, spewing out the worst obscenities imaginable.
I spoke to a friend about it and she almost hugged me because her children had driven her crazy one day and she had ended up hurling missiles and swearing at them and then wondering if she were going really mad. We ended up laughing, as we pictured what we must have looked like. The laughter didn't really make everything all right. It was superficial and an effort to regain some dignity. The incident was one that I would have given anything to have obliterated from my life. I was so ashamed of what I had temporarily become. I despised myself for my loss of control.
Although I can sometimes feel contrary and cross and intolerant and I still shout in anger occasionally, I hope that I shall never again lose total control of myself. I have tried to analyse what happened on those rare occasions but it doesn't make sense to me. It scares me to think that the potential to erupt so violently lies beneath the surface. Being aware of the weakness, will, I hope, prevent me from ever again losing grip so utterly and so terrifyingly. I think, too, that I need to recognise that I am not, perhaps, as invincible as I have always believed myself to be.