Dear Anne,
I've got so many problems I don't know where to start. I know you're busy with lots of emails. I've been a victim of bullying by others and by certain family members. Everyone looks down on me. I don't trust anyone and it's all been bottled up for years. By the age of 11 I unleashed a disturbing amount of rage in school and was branded a danger. I even had the police come and take me away. Since then it's been getting worse, with visions in my head of me stabbing my dad. Sorry to get spiritual on you but I sense a great deal of darkness inside me which can never be good. I seem to be getting mad over really silly things and my whole body shakes from head to foot like some sort of fit. I'm worried about what's happening to me and would love to know your views on this, also possible ways of stepping forward from it. Demon of Darkness
Dear Young Person,
I'm sorry you're feeling so worried about yourself. However, things don't have to be the same in the futre as they have in the past. Don't discount your capability of change! Your anger isn't some dark force coming over you. It's an understandable build-up of hurt and frustration over how certain people have treated you. Sadly, not every family is capable of teaching the good management of emotions because they simply don't know how. The good news is that you can learn. More of that in a moment.
There's more good news too. You want to overcome this, and wanting to change an unhelpful and unhealthy pattern of feelings, thinking and actions is the first step to actually changing it. Writing in shows a big commitment to your own recovery, so well done you!
It's helpful to know that how we feel isn't triggered by outside events or other people's actions, and certainly not because of some dark arcane power. How we think about what people do and what's happening is what prompts our feelings, and we can learn to think positively and react differently. When you get so angry you're shaking, it's because of the build-up of adrenaline. One way of burning off surplus adrenaline is to do some physical exercise, e.g. running, hitting a ball or cushion or scrubbing a floor. Assertiveness, by the way, isn't becoming a bully yourself. It's halfway between passivity (bottling things up and not acting constructively to get more of what you want) and aggression, which is trying to force your will on other people. Assertiveness is respecting your own right and the other person's equally.
Emotions have two components. One is to tell us what's going on so we can think what to do about it, and one is to communicate that. You've been bottling up your anger for a long time. It hasn't gone away. It's been festering inside you, and you've been adding to it with each new upset, so there's a whole mess of it ready to burst out at the least little thing. Expressing it in ways that are safe for you and everybody else is helpful.
Because you've been so hurt for so long, I hope you'll go and talk to a counsellor about it. You could start with your GP, asking him or her to refer you to counselling but this can take ages to come through on the NHS. If you're at school, college or work, the nurse or Human Resources people could refer you. If you're 16 or over you could look up counsellors with voluntary agencies or your GP surgery should have a list of free services in your area. Alternatively you might like to see if there's a branch of MIND (www.mind.org.uk) in your area which offers counselling. Just as it makes sense to get a computer engineer in if you're having problems with your PC, it's sensible to seek help for emotional difficulties from a professional. Most people could do with a tune-up!
There's plenty you can do to help yourself as well. The websites at www.coping.org and www.pe2000.com/anger.htm offer useful techniques you can apply to improve your emotional management, build up self-esteem and put in appropriate boundaries. If you're still in your teens you can ring Connexions, the teen support helpline, on 080 800 13 2 19 or go to their website at www.connexions-direct.com. If you're still being bullied, the websites at www.bullying.co.uk and www.dcsf.gov.uk/bullying could give you some positive ways of dealing with this.
Just because your dad has poor emotional management, it doesn't mean you have to believe all he says. In your family, and while outnumbered by bullies, you may have felt safest bottling up your anger until you let it out in a self-defeating explosion. But don't believe bullies. Nice people don't bully. Peole with low self-esteem may bully because the only way they know to feel OK about themselves is to make someone else feel worse, but their actions speak about them, not you.
And one other thing. You'll know better than I do whether it applies to you. Labelling yourself as demon-haunted or whatever might seem like a good way of giving yourself an identity, or even the only way, but it's not true and it isn't helpful. You're like the rest of us, a work in progress. Your challenge is to start liking yourself and managing your feelings constructively. You can't change other people, but you can start taking responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings and actions.
I wish you the courage to take control of your own thoughts, feelings and actions, and good luck with finding people who can and will help you with that. You'll open up a whole new positive and rewarding life for you. You won't always be stuck at home. Increasingly as you grow up you can become independent and act in ways that bring you peace of mind and fulfilment. All the best.
