Anger, Bitterness and Shame

A couple of months ago, I started writing a series of pieces for this very site which have never appeared. Called ‘The Twelve Pains of Christmas’, they would have been a series on the various irritations of the season and I think I wrote two and planned a third before abandoning the series as a bad idea, because while it seemed like a therapeutic exercise to begin with, by the end of the process I would have come across as grouchy beyond belief. And I just didn’t want to have to live with all the negativity either.

But the reason I mention it -and the reason why I’m writing this now- is that over the last few months, since I’ve been trying to face my issues rather than using religion to pretend that they weren’t there. And I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m an angry person a lot of the time. For a while, I tried making a mental note of when I was at my angriest, and it tends to be when anonymous, faceless people are in the way. Christmas shopping was a joy, I can tell you. Tonight it was all the students who felt the need to go around Morrisons at 5pm just as I needed to go round after work. But then again, I don’t think I’m as angry as I used to be- I haven’t shouted out loud in the street after missing a bus for a while, and I don’t semi-trash the flat as often as I used to. In my last job I often handled the pressure badly and nearly ended up in trouble a few times for chucking things around, slamming drawers, doors and so on. The reason why it becomes a problem is that while I can control what I say most of the time, I’m more likely to hurt myself or damage property or relationships when something gets to me and I can’t express it. The first time I deliberately hurt myself was about 12 years ago when I was studying in Bristol, feeling particularly lonely one night. A girl I was interested in at the time wasn’t in, I tried ringing home but nobody was in, and my uncle, who was dying of lung cancer at the time, had just started having one of several episodes which put him in hospital for a few days. All that I knew was that I was on my own and nobody was listening.

What worries me more is the thought that I’m becoming a bitter person too. And I don’t mean a John Smiths drinker. The other day there was a young couple at the bus stop in the morning, all doe-eyed and full of the joys of spring. And I just loathed them for it. I seem to have reached the stage where I’ve been on my own for so long that I begrudge anybody else any happiness in love. After all, I work hard and pay my dues, so why shouldn’t I have the same happiness as anybody else? And just to look at the kinds of guys who seem to get girlfriends these days- it seems that intelligence, character, skin care, personal hygiene, conversational ability and taste aren’t what the modern girl looks for. So over the years I seem to have reconciled myself to being alone- in fact, I’d probably feel less stable than I do if I hadn’t. Since I was a teenager I’ve been reasonably happy taking myself off to places for the day and I’ve reached the stage where I’m so completely self-propelled and self-motivated that I don’t need or look for people to do things with. If I want to go somewhere for the day, I go and don’t feel the need to invite anybody who might interfere with what I want to do. But I don’t like what I’m becoming. I can see how men come to hate women, after fifteen years of being rejected or ignored by individual females for various reasons. To be a single man in his thirties these days is to be permanently in the wrong. And I think that day by day, I’m gradually becoming more difficult to get to know, harder to befriend and more resigned to my mummified body being found several weeks after my death in 2035 or thereabouts.

And so I come on to shame, because I can do shame better than most Catholics. We all do things that we’re ashamed of, but I seem to go through every day of every week ashamed of myself. Ashamed of not having achieved as much as I could have done, ashamed of being in a job which doesn’t pay the bills so I have to be subsidised by my parents, ashamed of the way I look, ashamed of being fat. And most of all, ashamed of being angry and bitter, because I’m not sure that I have any real reason to. I hate the fact that, try as I might, I just can’t be positive about being alive when I have a job, a home and a family who love me (when they can remember when my birthday is).

I’m not sure what the answer is. The NHS say I’m not potty enough to be entitled to psychotherapy (so what do I pay National Insurance for, guys?), but at least now I know what my main issues are, I might at least try to accept them. I can avoid the situations that make me angry, for a start- well, some of them. Short of releasing a virus that wipes out 50% of the population, I can choose my shopping times with care. But there are things I can’t sort out so easily. I’d absolutely love somebody to give me some faith in romance, but there comes a point when I just can’t summon up the effort to have what remains of my self-esteem beaten into the dust by the nice girl in work who looks vaguely like Elisabeth Sladen circa 1975. And I’d love to be able to accept my negative feelings for what they are without letting them run my life. But then again, perhaps the answer is another kind of acceptance. Perhaps it’s time to start slipping into eccentric bachelorhood, becoming prematurely cantankerous and unlikeable- that way nobody gets in and nobody will ever hurt me.