Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” - John 8:12
With the two incidents, the destruction of my Dad's letter and my outburst at work, it would be true to say that my relationship with Anger was never the same again.
Previous to these two events, I had worshipped him, been grateful to him, given concessions to him for what he had "saved" me from. He had been a personality trait that I had not merely tolerated, but had actively sought out to keep. He had been the disorderly roommate, who rarely paid his rent, never washed up, and had wild parties without consulting me... but I loved him just the same, and couldn't imagine living without him.
But afterwards, especially at the destruction of the letter, I disliked him. I saw what he was capable of, and to what regions his ambitions extended. He was still the same roommate- untidy, lazy and self-centred in every action... only now I wouldn't tolerate him. He had lost all charm, and I had lost all patience with him. I wanted rid of him- just like I had wanted rid of Fear years before. He became a part of me that I despised, and as the weeks went on I thought about how I could throw him out for good...
The truth is, like any addiction, it wasn't as simple as telling him to go. Even before my Dad's letter, I tried to calm him down, and control him on my terms. But he would hide, only to spring out when I was pushed, or vulnerable. And he was crafty. It could not be denied that he got things done, and he knew it. He worked cruelly, selfishly, and to a degree that saw me lose the love of my friends rapidly... but his tactics usually got me what I wanted, and his efficiency in delivering results was his "hook", his "USP", if you like. It was what he used to try to tempt me to let him stay. It was true that I liked to get my own way, and so most of the time, I fell for it.
But no matter how much he worked to get me on board with his efficient but cruel policies towards others, from the moment I destroyed my Dad's letter and shouted at Lucy, deep down I was still conspiring to overcome him. The reason: I realised I had become a bully. Worse, I had become a bully because I was afraid of being bullied. And there it was again: I was still afraid.
"But how can that BE?" I asked myself. "How can I STILL be scared?"
Suddenly, Anger's lie that he had saved me from Fear was exposed- Fear was still there, underlying everything I did.
As I meditated on it, it slowly dawned on me that Anger and Fear were not rivals, but partners. Fear had laid the groundwork- he had given me such a vile enemy to despise in him that when Anger came along, by comparison he looked like a shining hero. Fear had paved the way for Anger to come in and look like the good guy.
But although Anger was the face, Fear was still the soul. In fact, Anger had used Fear's tactics to control me:
"Don't you remember what it was like, being scared all the time?"
"You don't want to go back to that, do you?"
Yet again, I had been intimidated into cooperation, and submission.This realisation had made me admit to Mandy in the stock room that I had anger issues that I needed to get rid of... although I left out the fact that these anger issues were deeply rooted in a lifetime of worry, and self-doubt.
Nevertheless, despite my frustration that Fear, my oldest enemy, was still present within me, the WILL to be free from him was there; what was lacking was the help to do it.
So, the next 2 years, until I was 21, were difficult times which saw me wake up everyday, and try my hardest to appear confident, and unafraid, in order to mask Fear. By doing this, I was making the conscious decision to try and escape my fear. I would bury every fear I had, and then run away. I would pretend that the fear I had just buried was dead. The theory was sound logic- I knew that if I uprooted fear, the stem of anger would never be able to grow.
But there were practical problems with doing this. Firstly, as soon as I started running away from it, the worry I had just buried would break out of the ground, and start following me. It stalked me, not dead at all.
Furthermore, as I ran away from it, I was actually running towards another one. Closing the front door, as I left the worries of home, that my kickboxing training wasn't enough for me to defend myself, I was walking towards the anxious feelings at work, that I hadn't sold enough, or that I'd forgotten to do something and my boss would be mad. Later, as I left those behind, I was approaching the anxiety of getting my lunch, and having to talk with my coworkers. And as I left all that behind at the end of the day, supposedly buried... my home-concerns were waiting to meet me as soon as I stepped in the door. I was playing a constant game of whack-a-mole all day; I would bury a fear about getting brain-damage from kickboxing, only to have the meeting with my boss and the awkward email I'd have to write at work pop-up in its place. Burying those, I would turn around to see the original concern alive and well, and heading my way... I would bury and run from a fear that my friends were leaving me out, only to run into a fear that I would be attacked in the street. Having covered up a fear that a girl had gone off me, I'd turn to see a fear that terrorism was on the rise...My anxiety was far-reaching, eclectic and fully encircling. And it was also relentless.
No matter how deep I buried my fear, and then tried to run from that spot, he would always break out of his shallow grave and pursue me eventually. And anyway, 2-3 of his colleagues were waiting beneath the surface, waiting to burst out like zombies, grabbing at my legs as I tried to escape them. And Anger was always running close by me, tempting me to use him to fend them off. On top of running, I had the extra challenge of trying to be patient with others, to not lose control of my temper, in order to disobey Anger.
Those were possibly the most difficult years for me- after all, now I had TWO enemies to control within me. Previously, my Anger had been used to block my Fears. But now I was trying to quit Anger- and in doing so I had put down my only defence against Fear. The only thing that I could do was run fast and bury, run more and bury... while trying to cover my ears...
"Why are you doing this?", Anger would often shout to me, as he ran beside me...
An anxiety would approach me from behind, lurching like an ogre...
Anger would tempt me: "I'm right here! Stop, and we can fight him off...". It was always an impossibly difficult situation.
Another worry was already clawing his way out of the ground, a short distance ahead...
In a very real sense, I was trapped. I either gave up running, and let anxiety consume me... or I used Anger to fend him off and bury him for a short time, before another took his place..and again, and again after that...
So, often, a fear would come so close that I would lose my temper again, enough to stun him. I hated myself for doing it, for having no other way to defend myself from him, especially because I knew it was a short-term solution...
... And once I had calmed down, I would bury his body while it was still in shock, and go back to running from it, from THEM, stumbling through the darkness, fumbling along the walls, and constantly aware that 3 or 4 Fears were already half-way out of the hole I had recently placed them in...
..."USE ME!" shouted anger again as we ran...
..."Shut up! I don't want you!" I'd shout back...
... "Maybe not..." proclaimed Anger, "...But you NEED me!"
Footsteps were never far away, always a short distance behind or in front of me... sometimes both. I would run and run, but a worry never seemed to be more than a few steps from me in any direction... And all the while, Anger made himself permanently available, tempting me, telling me he was my only weapon to defend myself from the ever present anxieties that refused to stay buried, and that hunted me...
I went on like this, running away from all of them but really having no idea what I was running TOWARDS, for nearly 2 years....
At 21, I left the country, as it would turn out, for good. Neither my fear nor my rage were by any means under control- I was still running from both of them every second of every day- but I decided that I couldn't wait for them to be gone from me completely before living my life. It wouldn't be true to say that I emigrated in the hope that the move would cure me, but at the same time, I didn't expect my anxiety and anger issues to be any WORSE abroad...How wrong I was.
---
I opened my eyes in terror at what I was hearing... and the jangling stopped in an instant. It had been immediately consumed and cut dead by the cold, quiet night air. I tried to breath as quietly as I could- silently if possible. I strained to listen, making sure that I wasn't missing anything.
The squeak and scuttle of a rat... and then only the sound of my shallow, barely audible breathing escaping from my slightly parted lips. I waited, but nothing happened. I was alone in my cell. I was alone.
I woke up with a cry. Immediately I realised that I must have fallen asleep, even if only lightly, and dreamt the sound of those terrible keys.... they had been a fragment of a dream in my head- an imaginary threat. They had rattled so clearly, with such conviction in my mind, that I had been tricked into thinking they were real. I breathed out an extended, exaggerated and slightly quivering breath of relief that my captor wasn't really trying to open the door to my cell. Closing my eyes again, I tried to concentrate on the sound of my breaths, to slow down my heart rate to a normal rhythm. My exposed chest rose and fell steadily, concealing the hammering of my heart within its walls...
As I stood there, still glad that my captor's presence had been in my mind, I moved my shoulders slightly, into what I knew would be a dramatically more comfortable position for a very short time. Once they were settled, and I could concentrate on my thoughts without the endless dull ache of my trapped shoulders, I looked into the darkness ahead of me, and considered the consequences of what I had just experienced.
Throughout my captivity, sleep had always been where I could escape the horrors of my daily torment- whether it be boredom, torture from my captor... or even the sense that my life was ticking away second by second, and that I had already spent far too much of it stuck in this dark and moist cell, achieving nothing. Sleep had been a state in which I could forget my chains, where my mind did what it wanted to do, went to places and met people that it wanted to introduce to me. It enjoyed total freedom in slumber, and took full advantage of that privilege... and I was always glad to come along for the ride. Sleep had seemed an untouchable, untainted luxury that was given to me, and I had actively encouraged it as my only escape route from the darkness of my cell... It had become my only friend.
But now, as I had just experienced, sleep had turned on me. Or, my captor had invaded it with his influence. Either way, I had been pushed out of my one state of rest, back into the reality of my cell by that threatening trick of the mind.
"Is this how it's going to be...?", I whispered to myself in the darkness of the cell. "That I'm tortured both in reality, and from within my mind? Even when I'm not conscious?"
I hoped not. I tried to explain it away as a nightmare, as something that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, experiences at some point.The trouble was, I was not in a position to have my sleep interrupted by subconscious fears. I didn't get enough sleep at the best of times chained to that wall, and couldn't afford to lose a single minute.
Frustrated that I was feeling tired again, and sensing that sleep would provide less relief than before, I simply waited through that night.
I couldn't tell how long it took me to drift back to thinking about the incident just before my capture... But at some point during that night, I found the image of Tom's sneering face appear for a second... and vanish when I opened my eyes. It would manifest again as soon as I shut my eyelids, and once I had him settled in my mind's eye, I tried to remember what he had said upon my dismissal of the homeless man behind me...
I couldn't remember his exact words. But as I conceded to my failing memory, I realised that they didn't matter. What I could recall clearly, sharply, even all that time afterwards, was Precious's laugh at his comment, as the three of us stood on that dark street, with cold, unforgiving raindrops hitting and exploding on us and around us, with indifference to who we were. And I recalled my sudden feeling of being humiliated in front of her. I remembered Tom, chuckling slightly at his own joke, spurred on by Precious's giggling behind his right shoulder, and his refusal to let go of my shoulder.
How had I reacted next? Had it been a reaction that effectively expressed my feelings?
I couldn't see the homeless man- he was fully behind me, and I didn't turn round to look at him, in case he saw it as a sign to give evidence to the contrary, and let slip some comment that would prove, undeniably, that we HAD been talking. As long as I didn't look at him, there was still doubt, and in that doubt I might be saved from anymore humiliation.
But every time I thought about that moment, which I realised I had done often during my captivity, it came to feel more and more like a regret that I had. A little more each time. Every time I dwelled on it, my mind drew me a clearer and clearer picture of that man's face, looking up at us, his beard a mess, his hair shaggy and wiry, uncontrolled, and his eyes sorrowful at my betrayal. My mind had imaged an image, with an emotion attached, that was far clearer than any memory of things that I'd actually seen...
"But", I interrupted my thought, shaking my head to free me from the pain that this image was causing me, "how did you betray him? You didn't know him. You only ever had one conversation with him... it's not like you were close friends! It's not like you owed him anything..."...
I agreed with my reasoning, at least in part. He WAS a stranger. He had wanted to talk to ME, not the other way round. He had interrupted MY journey with his comments. What did I possibly owe him? What responsibility did I have towards him? What difference did it really make whether I told Tom the truth about him, or not?
Still, even as I tried to comfort myself with these questions, I knew they wouldn't release me even an inch from the culpability I felt deep in my chest, far away from the lies my brain was telling itself. After all, by saying that he was unimportant to me, I had paved the way for Tom to respond as he did... and as the image of Tom's darkening expression surged towards the cinema screen behind my eyelids, I knew that guilt and shame at the memory of what happened next would rob me of sleep that night...
