I don't remember being around a lot of anger growing up. There were the usual squabbles with neigbor kids and school kids, but it was either yelling insults or beating each other up. (There was a girl 3 days older than me, a half-head shorter, that could get me down.) Then everybody would dust off their hands and forget all about it. There was one incident I never figured out; there was a girl in our youth group at church that was my best friend for several years, and then somehow, she wasn't. I have never known what her issue was, but she didn't speak to me; I heard odd gossip from other people, and then at one point she got into a race for a high school student office I had already filed to run for (she won), and the grapevine said it she did it to spite me. I heard nothing more about her until a high school reunion a few years ago. She had had a very successful career-and was somehow my good buddy again. Never found out why.
One person that could set me off was my mom. When I was really little she'd use mild hand slaps if I got into stuff I shouldn't (she didn't childproof the house, she houseproofed me) just enough to get my attention. Later, though, she would get on me for things like not coming straight home immediately after school (in those days, we all walked to school and back) , and would scold me and send me to my room. Forever, it seemed like. What really bugged me was that she wouldn't listen to anything I had to say, just called me an Alibi Ike. (Maybe they weren't much in excuses,but I would like to have had a chance to answer.) And then I'd get frustrated enough to cry (I cry easily) and then she'd yell at me to stop crying. I could NOT stop crying on command! I think it ended when she developed cancer and lost the energy to fuss with me. I was 17, a senior in high school, when she lost the fight. (I never, ever, put my kids in time-outs; in my experience, it set off bad self-pity.)
My inlaws were a whole other thing; Middle Eastern people are not taught that anger can, or should be,controlled. If they get mad, either it's your fault for making them mad, or your fault for getting mad. When I first married John, we had been visiting his brother's family and somebody had said somthing that somebody didn't like. As we were leaving, John said something about not speaking to his brother. I said that we were NOT going to play that game, don't even go there, forget about it. We did manage to stay out of most of the grudges.
My breakthrough with anger was a time that I was totally, horribly angry (do not recall why), and I was putting the kids to bed, and grabbed on to the top rail of a crib and said, "God, you've got to handle this, I can't.." and it was like someone pulled a drain plug--it all went away. I have never been like that since that night. I used to think that we needed to learn how to "control" anger; but this was nothing like that. It was simply GONE. It sounds simple to say--Matt said in his message on anger that the key was to let God have it, and it is absolutely true. A few other things I learned about dealing with angry family members: Don't argue, say what you need to say and shut up. Don't say anything else, walk away if necessary. Realize that there is usually evil involved: Pray--silently, this is for you--for God to take away the evil forces that are involved in the situation. If you have to say anything, say it deliberately slowly and softly. The relationship with the angriest brother-in-law healed and he passed from this life on better terms than I ever remember.
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