Suppressed Anger
Hello, I’ve never posted before but I needed somewhere to vent and I have difficulty expressing my true feelings to others in real life. I am so fucking mad and uncomfortable and scared. I recently got back from a hangout with an old childhood friend of mine that’s back in town. She’s white; I grew up In a predominately white and Latino area where their were %3 of the population was black. A few months prior to our hangout I went to visit her up at her college and it didn’t go well. It was like after the first day she didn’t want me there anymore. I decided not to bring it up. I feel like a lot of my issues come from the fact that I have a hard time communicating and expressing when things bother me or how I feel in general. I’m not sure if the atmosphere of that trip was something my anxious mind had come up with or If there is a basis of truth to it. Anyway, as we were hanging out she said something that made my stomach sink. She’s one of those what people that tries to distance herself from other white people in a “I’m one of the good ones” type of way. Sometimes it feels like overcompensation but it’s whatever, I understand she doesn’t have malicious intent. When we were talking she recounted how one of her friends from school (another black person) calls her (she demonstrated it to me) by calling her a “Knitter”. I could not hide the way my face looked when she said it and she immediately said “like the word knit (hence the way I spelled it) and quickly apologized. I said it was all good and tried my best to go back to acting as normal as possible but in my mind I was just like “fucking why?!” Why did she have to say it outloud, she knows exactly what that sounds like. This situation feels like for me a tipping point of a bunch of other shit underneath it. I am a chronic people pleaser. In terms of fight or flight I fawn and make myself as agreeable as possible. I have gotten so much better than I give myself credit for , I now am able to tell people if they have upset or if I feel uncomfortable after I have taken a day or so to process it myself, but I loathe confrontation. When I get angry I cry and I can’t shit talk or roast others at all. It’s something I’m deeply ashamed of and hate myself for. I know I’ve gotten better but it is still so hard for me to express anger and communicate how I feel. At my job I feel like in others eyes I am the “energetic funny guy that can take a joke” it’s fine if my friends do it but people who don’t even like roast me and I can’t dish it back because I don’t know how. Being a black person feels like everywhere you are the world wants to beat the shit out of you. The constant micro aggressions even from friends, and not even talking about how anti black and racist the internet is. I am so tired of it all. I know I need to get stronger but I’m exhausted , I don’t want to become a bitter and mean person, I want to love and respect myself and be able to defend myself against other peoples words but it’s so scary. I have no other black friends and I know I need them. Come June I will be moving to Atlanta so I am determined to make them, though I’m still nervous because it’s the south. I have so much work to do but I’m just so ashamed and angry and I really don’t want to go to work tommorow.