Are you angry with me?

I never needed to ask this question.

I used to know the answer. If you were angry when you talked to me, then you were angry at me. It was my fault.

This isn’t your usual inferiority complex or some-such at play, however, it’s something else.

I think it’s come from a common AS problem, where you experience one all-encompassing emotion at a time. When I’m happy, I’m happy about everything, regardless of the trigger. If someone makes me angry, then I’m angry with everyone. Perhaps the root of this for me is that I simply don’t tend to see the cause. When I’m happy, I’m happy. When I’m angry, I’m angry. Full stop.

With no other point of reference, I expected everyone felt like this.

Along with the single-emotion-at-a-time trait, there is another trait at play as well. I don’t read non-verbal communications well. I don’t often see your body language, nor your facial expressions, which just gives me your general emotion – if its obvious – and your words to go on.

Thus I’ve gone through life feeling that whatever obvious emotion is projected towards me by someone is both caused by and intended for me.

If you take love as an example, it’s easy to see how this can work. When someone expresses love for you, it’s pretty easy to tell they are doing it, and you know it’s directed at you.

However, when someone is angry whilst speaking to me, I get the same sort of trigger. They are angry at me. It’s my fault. And you know what? It doesn’t matter if what they are telling me is clearly not caused by me, I’ll still feel like it’s my fault, somehow. It must be – they are angry at me.

Other strong emotions can trip me up too, but I think that anger is the one I misinterpret the most.

These days of course, I’m more aware, and I can often see the difference after the event. It doesn’t stop it from happening, or from me acting defensively if you are angry in front of me, however. At least I can now take stock and then apologise afterwards for what may have seemed like an odd response from me at the time.

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