The Dance of Anger

I realized this weekend that Brick and I deal with anger differently.

It doesn't take much to irritate me. I get frustrated easily with people, things, situations. I grumble, I bitch, I move on. But real anger? It takes a lot for me to really hate somebody.

I can think of two people I feel that much anger for One is attacking a friend and using my friend's children (among other things) to do it. And I think she's scum of the earth. But I have to admit, if she'd just stop, I'd gladly never think of her again. It's her active aggression and her idiotic proclamations that she never did what everyone sees her doing that stoke my anger.

The other person is a woman who took her child out of a loving home with his Grandparents, where he had lived his entire life. To accomplish this she concocted a story of sexual abuse that was ridiculous but effective and she did it out of spite and because she wanted a bigger check from DFACS. She put the entire family through Hell for the sin of raising her child and then put the boy in a mental health hospital at age 7 because the fallout of her lies and manipulations had results she couldn't be bothered with.

Brick hates easily and often. He doesn't speak to either of his sisters. He refuses to be in the same room as one of them, which made their father's funeral an uncomfortable experience for everyone around them.

I never wanted that hatred turned on me because I know how ruthless and relentless it is. I never wanted my kids caught up in that.

How do people hate that much? It takes too much energy that could be spent on productive things.