Dear Kaya:

You are welcome! “He returned the money because his boss’s boss told him to do so immediately.  Did he get into trouble with work?  Honestly, I do not know“- reads to me that he didn’t get fired: he returned the money to you and kept his job. Good initiative on your part to call his boss’s boss, well done, Kaya!

“Sorry I had cold blood at the time“- you seem to be very uncomfortable with feeling anger. Feeling anger makes you feel that you are a bad person, doesn’t it? As in good people don’t get angry; bad people get angry?

“If I report to DEA, does he lose his job?  Maybe, maybe not. ..Do I care? I do not care.  He should not make an illegal sale…. Maybe you are right and I just wanted to destroy him.  He hurt me so (much) and I just want to destroy him in a different way. I think I have a big problem here. Now I think myself.  If I am upset at someone, I will crush them until they cannot get up“-

-when you feel that a person is hurting you, or is threatening to hurt you, you instinctively and naturally feel anger. It’s like this not only for humans but for other animals. You can’t get rid of nature= of anger. Feeling anger, wanting to crush someone until they cannot get up, does not make you a bad person. It makes you… a person.

The more passive a person is, the more you allow another person to do whatever he/she wants to do to you – the angrier you naturally get. Often a passive person’s anger builds up to the point of erupting aggressively: the otherwise quiet person becomes loud; the otherwise gentle person becomes rough. When that happens, the passive-turned-aggressive person feels guilty and angry with oneself, and quite confused, thinking something like: who is the bad person in this situation and who is the good person in this situation?

* The healthy way to be is neither passive nor aggressive. Instead: to be assertive. Assertiveness is a set of skills, mental and behavioral, skills we need to learn and get better at. These skills lead to mental clarity and healthy relationships.

“I remember when I was little, I argue with my older sister but I was strong enough to be mean to her.  She was so sweet person and I was mean person.  I was mean to her (not violence, say mean words to her) until she cry. Oh my….I have a huge mental issue do I??“-

-I imagine that what happened was something like this: a parent or another grown up in your home where you grew up- hurt you repeatedly, with no apologies. You were naturally angry at that grown up, but couldn’t stand up for yourself/ couldn’t fight back because you were only a child, and you were afraid of that grown up hurting you even more if you stood up for yourself. Being mistreated over time (as so many, many children are), the anger built and built and it.. had to go somewhere. So, there’s your older sister who acts sweet and non-threatening, you are not afraid of her, and you allow your anger to be directed at her.

What are your thoughts about what I wrote here so far?

anita