"You're happy?" "Yes! Can't you tell? I haven't threatened to hurt anyone in weeks!"

So I mentioned rage, earlier, right? I mentioned how it's much like a cornered beast that is almost impossible to control.

Well here's the thing, we all gotta find out how to bleed off bits of it so when we let it out to full it's teeth, no one's going to actually get hurt.

I do that through threats, and the occasionally brain-movie of some serious ass kicking.

For example: My boyfriend and I goof around a lot. I mean a serious ton. And when he's a brat I threaten to punch him, or something...and I'd never actually hurt him, but just saying it bleeds off a bit of the rage. It may only be a tiny drop that's gone, but it helps. So I joke, and threaten and visualize all the things I would do if I had things to attack that couldn't be hurt.

I don't want to be a bad person, I don't ever want to hurt someone. But I have.


One time, Mat and I got into a fight so bad that I lost control. The rage actually broke out, and I blacked out. In that time, I pushed him, bit him, tried to knee him in the balls, and tried to head butt him. Because I was that lost to the rage. When he told me about it a few days later I not only didn't remember my actions, but I was stuck by the actual similarities between me in that moment and an animal that's been cornered.

I'm not proud of that moment, and thankfully Mat didn't hold it against me for long. Because he realized that when I'm me and in control, I'm not a mean, or violent person. When the Borderline managed to break down my defenses and I lose control, I'm only responding in the actual natural instincts. He had been restraining me, and like a wild thing, I fought back with tooth and nail and screamed bloody murder at him.

It's so fucking terrifying. To have this wild thing trapped inside my skin, this thing that could, at any given time, break through all the carefully constructed defenses to break out into the real world and lash out at anyone who is unfortunate enough to be within range. I don't wanna live that way, but I don't have much of a choice.

So instead, in order to keep from being an actually violent person, I issue threats. Which enforce the idea that I *AM* violent. Which I don't like because I don't want to be that person.

It creates a horrible situation that I just have to deal with.

On the plus side, it does give people a good idea as to how stressed out I am. The happier and more relaxed I am, the less threats I issue. The more stressed out, upset, distressed or angry I am, the more times I suggest violence.

Thankfully, since my childhood, I've managed to gain an impressive iron hold on my temper. In the past 4 years (the time I've been dating Mat) I've properly lost my temper twice. I've been angry loads of times, sure. But thats just a fairly socially acceptable angry. But lost my temper, and really been a force of horrifying nature? 2 times in 4 years is pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. And I've never actually hurt someone since my childhood. (And when I say childhood, I mean before pre-double digits.)

And I do say so, by the way.

Because it's hard work to keep it in check. Someone calls me a name and I want to break their nose, they look at me like a sex object and I want to punch them in the throat, they managed to piss me off and the whole stabbing or choking thing seems pretty attractive.

And to keep that away from everyone, to manage to go through my days without actually acting on that rage is impressive.

But I'll never stop working on it, I will never not be working to the bone to tame that rage, to turn it into something else, to keep bleeding it off so that I can function like a normal person. So that I will never, ever hurt someone.