The OCD Diaries

This past week brought the anger/rage/tantrum portion of this pandemic program to my mental doorstep. The dumbest, most inconsequential things sent me into sharp bouts of anger and rage — things that might annoy me in normal times but would never send my temper boiling over.

Mood Music:

I’m usually very slow to lose my temper. I always strive for the cool-headed approach. But these days, my usually long fuse is burning its way to the nub.

Example: The song above played on a loop in my head Sunday morning when I ventured out for groceries.

I wore the mask and gloves, doing my part to limit risk. A lot of people around me were doing their groceries without taking the same steps. I called them names from behind the mask. I wanted to ram a guy in the canned vegetable aisle for going the wrong way. Arrows on the floor now direct the flow of traffic to help keep the social distancing, and this guy and two others seemed to be ignoring it.

In the cereal/coffee aisle, I realized something: I was going the wrong way.

The grocery store was the clearest example of my jagged temperament of late, but it’s been there in other moments, when people would talk over each other in Zoom meetings, when a takeout order was missing an item, when a computer monitor arrived two days late without the right adapter.

Luckily, I’ve found a new tool to help me manage it. Erin got me a manual coffee bean grinder for Easter. When I feel anger getting the better of me, I pace around the house clutching it in my hands, cranking it as fast as I can, turning beans into powder.

Who knew this thing could work like a punching bag?

Saturday I cranked it for a good hour, grinding up half a bag of beans. The coffee brand, appropriately, is Battle Grounds.

To anyone I’ve blown up at in recent days: I’m sorry.

To those I’ve gotten judgmental toward: I know I’m a hypocrite.

Hopefully, I’m hitting the peak of the anger curve and am about to head back down to some level of normal (for me) temperament.

Meantime, I’m super grateful for this simple bean grinder.

Maybe for balance, I should pick up the guitar I’ve struggled to play in recent months. (Yes, you should. — Ed.)

The first car I ever owned as a kid was a beat-to-shit 1983 Ford LTD wagon. It had a catalytic converter that always flooded and stalled the car. The power steering was gone. And it was the misguided coping tool of my teenage rage.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/biXnwOMznkg

The LTD’s exterior was a toxic green, covered over in patches with stickers promoting whatever anarchist political causes I espoused at the time. In one inspired move, I took a “No Sludge” bumper sticker that had been proliferated by groups opposed to a sludge burning plant at the Rowe Quarry, cut off the no part and stuck sludge to the rear hatch. (The no-sludge people ultimately won. A massive condo complex sits where Rowe used to be on the Revere-Saugus border in Massachusetts.)

Some days I loved that car. Some days I hated it.

I hated the constant stalling and the smell of gas and oil that always seemed to make its way into the passenger compartment. The steering wheel was thin, which wasn’t masculine enough for my liking. Loose metal around the rear passenger-side wheel well constantly sliced the tires, though that at least gave me plenty of tire-changing practice.

But I loved its battered exterior and the sound system. The speakers were actually blown out, but I liked how it made the bass rattle the car whenever I put an Ozzy cassette in. I loved how I could pack a bunch of friends in the back for trips to the Worcester Centrum, the main place to see the big rock acts before we had the TD Garden and Verizon Center.

I was always told the back was perfect for sex, though I never attempted it. At least two friends did. If I wasn’t in the car at the time, I didn’t care, as long as they cleaned up after themselves.

Despite the engine’s shortcomings, I broke a lot of speed limits with that car. I had a vicious temper and often drove too fast to feel better. I used to blast up and down the causeway between Lynn and Nahant. You had to slow down before reaching Nahant, though, because the police loved to bust kids like me. They often did.

I would drive within an inch of the car in front of me and bang the horn. I would flip off anyone who slowed me down. And I punched the ceiling over the driver’s seat so much the fabric started to sag.

Looking back, I could have killed someone. There were many opportunities to do so. I could have killed myself and my friends in those moments of road rage. By the grace of God, that never happened.

The coping tools I have today — music, my guitars, walks with my wife, the elliptical machine in the garage, my faith, my mindfulness exercises — are far more effective. Nobody gets hurt. Everyone wins, because I’m easier to deal with.

Still, there are occasions, however infrequent, when I miss that wreck on four wheels.

Tag: anger management

Grinding Beans for Anger Management

The Misguided Coping Tool of My Teenage Rage