Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Rage (violent, uncontrolled hatred and anger) (02/05/15)
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TITLE: Class Act | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marlene Bonney
02/11/15 -
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“You don’t understand, Your Honor; it was an extremely stressful day at the office and the guy pulled out right in front of me and gave me ‘the finger.’ What was I supposed to do, thank him?”
“There were better ways to handle the situation—how about just ignoring it?”
The judge ruled in favor of the plaintive, awarding him $2,000 to cover his medical bills, pain and suffering.
Stan Futrell was the firm’s budding junior partner. He put in more billable hours than most of his colleagues and had an uncanny knack for furrowing out dubious loopholes to help their prestigious clients. If he had occasionally lost his self-control to let off steam, it had been tolerated. But lately, it had accelerated, the final straw of his publicized arrest calling him into senior management for a tongue-lashing and threats of demotion.
It wasn’t like he was a Dr. Jekell-Mr. Hyde, he reasoned with himself; he just lost it sometimes—no big deal. His wife and children and fellow workers, however, seemingly did not agree. He had graduated from outbursts to actual “finger-in-your-face” physical shoves and punches. So he had been forced into this exile of emotional self-control exercises that would threaten the patience of a saint.
“It should be those teens who trashed their classroom in here, not me. Or the postal worker who shot up his office. Or Ol’ Man Skinkle who beat up his wife,” he protested to the leader, “I’m not that bad.”
“And do you think those people started out with these extreme acts of violence out of the blue? They began just like you, Stan, just like you.”
Down deep, Stan recognized he had a problem. His nerves were as taunt as an acrobat’s trapeze high-wire more and more often. He flew into rampages that caused him to lash out in a fury at anyone or anything present at the time. He was ashamed afterwards, and vowed over and over again to change, but as pressures built up at work, he felt justified to give in to his baser self. Like a tsunami reigning havoc on its victims, so Stan had become more and more out of control.
“My name is Charlie, and I am a rage-er. My inability to deal with stress led me to violence,” explaining how he could feel his anger boiling up inside like an erupting volcano ready to spew venomous lava on anything in its pathway.
One by one, each member of the class stood to acknowledge his or her problem. The more Stan heard, the more uncomfortable he was, his hardened conscience resuscitating like a drowning victim’s breathing.
They discussed cases from the headlines where atrocities were committed by uncontrolled rage. Like a fire without burn perimeter trenches, there were no controlling boundaries. For some, the hurt was so overwhelming, they lashed out, threatened cobras ready to strike. In pathological subjects, a deliberate cold rage burned, a result of cumulative events, until it was released into an inevitable random act of wrath. This was a sign, a desperate communication from a disturbed individual directed to the world. A sense of intense injustice was a common thread and, also, a deranged cognitive control mechanism. Social isolation forced them to influences of the media covering similar acts (and, in the process, transforming assassins into heroes) or to excessively watch violent movies or play x-rated video games.
“Most of you in this room, however, have violent outbursts triggered by situations that are the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Here you will be given tools to learn how to cope with your anxieties in a healthy way. . .”
As time went on, Stan began recognizing the symptoms of festering anger building up inside him, many times caused by situations beyond his control.
“I found that traffic jams, slow queues, strikes, broken appliances etc. are normal everyday occurrences and being angry at them is only going to make my own blood boil; it won't change the status quo. So, instead of immediately reacting, I now choose to take a minute to think about the consequences,” Stan shares with his new group of students,
“My name is Stan, and I had an anger-management problem. . .”
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