I think I’ve said it before, but I really hate anger as an emotion. I imagine it has its usefulness in some situations, but I’ve only ever known it to make more of a mess of things. Today I was angry, the kind of angry that makes you cry.

Someone I deeply care about didn’t take into consideration my time and the things I had to do today when we were making plans to do something together. I was awake long before they were and ready to get the day started; they were sleeping peacefully. We didn’t agree on a time. We just said ‘morning.’ But I still expected because they knew about the other things I had to do today they might have taken the initiative to get up at least a little early to get the day started.

I could have said something the day before. I could have asked about a specific time. But knowing the things I had to do, they could have also just thought about it a little bit and realized that maybe we should do our things earlier than just whenever we got up. And maybe that was my issue. Maybe I expect because I would do that for other people, because I do that for other people, that they should do it for others too. Or at least reciprocate it for me since I do it for them. That doesn’t seem too hard to do. Maybe I need to stop having expectations for people at all. God knows I’ve only been disappointed time and time again, whereas everyone else seems perfectly fine just living with how things are – how people are.

I don’t always want to spell out exactly what I want. Sometimes, I just want someone to care enough to know what I want, or at least to try to figure it out.

On top of that happening, I was dealing with an appliance that crapped out on me which means a big purchase coming my way when I was just in need of making another which is great.

I also found ants in the house too, crawling their way through the kitchen and finding every crumb and piece of food spilled which made me unbelievably irritated. I do so fucking much for this place. I do more than my fair share. I won’t go into every detail, but I do what feels like 80% of what needs to be done. If I don’t do it, no one else will, which is what felt like was being made evident to me when I found the ants. I clean as much as I can on a weekly basis. Is it as much as needs to be done? Definitely not, but I’m exhausted after work, and I get up early to get the day started and I do weekly chores on the weekends that leave me with little to no free time already.

I know more housework needs to be done, and I know what I do isn’t nearly enough to keep the place as clean as it should be, but that’s when it pops into my mind that I have roommates who should be pulling at least equal weight when it comes to cleaning which it feels like doesn’t always happen. There are times when I’m the only one doing dishes or cleaning the counters or the floors for a week at a time. And I want to bring it up so badly, but I don’t want them to feel like I don’t appreciate the times they do some cleaning. I am afraid of confrontation, and I don’t want them to feel unappreciated, so I opt for not saying anything and just hoping that they’ll realize they need to do a little more. Which is a terrible plan, I know, and never works. But I do it anyway because I can’t talk about things. Which just makes me even madder.

It’s my fault I let all of these things pile up like this until there’s a day, like today, when the mountain of frustration I’ve let accumulate inside of my mind gets that one last straw that finally topples it all over into an emotional explosion of heated anger and the inability to talk about anything because I’m crying so much I can’t catch my breath or look anyone in the eye. And I hate myself for it. It makes me feel like a child, not being able to talk about what’s bothering me without tears pouring from my eyes or sometimes even at all.

I’ve read online before that this happening is a sign that someone had a childhood where they weren’t free to express their emotions in a safe and understood environment, so they never learned how to express these feelings in a productive and meaningful way. I’ve been told that when someone cries about something they’re talking about it’s just because they really care about it or feel like they can be vulnerable to the person they’re talking to.

I don’t feel any of these things. I feel misunderstood. I feel like the people that are causing me the frustrations could easily see what things they do that are bothering me, if they cared enough to try. I feel like the things that frustrate me are just people being inconsiderate. I feel like it makes me mad to realize I’m not worth it to those people to pay attention enough to the things they do and say. Which all feels unfair to say because how can I expect anyone to watch out for the things they do that frustrate me when I don’t voice what it is that’s frustrating me? How can I expect them to read my mind and adjust themselves to fit what I want/need without any prompting?

Maybe it’s because I grew up in an environment where I was constantly having to anticipate people’s moods and emotions before even speaking to them to avoid any major blow-ups. Maybe it’s because I had to learn from an early age to read people’s micro expressions to best judge how to navigate conversations as smoothly as possible, or to try to diffuse an impending fight.  Maybe it is all my fault. Maybe it’s only half.

Maybe I need to stop letting it all be such a big deal when it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else the same way. Maybe I just need to be better about letting things go and not build up until the inevitable collapse. Just because I’ve trained myself over the years to be able to tolerate more until I blow up, just because I can let my mountain get a little bit bigger each time, doesn’t mean it won’t still eventually crumble.

So maybe I just need to let go.

But I don’t really want to let go of the things that matter to me; I just really want someone to care in a certain way. I want someone to anticipate what I might want or need without me having to explain. Actually, that’s another thing I just thought of that irritates me: I always over-explain myself, my reasons for saying things a certain way or my actions because I fear people won’t understand where I’m coming from or will misunderstand my intentions, but I’m always told I don’t need to explain myself. Except in these situations, where now it’s my responsibility to have explained myself and what I was feeling. I think that’s what gets me the most about this kind of situation. When am I supposed to explain myself and when am I not? Why is it that in one situation it’s an inconvenience to the other person, me explaining things, and in another it’s my fault for not saying anything? I know context matters, but damn, if that’s not some double-standard shit that’ll fuck you up just a little bit at a time until you feel like you’re being told to pull yourself in two different directions at once, I don’t know how else to handle myself.

There’s a lot of double standards that happen around here between all of us, and I guess I’m just tired of it all. I’m tired of being expected to ask how everyone else’s days were, but when it’s my turn to talk I get interrupted a lot with impatient sighs and one-word comments and my sentences get finished for me in a way that just feels like someone is telling me to shut the fuck up already. I wonder if any of them ever wonder why sometimes I just let my story end with one of their comments like that. I wonder if they even care why I get quiet after those moments and don’t really start any new conversations. I wonder how many of them even realize they’re doing it.

I don’t know. I don’t know what to do about it all for now except to try to get some sleep and hope these feelings aren’t as raw and strong tomorrow. I don’t know what to do other than hope when the next situation arises like any of these situations, I actually try to stand up for myself and say what I really thing or feel. All I can do is hope that at some point in my life, I stop letting that fucking mountain grow, because I don’t know how many more of these collapses I can take before I start to be unable to recognize myself.

I don’t know right now, but I hope someday I do.