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With my hair always unruly and eyes that were big but not beautiful, I thought I was Kali with a fire burning her from within and an all-consuming desire to right where I was wronged. But I was barely a person, let alone a Goddess.
My demons serpentine much like the hair that framed her irate face, I would smolder and seethe within.
Aunties in the neighborhood would smile politely because my parents were ‘respectable’ teachers, but would also give me a side eye or a smug smirk whenever they saw me in public.
I was often angry, and I was often reprimanded for it. Anger became my personality, and it ate away at my sense of self from the inside out. I hated being called nicknames I didn’t like. I didn’t enjoy being teased by my uncle, aunts, and cousins, and it would show. Nostrils flared, eyes glaring – and I would have absolutely nothing to say.
The punishments and reprimands for being an angry child were fierce, and the defiant little girl had to be subdued. To protect myself from being punished, I began punishing myself. I berated myself for feeling, and I learned to push everything down, down my throat, to the back of my eyes, and to that empty space just behind my stomach.
My acrid tongue became blunted, but it burnt my insides into ulcers. My instant rage at being ‘teased’ was now hidden behind a fake plastic smile, which made me recoil from my true self in disgust.
I would often shut up, shut doors, and turn inward. I indulged in silent treatments and staring contests with the floor. That is the only way I knew to exert what little control I had.
It was unlike Kali. With Goddess Kali, her anger was always a protective force, born out of compassion. She raged against injustice. I did, too. I wanted to protect myself from the barbs of this world. But I couldn’t show it like her.
But when expression is subdued, you learn other ways. The anger in me continued even as a teenager. I learned to be angry without raising my voice. I wouldn’t yell or scream, because that wasn’t “nice”. Instead, I would speak calmly, coldly, and say the meanest of things. I’d pick out people’s insecurities and hit them where it truly hurt.
There came a time when I liked to pretend that it didn’t matter, people didn’t matter. But it’s not like the anger had a place to go. So, unexpressed anger sat close. By me. Within me. My anger toward the world shifted once again, this time toward myself. I got into self-harm, suicidal ideation, and myriad habits that put me on a path of self-destruction.
It was almost like I had no free will anymore. I was in survival mode.
It was only when I hit rock bottom that I realized I needed help. But by this time, I was already married and had stepped into my thirties. Thanks to an understanding partner and some self-awareness, I began to understand myself beyond the anger.
I realized that I didn’t really have an anger problem.
I had boundaries that were often breached.
I had unhealed wounds that were picked at repeatedly.
I had emotions I was never allowed to express.
My anger was not a problem. The problem was that I never felt safe enough to express my feelings in any other way.
I never learned to vent out or let others around me know how I truly felt. I would either implode or, worse, let it all out in a way that would hurt others. I learned to keep it all in – bottled up. But that didn’t work. I would often be unable to hold it in anymore, and cause a mess. A mess that I would then feel guilty about. This turned into a pattern I could not break.
The myth around me, of my anger, became way too heavy for me to carry.
As a communications professional, it was especially difficult to admit that I can help others find their voice and am good at it, but I simply did not know what to do with my own.
I am learning now. I now know that when my boundaries are crossed repeatedly, anger is not an overreaction. It is an indication.
I have now accepted that my fire doesn’t make me scary. It makes me alive, awake, and aware. It makes me who I am today.
Kali was never meant to be palatable or agreeable. She was meant to be powerful and passionate. And maybe I was too. I am still learning how to speak and not seethe. To feel without flinching. Learning to say “this hurt” and not follow it with an apology.
I am still learning to stop dimming my fire to make others feel comfortable.
The myth said I was born angry.
Now I know I was born feeling.
And a little like Kali, I burned in this fire when no one else came forward to protect what mattered.
