"I'm not angry."
That's what I told myself. That's what I told myself, and others, and doctors, and everyone. Because I didn't feel angry. I didn't feel like I had a reason to be angry, and one must always have a reason to be angry. Anger without reason is like war without cause.

...and it is how many women around me were negatively stereotyped. They just had emotions. For no reason. And it baffled me.

Turns out I have a lot of reasons to be angry.

I should tell you now, if I haven't already, that I am a recovering altruist. I will do a hundred and seven things for you and the stranger I met in the line at the grocery store, but to get me to do anything for myself becomes a monumental task.

I used to stay up late in the library, making up excuses to stick around until my best friend there finished her paper. Or her lab. Or whatever. And then I would walk her back to the dorms to make sure she made it back safely. One particular night, I actually carried her back to the dorms, her backpack and mine slung over her shoulders, because she was literally falling asleep on her feet.

I have always been strong --for others. (And I don't know how to get the dash to work on blogger, dear reader, so I will work on that.) I would fight tooth and nail for a friend, but never allow myself to lose control over something so small as my personal honor, or my feelings being hurt, or anything like that.

So I just never admitted to anger. That doesn't mean it wasn't there, building up and growing. It just found ways to mask itself. Some of it was in my intellectual superiority complex, I'm sure.

And now that I have discovered this anger, I don't know what to do with it. I started this blog, for one thing. I think I'll paint. I miss having extra artistic time.

As a disclaimer, this is a rather angry blog. I don't walk around ranting about everything here. I do rant about things that I care about, like educational philosophy and grammar.

Back to artistic-ness. I feel like a great artist sometimes. On occasion, it is only because I feel crazy, and feel very strongly that the Great Artists were all nuts. Not cashews and almonds and such, but a little loopy, insane, batty, etc.

And that is part of why I am angry. I feel like I lost a part of myself, the part of myself that kept me from going insane. I watch movies and identify with both the villains and heroes (it used to just be heroes, but maybe the villains aren't so clear-cut and definitively evil anymore).

I just don't think that's normal.

I think that's psychopathic. Or at least unhealthy.

And that makes me angry. Or maybe I just have PTSD. It's tough to tell.