“Anger describes the event, rage describes the person.”

Being a mental health therapist often feels like carrying a pair of x-ray glasses around. The tone, pitch, length, quantity, emotion, selection and inflexion of words which people use can often be like opening a journal into their deepest and darkest places. At times it’s a blessing, since you can respond to their struggle without a lot of help from them. Other times it is a burden. There are some people who you do not intend to become so intimate with by their unconscious exposure and vulnerability. While this helps to depersonalize their behaviors, it also begs the question of what to do with this wounded heart they have unknowingly bestowed upon you.

Earlier this week, I heard a song on the radio that I had never heard before. I had an instant connection with it and knew it was going to be part of the soundtrack to this chapter of my life story. I asked my husband to email Harry the DJ, with whom he corresponds regularly through Twitter, and inquire about how we may find the song. Harry offered to send him the song to download. After a couple of days, I asked Michael if he’d gotten the song yet, which he hadn’t, and so I asked him if he would send Harry a reminder email. I went on the assumption that he, like I, can become so busy that we forget things and appreciate a little nudge as a reminder now and then. If nothing more, this is a lesson about assumptions. But, alas, there is more.

The next morning, Michael called me over to the computer and showed me a multitude of angry emails from Harry. It looked as though for a period of 15 minutes Harry sent a new email each time he found some additional angry words to say. It was an unleashing of attacks on Michael for being “unappreciative” and “inconsiderate” (only using the nice words here). He also said that he had been putting together a package for us but now that we pissed him off we weren’t getting anything. We were in shock. We reviewed Michael’s emails to find out what may have triggered this tirade, but Michael’s emails were succinct, benign and friendly. A few minutes later, we turned on our Sirius radio to listen to Harry’s show as we do each morning, and he began the show by disparaging Michael. It went something like this: “There’s this guy I talk to on Twitter, always seemed like a nice guy. I was doing something nice for him, but he became inpatient and manipulative and he intended for his email to hurt me.” We were stunned that he took it to the radio, but mostly horrified that he created an entire story that had no roots in the truth. What he did was expose his weakness, being unappreciated. Michael became the symbol of everyone who may have taken advantage of Harry in the past, disrespected his generosity, and who knows what else? This insight into Harry’s past trauma, which still affects him today, certainly didn’t come without a few knocks, but the transparency of the wound by the quick accessibility of his rage only made us feel compassion for him.

There are some people who behave this way who can never use it to help them identify where their wounds are, and so they continue running in circles and never move forward to a happier, more peaceful existence. I don’t think I can help Harry today, but perhaps you have read something that feels familiar here, and that is Harry’s gift to both of us.