In the last post I wrote: Today I was once more drawn into a place that felt ugly. I had talked to a friend about something she really needed to know. She didn’t take it well and dumped a vehement response on me. I think I have lost a friend. I’m not used to being spoken to in an angry way like that. Guess I’ve been kind of sheltered that way…or I just have an awfully nice bunch of people in my life.”

I had been sheltered from people’s anger most of my life. Although I wasn’t brought up in a good home, my parents thought well of me and were seldom angry with me. I was usually a quiet person. I don’t think I had a lot of anger in me. (Not until I recognized the injustice of stigma.)

At both my first and second churches I felt loved and was treated well. There was no unfriendliness shown towards me until around the time I left Living Room. When it was, I was left confused, like a child being punished.

A child who behaved badly can expect an angry response. But I had felt myself to be a child who had obeyed God in every way I knew how. The disapproval and worthlessness I felt was a dramatic contrast from what I had been accustomed.

Layers of pain reduced me to someone different from what I had been. At the slightest indication of injustice against me, my anger soar.

A friend told me, “When you get angry it sounds like an attack.”