My mom always told me that when I was little and got frustrated--I would cry. I wouldn't get angry, I would get upset. This still applies to me today. But there have been times in my life when I bottled up so much anger and frustration that I would just explode if someone shook that bottle. I would get angry and violent. My mother later said that you can see it in my eyes...you can tell when I'm about to SNAP.

I would like to think that I am not as angry as I used to be. I think I'm a totally differnet person. (my mom used to describe me as "hateful" and say that I was just like my grandma) But I do think that I have a lot more control over it now that I am older. (except if alcohol is involved. I lose all my senses when under the influence) I deal with my feelings better on better days...I still have bad days. if I am in a really bad mood I get irritated at annoying people at wal-mart or something. But I keep it to myself. When I was younger I was rude. I'd make rude comments to people that annoyed me.

I'm not sure where my anger comes from...I grew up in a "normal" environment (I used quotes because I am not sure what the definition of "normal" is...my family is just better described as average and typical) I had a happy childhood. I was just a very happy kid. But as I got older I just became any angry person. Not really until my teenage years but I think most teenagers go through that. (kinda like Becky on "Roseanne" . those episodes totally remind me of my early teenage years!) But I really don't know what happened to me.I am NOT blaming my parents for anything but you do learn what you see or hear. My parents fought occasionally but rarely in front of me and my 2 brothers. I saw my aunt and uncle and my cousin and her husband fight more than my parents. But my mom was very mean to my dad sometimes and was very jealous and insecure in their marriage. She would even talk shit about my dad to us which was very akward. At 13, I got my first boyfriend and I imitated my mom and would treat him badly because I learned that from her. One time my boyfriend and I had a fight and my mom even made the comment, "I taught you well!" My first byfriend was kind of crazy though so he wasn't very nice to mean either. He actually put me down a lot and tried to destroy my self-esteem and back then I was not having that! So I let him have it A LOT. We had a pretty fucked up relationship so that bad experience molded me and my whole outlook on relationships with boys for a very,very looooong time. So those early bad relationships affected me badly as well. My second boyfriend came along about a year after I broke up with my frist boyfriend. I was 15 and insecure and still carrying baggage from my first relationship which I took out on him. My mom would always scold my dad if he looked at other women (even on TV) so if my boyfriend even glanced at another girl I would pout for hours and throw his class ring at him. I became just like my mom.

I resented my mom a lot in my early teen years. I'm not sure why --just your typical teenage hormonal changes I guess. I am happy that I got over that within a few years. I was always really close to my mom in my later teenage years. And I still am close to her. But when I was 13 and 14, everything she did and said to me aggravated me.I'd talk back and say hurtful things and one time Ieven threw a piece of pizza at her. I'm just glad I got over that phase pretty quickly because there was no reason for me to treat her that way. Of course when you're young you don't realize that. You're just mad at everybody! I was also a bit spoiled and used to getting my way and when I didn't I would get PISSED!

In high school I had a small group of friends but always felt betrayed and abandoned by them. I always thought they were out to get me or laughing at me behind my back. I don't know why I was so paranoid but I was always pissed at them for something. I was mostly just HURT because I felt like they left me out of things or just forgot about me or acted indifferent if i was depressed. Although, sometimes I would just PRETEND to be depressed to see if i could get their attention because I felt neglected and felt the need to test them. And if they failed I would give them the silent treatment. That is the biggest difference between angry and hurt with me: if I am angry I yell and scream and let you know. If I am hurt I don't speak,ignore and don't let you know.

I got teased a lot in junior high, which I had a hard time with because I didn't understand why because most kids had liked me the year before in 6th grade. That year it was cute when I shaved the sides of my head like Mike Patton from Faith No More. And they gave me the nickname "Headbanger" because I liked heavy metal. But the next school year I was a "devil worshipper' because I liked Danzig and The Misfits. Feeling outcast and ridiculed took it's toll on me. I became withdrawn and depressed...and angry at my classmates. Especially towards my close friends that stopped talking to me because I was branded a freak so they didn't want to associate with me out of fear fo also being a target. For years after this I would get very angry if I felt like someone was trying to humilate me. My junior high and high school years just made me really defensive. When I got out of high school, if I was out somewhere with friends and somebody said something to me that rubbed me the wrong way I would fly off the handle and storm off. Sometimes I would make a scene and scream something at them like, "shut up!" or "fuck you!" before I made my dramatic exit.

My brothers also dealt with anger too. Now that I think about it,since this seems to also affect my brothers I think it has to do with the way I grew up. We did not always express our feelings. We did keep a lot of things to ourselves and would act like upsetting things did not bother us. We all bottled stuff up in my family....but I didn't know that my older brother Joseph got "pull your hair out" angry until my younger brother Joaquin told me. Joseph and his girlfriend lived with joaquin a few years ago and told me stories about Joseph getting mad and smashing all his girlfriends things. I had no idea. Joaquin,on the other hand,has always had a temper! He threw temper tantrums as a child--he would just throw himself on the ground and scream. As he got older he was always pissy and bitchy. But by then (at age 14) he had come out and we thought he was trying to be a catty queen! (we already knew he was gay way before that though!) But as he got closer to his 20s we could see it was bigger than that...he had mental issues along with anger issues and started going to the mental helath facility. But he had been put on so many different medications before they found the proper ones that he needed to be on. He was on an emotional rollercoaster. He was always angry and hateful and had many outbursts...he was back to throwing tantrums. He smashed things, broke kitchen table(s),flipped over his coffee table in a rage, broke a window and blamed a storm, and put multiple holes in walls in multiple apartments...and that's only the stuff that I was a witness to or aware of! He was mellowed out A LOT. I'm sure he still has his moments but it is way more under control now. He's finally on the right meds! Sometimes I wonder if I have the same affliction. There are times in my life that I seriously think that I should have been medicated because I went through very rough times. The worst being when my family made me feel like I was CRAZY. Joseph's girlfriend Lori had moved in with my family. Everything was fine at first but I got tired of pretending to like her and get along with her. I never liked her because she was shady. I knew she was a liar and a thei. She had been friends with Joaquin before she dated Joseph and I heard that she had talked shit about me so I wasn't a very big fan of her. She was twofaced. But once she was aware that I didn't like her I guess he felt threatened so she turned my family against me. Everything she did to ME she told them I did to HER. She stole my clothes and just made up random lies about me and my brothers chose to believe her over me. We got into a physical fight one night because I got sick of her attitude. Joseph and Lori had moved out and she took some of my stuff with her.They came back to get some things and I told her to give me my things back. She just made this ugly face at me so I jumped up off the couch and started hitting her. Joseph and my mom broke us up. They left and as Joseph walked out the door he pointed at me and said, "Fuck You." which killed me. Later he sent me a letter apologizing for that. My mom got really upset and started crying and it was all my fault. I felt like the enemy so I felt unwelcomed. I proceeded to call my friend Erin and asked if I could stay with her.Then I packed my clothes and I left. I only stayed for 2 weeks. I didn't like feeling run out of my own home especially since they weren't living there. But a few weeks later they moved back in and it got worse and it was a fucking nightmare. I was uncomfortable in my own home and had to avoid everybody. I mean, I was 19 years old. I could have and should have just moved out but to me back then it felt like she would have won and I didn't want to feel defeated and forced out of my own home and isolated from my family. That was MY family not hers. But I just avoided home as much as possible and spent all my time with my friends at their homes. It got so bad that I had to put a LOCK on my bedroom door so that she couldn't steal my things when I was not home. That's when I found out she started stealing my mail. This was back when I was doing Ego Records. Her and joaquin decided to start their own distro I guess because she felt the need to try to compete with me with everything. She already stole my family and so she wanted to steal my friends and penpals too. She wanted to be me...I always said I never met anyone that hated me so much but still wanted to be just like me. I started to notice that I was not receiving packages from people containing zines and cds and records for my distro...then someone sent a catalog to me without knowing that I knew Lori (because she used her mom's address) and i saw that everything listed in her "catalog" was stuff that I was waiting for in the mail! I told my mom about it and she acted like she was thought it was a coincidence and said "give her the benefit of the doubt." WHAT?!! what the fuck?! My whole family had gone mad! I felt like I was in the twilight zone. I was seething!!!! I'm not sure if Joaquin was aware that she stole my stuff to start their distro but I let it be known. The way I let her know that I knew was when she was sitting in the living room and I told my mom, "I'm taking a shower. Will you please get the mail when it gets here so no one will STEALS mine." I looked at Lori and her eyes got all big because she knew that I knew. She then went and told Joseph that I was stealing her mail even though she wasn't even getting mail there. Joseph had no idea what she was doing all day because he was at work. I started writing to the people whose things she stole and tried to explain everything to them. She did the same thing--trying to make it soound like I was completely insane and delusional. She had one advantage over me-- she had a computer and the internet at her mom's house. Back then I did not have those things nor did I have access to those things. Not even at the local library.I started getting letters from other people saying she contacted them. Since they knew me longer and better most sided with me. Someone sent me a zine that she wrote about me and they told me everything Lori told them about me. I mentioned it to Joaquin. Instead of realizing that I was right and getting pissed at Lori for dragging him into it he got pissed at ME! He told Lori that I had "spies". I wasn't spying! they sent the stuff to me so that I would know the truth. And that's all I wanted--JUSTICE. I felt validated when I did do a little snooping and found a letter that Lori wrote to Joaquin in which she called the "spy" a "cunt" so I sent the letter to the"spy." with Lori's true colors showing all zinesters involved and caught in the middle of this drama finally dismissed Lori. Especially after she got so desperate that she started a fake zine and distro and got a po box in another town and used the name "Anne Marie" just to write to me and other zinesters to find out what was being said about her. I knew it was her but I wrote back and told her "the whole story" so she knew everything I said about her was the truth. Once I knew everybody in the zine world believed me and not her I did feel a little vindication but still saddened by the fact that the zinesters supported me more than my own family.I got into another fist fight with her the last time they moved out because she overheard me talking to Joseph about fixing him up with another girl because he wanted to be fixed up with her . (he had already cheated on Lori with my best friend!!!) She got into a fight with this girl uptown even though I never mentioned the hook up to this girl. Which i found extremely amusing. I had become very vindictive and started palaying her mind fuck games too! I was just playing the same mind games with her that did with me and my brothers! So i got some revenge. When they were moving out , I went outside to where they were and said "I guess you don't want me to fix you up with Cindy." He called me "retard." I went back in the house and got some stupid picture frame with Lori's photo in it and went back outside and threw it at her. We started throwing punches. She mostly just pulled my hair. I was told later that I busted her lip. I was relieved when Joseph pulled me off of her (even though he knoocked me down and shoved my head into the sidewalk) because I felt like I was gonna break her neck. He later told me he didn't break it up for awhile because he wanted to watch me kick her ass. So he basically pretended to be mad at me but I still don't understand that.....so after all that shit that happened with her..yeah,I was kinda BITTER! But I was mostly HURT. and things with my brothers were never the same.

***I would like to note that even after all that negative shit that happened with me and Lori 10 years ago--we have since made up. She found me andJjoaquin on MySpace 3 years ago and we buried the hatchet. which proves we have both grown up A LOT. She knew my husband Jamie too so when we got married she even sent us wedding gifts! Even though I do talk a lot of shit while talking about the past with her--I have forgiven her for a lot of it. I just got caught up in the story and got a little carried away.That shit happened a long ime ago and we've both moved passed it and I don't wanna jeopardize how things with us are now. We're cool and I want to keep it that way. But these events did have a lasting effect of my anger issues and my relationships with my brothers. So i thought I would mention it.**

Later, anytime that Joseph felt like verbally attacking me just because he was having a bad day I would say stuff to him about Lori being crazy because he'd try to make me feel like I was nuts. I was going through a really tough time one autumn after a bad break up and I was feeling very vulnerable and I guess it showed so it made me an east target for him. One morning he was telling me that I should get on Paxil or something because I "needed help." He meant it as an insult but I agreed with him. So I guess that made him mad. So he started saying all kindsa shit about me being mental and I got upset and I couldn't take it anymore. I just started shaking and breathing all heavy and I had to get out. All I could do was leave. I didn't know how to deal with it. So I walked a half on hour to the park in the rain. I just sat in the corner of a shelter house,hiding for HOURS because I didn't want to go home. I couldn't believe that my own brother could treat me so badly and want to hurt me so much. I was convinced that I was insane. I started looking up numbers for mental health places to call because I was sure that I was losing my mind. I didn't talk to Joseph for over a month. He did apologize but I ignored him until I was ready to talk to him again. This happened again months later because he got pissed at me and berated me for something stupid. But that time he only got the silent treatment for 2 weeks.

After all the shit that I have been through or put through, anytime I felt embarassed or humiliated I would get angry and threaten people with bodily harm. I just treid to be TOUGH because I didn't want to get hurt. I tried to protect myself emotionally with physical violence! And eventully I realized that did not work! Once I started drinking it was even more difficult to control my feelings and emotions. When I was drunk i was uninhibited. I was not afarid of confronation or scared of getting hurt. While intoxicated I gave a guy a fat lip and a black eye for calling my little brother a "fag'. Afterwards I got upset and started crying so I had to leave the bar. A few years ago I was taking ephedrine pills to lose weight. Those pills really fucked up my hormones or something and made me violent. I stopped taking them because my husband Jamie said they made me "mean". I was very vicious to him one drunken night under the influence of pills and booze. I screamed at him and even pushed him and I felt horrible. He knew that I had a short fuse because we were best friends for years before we dated. He had seen me get enraged & attack people! He had seen me at my worst so he knew what he was in for! But my anger was never towards him...so I cut that out real quick. The last time that I had a tantrum in public was about 3 years ago when Jamie and I first started dating. We were at a show and these annoying metal kids were knocking people around and crashing into them and trying to start a pit with people that were just standing there trying to watch a band. These kids were notorious for getting all bloodly and injured at shows because they thought it was "cool." I wanted no part of it. So when I got knocked around and Jamie got pushed to the ground I SNAPPED! I saw these 2 stupid metal kids high fiving and I lost it! I turned around and, as Jamie later pit it, "punched the guy in the kidney." He turned around like he was going to hit me and saw that I was a girl and just stood there with a stupid confused look on his face! Then Jamie and I left. My angry outbursts have been know to embarass my family and friends so I started trying to control it by writing about it online and venting on sites like Livejournal and Myspace. (but those blogs have also caused more drama with people because I did not keep them private!).

I have more stories that I could tell but I don't need to and like I said earlier, I do still have bad mood swings and issues with anger. I just deal with my feelings better now that I am older. I got sick of the facade. I'm done trying to be "TOUGH", I am stable and happily married now. I have grown up and matured. My life is totally different. I don't need fight stories or tales of barroom brawls, battle scars and trophy bruises. I'm happy now!