confessions of a closet dramatist

They say that depression is suppressed anger. If that is true, then it is amazing I am still alive. 'Cause I do love to get angry. And I keep it deep inside. I don't mean that I harbor all of the ills done me (real or imagined) - although I can still remember the doozies - it's that I don't express my anger. Instead, when someone says something or something happens that makes me angry, I will later construct these huge arguments inside my head, building one statement on another, imagining the responses from the other party and then constructing counter arguments to those. This will go on for 5, 10, 15 minutes, or so, depending on what touched it off.

And it is stupid. I read something today that ended with a statement to the effect that (what was being written about) showed almost as much bad taste as eating at olive garden. I went nutso. I ranted in my head about how not everyone is lucky enough to have a restaurant nearby that can serve authentic italian dishes (not that olive garden doesn't - I haven't been to italy to know what authentic italian food tastes like), or that some people really like the food served by olive garden and whats wrong with that? I then broadened the argument in my head about big box, chain businesses that may be someone's only place to shop. I don't like what Walmart has done to the retail environment but there is NO OTHER PLACE TO SHOP for clothes or electronics in the little town I live in, and many other people live in similar places. And the nearest town that has alternative shopping is 20 miles away and who can afford to blow 10 bucks in gas in addition to paying higher prices just on principle when they are just barely making ends meet and anyway the shopping alternatives are other big box retailers anyway, who has locally produced goods of sufficient variety today that they can even have an alternative to the big box boys, I mean who has someone in their town that makes cd's or clothes or furniture and not all hand made furniture is of a quality to become antiques, some of it was crap and until ikea came along and offered decent - I mean it won't be antiques either but it'll stand up to wear for as long as I need it and is of a decent price, and, and, and

you get the idea. This kind of thing goes on in my head, and sometimes I restart the argument trying to come up with better arguments if my line of reasoning fails! WHAT is this vitriol doing to me? I don't share this with anyone (or rarely do) as I have a hard enough time making friends without subjecting them to this stuff. (and if only a hundredth of this makes it out of my mouth just think what those around me must endure!) So, all of this stuff turned inward, suppressed - is it any wonder I have a difficult time being happy? I don't know how to stop it. Some of the stupid stuff (like above) I get over pretty quickly - and if I ever speak about it, it turns into something like, well everyone is different and people make the best of their opportunities and so do I. But the crap I go through to come to that decision - argh.

I commented (kinda negatively) about teen-aged angst yesterday and the lack of maturity it shows, but am I any more mature for going through the same angst but keeping it inside? A lot of nice things were said about the lengths I went to so that Laura could go on this trip with her sisters, but inside OH GOD HOW I WISH IT WERE ME WITH HER and what if we never get to go together, yada yada yada - how mature is that?

So - how many of you are internal drama queens too? (how sexist is that of me? maybe I should say drama royalist - is that a good neutral term, would anyone get drama royalty without this diatribe, maybe I should delete this.......)