Fiction: Sometimes I Get So Mad

This may or may not be based on real life. This is a story I tried to tell from an elementary school aged boy:

I kicked a hole in the wall by my bed. I tried to cover it with my pillow so Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t see it. But, then I felt bad so I told Mommy what I did. She didn’t yell at me but I could tell she was sad because as she blocked the hole with duct tape, she looked like she was going to cry. The hole behind my door, when the doorknob smashed through the wall when I slammed my door open and closed, that’s still there though. It’s too badly broken for Mommy to fix, she said she’s going to have to call the painter to repair it.

Mommy sat in my bed with me, she held my hand and asked me why I made another hole in my wall. I told her I didn’t know, I was just so mad and all I could think about was breaking things. I didn’t mean to, though. I really didn’t.

I told Mommy that sometimes I want to hurt myself. Sometimes, when I take a shower, I wrap the long cord from the shower handle around my neck until I can’t breathe. But then I get scared so I stop. Sometimes, I want to do something even worse to myself but I don’t. I’m scared I will, one day.

Mommy asked me if I wanted to die and she told me she loved me and would die without me. I told her I didn’t want to die but I get so mad and the only thing I can think about is hurting myself.

I get mad a lot. I never know why, really. I just do. Mommy and Daddy try to get me to calm down but nothing ever works. I heard Mommy telling Daddy that she thinks I need to be on medicine so that I’m not so angry anymore. I don’t want to be on medicine but I don’t want to be this angry, either. It doesn’t make me feel good when I get mad.

Today, I woke up and, at first, I felt fine, I wasn’t mad, just tired. Then, I remembered I had to go to school and so I started to cry. I didn’t want to go to school, I liked being on vacation. I got to sleep in and play with my friends the whole time. It was fun. School isn’t fun. It’s hard.

I couldn’t calm down. I tried. Mommy tried to get me to calm down, too. Finally, she left me in my room by myself.

Mommy made me breakfast and I wouldn’t eat it, even though I know when I don’t eat, it makes me really moody. Mommy tried really hard to get me to eat but I couldn’t. I was crying too hard because she started yelling at me. I don’t like when my mom yells at me, it makes me feel like she doesn’t love me even though she always tells me no matter what, she loves me. It’s just hard to believe that she does when her face gets all red and her voice gets real loud and strange. Sometimes I think she gets so angry at me and she wants to break something.

After I had been sitting at the kitchen table for awhile, crying and not eating, Mom threw her hands up and really calmly told me I had to get dressed. She told me I was going to have to go to school without eating because we were going to be late if she waited any longer. Mommy doesn’t like being late. She looked so sad.

I didn’t want to get dressed. I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t care if we were going to be late. So, I just sat there and pretended I didn’t hear her. So, Mommy started getting mad again. And, even though she was mad, I think she was still sad, too. Mommy told me it worries her when I act like this because she doesn’t know how to make it better.

I told Mommy that yelling at me doesn’t make it better. She told me she’s trying not to yell but she needs me to listen. I told her I’m trying to listen but I can’t.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen and cried. I tried to get dressed but I couldn’t.

I think Mommy was going to cry, too but she’s better at holding it in than I am. She told me it’s because I’m still a kid and she’s a grown up and grown ups don’t cry as easily, even when they want to.

I was being stubborn and I just stood there. I know it was getting later because Mommy kept telling me what time it was which meant she was getting really stressed. I don’t remember how she got me to the car but she had to drag me because I didn’t want to leave the house. I think we broke the screen door. Neither one of us cared, both of us were really mad at each other.

The whole way to school, Mommy talked and talked to me about choices. She told me that we have a choice whether or not we want to have a good or bad day. She was going to choose to have a good day and she hoped I would do the same. I told her I wasn’t going to because I was so mad, all I could think about was ruining the day for everyone, especially me.

Mommy told me that I’d be in trouble at home, I wouldn’t be allowed to have my computer, if she got a report that I had a bad day. I don’t know if I can help it today, I’m so mad. And, even though Mommy looks sad, I don’t care right now. I don’t.

She handed me my backpack and told me she had put the breakfast she made me inside my lunchbox, I should eat it before I got to school so I could have food in my body. I didn’t want to. I was too mad to eat. That made her mad, she told me I was already choosing to continue my bad day and she hoped I would make better choices.

I don’t think I have control over my choices. I don’t think I have control over myself. That’s why I’m glad Mommy and Daddy are taking me to the talking doctor because maybe he’ll help me get control over myself. Even though I don’t want to take medicine, maybe I need to so that I’m not angry anymore.

Being angry all the time makes me sad. And, when I’m sad, it makes me want to die. Not kill myself, just die.

I guess I hope that the doctor I’m going to can help. I want to be like the normal kids in my school. They always seem happy. I have to fake being happy a lot and it’s hard. I have to pretend to be a different me so that I can fit in. I told my mom that. She told me she bets other kids feel the same way, that even though I don’t feel like a regular kid, I really am. She told me that even adults do the same thing, fake it so that they can fit in.

It’s so hard being a kid like me. Sometimes, I just wish I was never born. But, that would make Mommy and Daddy really sad.

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