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Seven Deadly: Wrath

Aaaand we’re back after more than a year for another installment of ‘Seven Deadly!’ Last time we took a look at Pride in all of its positive and negative aspects. Today, we’re going to talk about Wrath. I’m your host, Me, and joining us today is a special guest– My Temper. 

If there’s one sin I’m guilty of– and there’s not just one, I’m very big on all of them– then it would be Wrath. Sure, I score pretty high on Pride, and I’m so devoted to Lust that I have a hard time thinking of it as a sin at all. But Wrath is the root of many of my problems.

It’s funny, because people don’t think of me as an angry person anymore. In fact, these days people are more likely to describe me as “patient” or “polite.” Frankly, that is the result of a lot of hard work, personal growth, and some good medication. Trust me, I wasn’t always so mellow. 

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was an extremely angry person. I used pretty much every platform and excuse for indignation and confrontation you could imagine— from arguing on the internet to physical confrontations. I was mean, and I liked to get drunk as an excuse to be even meaner.

It’s tempting to make fun of that behavior now, but the truth is? I had a really good reason to be so angry. 

(Content warnings for sexual abuse and trauma related things.)

You see, I had post-traumatic stress disorder from a kidnapping, and subsequent series of rapes, that I had survived. 

I was terrified and I was suffering. I could barely sleep, I had flashbacks and nightmares all the time, I was plagued by paranoia and delusions that somebody was in my house. I slept with a knife under my pillow. Every loud noise and sudden motion startled me so badly that I often dissolved into tears.

The secret motivators behind anger are usually: fear, pain, or offended righteousness. I had plenty of all three. Anger was my only comfort. The only taste of justice I ever got was imaginary, and provided by my murderous revenge fantasies.

Anger was my armor. Anger was the glue that held me together when I was falling apart. You see, that anger, as excessive and overwhelming as it was, was actually the healthiest thing I had at the time, because it came from the recognition that what happened to me was not right. If I hadn’t been mad as hell I would’ve been sitting around in despair thinking I deserved it. 

Anger is an energizer. When grief and depression threaten to drag you all the way down to the bottom of the pit, anger can pull you back up. When fear makes you feel small and helpless, anger can almost act as a substitute for courage. When the whole world is ugly and hopeless and unjust and wrong, your anger can feel like a beacon of hope, lonely though it may be. 

Anger was my defense mechanism. I was weak and brittle. Small things could’ve broken me, so I lashed out at others before they got close enough to hurt me.

Anger was my reason to be. It was my morning coffee. It got me out of bed and semi-conscious after my insomniac nights. It gave me something to hold on to other than the horrors of what had happened to me. 

Anger was the only expression of self-esteem (or Pride) that I had left to me. It was the only affirmation I felt worthy of. 

Over time, my anger deepened, and festered, and fermented, and simmered, until it became something beyond anger. It became Wrath. 

Wrath is not just irritation or getting a little bit ‘mad.’ Wrath is poisonous grudges cherished for years– and sudden, uncontrollable rages that flash out in an instant. Wrath is anger at its most powerful, and its most dangerous. Wrath is what you feel when you genuinely want to see someone else dead.

Some of you might be rolling your eyes right now, thinking I’m being melodramatic or reveling in my own edginess. Believe me, I am not bragging. The state I am talking about is not fun, it is not healthy. It is exhausting and it involves hurting everyone around you eventually. If you let it control you too much, it might get you thrown in prison or killed. 

Wrath like that has one function and one function only: to get you through when nothing else can. It’s like a powerful battlefield adrenal useful for life-or-dead situations, but deadly over the long term. 

Seven Deadly: Pride

This is the first in a series of posts about the so-called “Seven Deadly Sins” and ways to subvert them.

One lesson I have learned is that every so-called “virtue” has a dark side, and nearly every “sin” has its positive power. These journals are part of my shadow work.

So: Pride. Pride is often called the greatest and most terrible of the Seven Deadly Sins. Some think of it as the sin from which all other sins flow. It’s also the sin most frequently associated with Lucifer, who tried to set himself above Yahweh. 

I think we all know the ways in which Pride can be a negative quality. It can make you an obnoxious braggart or insufferable snob. Hurt Pride can lead to holding an implacable grudge, or to stubborn refusal to admit when you are wrong. Pride can be an inflated sense of self-worth that stops growth, or a source of ludicrous perfectionism that tortures your soul and drives everyone around you crazy.

Pride can be many different things, however– and the above are just a few of the most familiar.

I think Pride gets a bad rap in society. 

The most obvious example I can think of for people who could use a little more Pride is young women. Girls and women are desired and objectified in this world, and are expected to make themselves look as good as possible. Yet, at the same time, they are forbidden to notice when someone is “admiring” them, even if that so-called “admiration” is deeply creepy and a possible sign of danger. They must not take too many selfies. They must deflect all compliments. They must spend money, time and energy on “looking good,” but they must never be seen noticing the fruits of their efforts, because to do so would be “vain.” Talk about alienated labor! To work endlessly on your own face, body and wardrobe in service of some ideal of perfection, and never even be allowed to admire the fruits of your efforts!

Of course, the self-effacing practices society mandates for girls and women go far beyond the realm of physical appearance. In general, everything women and girls do is supposed to appear effortless and never, ever be self-congratulatory.

 Smarter than your male peers at school? Play dumb, never admit it. Hide your test scores. 

More competent than your male-coworkers? Stand back and let them take all the credit for your work. Watch them promoted over your head. Earn seventy cents to their dollar. 

Are you a home-maker? Just go ahead and pretend that cleaning the house and raising the kids is no trouble at all; in fact, laugh at the idea that your stressful 24/7 job where you are always on call is any kind of work at all, much less work that might deserve, I dunno, A GOVERNMENT STIPEND or something. Let everyone else tell you your life is easy, because you don’t have to “work.” Laugh along at jokes about “bored housewives.” 

Trans woman? Be even more self-effacing in everything you do so that maybe no one will fucking kill you. Cis woman who wants to have children? Pretend that pregnancy and childbirth is no biggie, and definitely hide all the “gross” and “scary” parts of it from the world. 

Above all– apologize way too much. Make your voice quieter and softer than all the others in the room. Every time you speak up, start by saying “sorry.” Make sure to always apologize for the inconvenience of your existence. 

So there’s just one situation in which the specter of “Pride” is being used to keep people under control. I love it when I see women pushing back against this– whether it’s swaggering, cocky lyrics from a pop diva or a 15-year-old girl flooding instagram with her selfies, and tagging them with those same self-confident lyrics. 

Other marginalized groups have similar struggles with Pride. In America, people of color, immigrants and children of diaspora may struggle with assimilation versus retention of culture. Any kind of Pride they have in their appearances, their cultures, their histories, their religions, etc. will be read as refusal to “fit in,” as being “Un-American.” (This sort of thing happens in many places in the world but I am only really familiar with the American nuances.) 

White society is horribly threatened by expressions of “Black Pride,” “Black Power,” and even by the self-evident phrase “Black Lives Matter!” Say “Black girls are beautiful” and some shithead will just have to say “All girls are beautiful!” It’s a fucking non-sequitur, as if somebody had said “the sky is blue” and someone else had furiously shouted “So is the ocean!” 

“Good” POC, according to white supremacist society, are those who don’t make waves, who don’t make white people uncomfortable by talking about either their identities or the oppression they experience for them, who survive by ignoring everything that makes them “different.” Who, in short, don’t have Pride… or who hide it. 

Gay Pride is a good, familiar example of Pride being subverted from deadly sin to liberatory principle. 

I could give many more examples. At this point I think we can plainly see why the Medieval Church, invested in keeping the peasant population under control, might have named Pride as the worst of sins. Crush someone’s Pride, and you crush their power. You make them small and manageable. 

The truth is that Pride can be a virtue and a source of strength. 

Pride can liberate, illuminate, and nourish. 

Pride can be the rejection of shame. Pride can be gratitude and appreciation for one’s beauty, talents, culture, identity, self. Pride can be the refusal to be made smaller than you are, to be quashed down, to have your light extinguished. 

Pride can motivate positive growth, can push us to be the better selves that we so love and admire. 

Pride can be a realistic awareness of your assets and a willingness to deploy them in life. 

Pride can be recognizing that you are OK, that you are valuable and good just as you are. 

Pride can be loving yourself– and demanding to be loved.

So ask yourself:

  1. What are you afraid to do, say, or reveal about yourself out of fear of being called: stuck-up, conceited, a braggart, arrogant, too loud, too disruptive, too much– in short, Prideful?
  2. What are some other words society uses for Pride other than what I listed here? For instance, does calling a woman a “bitch” sometimes mean someone thinks she is too Proud? 
  3. What insults are being used to control you and lower your self-esteem?
  4. What systems of power would be threatened by you having Pride?
  5. What are some awesome things about yourself?
  6. In what ways could you grow, to further honor your extraordinary nature?
  7. Are you ashamed of anything? Are you right to be ashamed of any of those things?
  8. Were you taught that talking about yourself too much, or even at all, was rude, arrogant, or otherwise unattractive?
  9. What could you gain by having higher self-esteem?