Donald | Te Atatū South
“Last experience of anger, coaching a team. I coach a team out South Auckland, Manurewa High School.
I was angry that we were leading into semi-finals for basketball, and the boys just waltzed on in late. Training starts at five. They turn up at five past five, 10 past five, not realising how serious this game was.
So how I dealt with it was, we called a huddle, and I spoke with the boys and I spoke to them about being on time. Life skills; kind of life skills, that if they continue to do this, then when they get a job, get a real job their bosses can fire them, give them warnings, because I was like that when I was young. Used to turn up to work late and get growlings from my boss and whatnot. Just expressed how important it is to turn, turn up to trainings on time. Yeah, that’s how I spoke to them about it, but with a stern voice, through that they understand.
I mean growing up myself with a tough background, anger’s like ah, how can I put it? Bruce Banner in Incredible Hulk; once you get in a rage, the anger just gets bigger and bigger, and like the Incredible Hulk, it just gets out of control.
The way I’ve dealt with anger for myself is, if I get into an argument with my wife and I get really angry, I just go for a walk, or even jump in my car. I know you shouldn’t jump in your car and go for a drive but man, I just go for a drive and it cools, it just calms me down. I think I learned from my past experience, coming from a violent upbringing and background, I just didn’t want to go down the same path that I saw growing up, yeah.
When I, at the heart of my anger, the worst time I’ve got angry, I felt depressed. Depression settled in. I was just angry over the way I was treated, my family was treated. I was, it just takes you to a dark place when you’re angry all the time. It just, there’s a constant reminder that things aren’t going your way. What I’ve learned is, man I needed to talk to somebody about my anger issues, especially my wife, close friends, about being angry all the time. Because as a kid that’s all I saw, probably 80 per cent from the age, I can think back as far as four years old right up to the time I left home which is around about 21.
It’s not an environment that I wanted to raise my kids in, so yeah something had to give in the end. I’ve got to make the choice whether I keep continuing going down the same path as how I grew up, or I change, change that different tack or direction where I don’t want to see my two kids, living a life of fear and anger every day.“
