A little bit crazy-angry

I like to think that I am pretty level headed. I don't think I rush to conclusions, or get carried away by emotion. In fact, the more tense or emotional things get the more likely I am to try and change the subject or leave. But it turns out I have my buttons. There are a few subjects that can make me go a little crazy. And by crazy, I mean angry. It turns out that a lot of those buttons were pressed on my mission.

Here are the ones I know for sure about, though who knows what other ones lay beneath my seemingly calm exterior.

1. anti-feminist digs
2. teasing girls about weight gain
3. having my friends yelled at


Okay, so admittedly, number three is probably a button for most people. I had never had it happen to me before I went on my mission because my friends tend to be, well, totally awesome and therefore people don't usually yell at them. But Mormon missionaries aren't the favorites in Greece and we all got yelled at a lot. I didn't start getting angry about it until I really learned all the words they were saying. I didn't start yelling back until I was almost done with my mission. Anyway, it's pretty obvious that a missionary shouldn't be screaming at potential investigators so that's what I mean by crazy.

So number two hasn't happened since I stopped hanging out with boys in their teens. I feel there might be a misconception among insecure adolescent boys that telling girls, particularly girls that you like and intimidate you, that they are fat is a form of flirting. Has anyone else ever come across this? I had a bunch of friends in high school and on my mission fall victim to this. It's a weird thing that I think is just a result of not really knowing how to interact with someone you like. Maybe it's a form of trying to put someone down to make yourself feel better and at the same time get closer to them. I don't know. But it really gets to me. I threw a dictionary at a boy's head once for doing it. Honestly, I think I mostly just confused him. I don't think he realized what he had done.

Number 1 still gets me every time. Oh man, women's issues are huge for me. I am really sensitive to them and can get irrationally angry really fast. Now that I have two daughters it is even a bigger deal. The tiniest things can set me off. Back when I was in Sunday School and not in Primary I would sometimes have to say long prayers to have the spirit before I could make a comment after someone brought up some damaging folklore about our Heavenly Mother. Every time, EVERYTIME someone makes a joke disparaging women I have to take a deep breath and make sure I don't make a disproportional response. Just about all of them are done without hurtful intentions and my automatic response (pull out my machete and hack them to pieces) is rarely appropriate. Good grief, when I taught at BYU I gave one of my classes such a stern lecture on writing using non-sexist language that at least five mentioned it specifically in my teacher ratings (FYI the non-sexist language I talked to them about was that instead of just "he" or "she" you have to use "he or she" or pluralize it to "they" if it is not referring to a specific person. It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal...except it turns out it is to me.)

So there you go. If you are ever bored and you want to see what it is like for Anna Lewis to get foamy mouth mad go ahead and push one of those buttons. Probably a good idea to wear a helmet.