angerThis is going to be something very personal that I’ve never shared. There are times that I’ve watched the show Dexter and I’ve said to myself, “I could do that.” There are people in my life that have angered me so much that I could actually put them on a table, wrap them in plastic, and dissect them piece by piece.

We all have a dark side. For those of you who want to bullshit yourself through life and believe you don’t actually have a dark side, you’re full of shit.

You see, there’s not much difference between love and hate. Love is a very strong emotion, and hate is a very strong emotion. And I can totally understand acts of crime, rage, people beating each other up, murder. I get it.

You see, I grew up with a woman who was extremely dark. My mother tried to commit suicide with me in the car when I was three and a half years old. It was a rainy day. We were at my grandmother’s house in Queens. I was five years old. I had my stuffed animal, Jojo, with me and my Beagle, Jess. My grandmother was a Jewish grandmother that loved to nag.

Obviously, that day she must’ve triggered my mom in a way that my mom hadn’t been triggered in a long time. My mom got into the car, which was a ’67 maroon Pontiac Catalina. Google it. It’s a pretty cool-looking classic car right now. Anyway, we drove. We left Queens and headed back to the Bronx.

It was raining that misty rain. It was about 40 degrees in November. It was cold and I was in the back seat and I didn’t even realize that I was about to have my entire life changed. There was a car stopped in the left hand lane, blinkers were on. My mother sped up and said hold on. And we went 65 miles an hour into a parked car. I remember the explosion. I remember everything. I remember four more cars piling into the back of us. And I remember getting out of the car. And I remember the cop looking at my mother and saying, ma’am you didn’t break, which my mother denied.

My mother had a lot of rage. I see my mom get into fights — fights with herself. One time she was in Bloomingdales and got into an argument with somebody. It was herself in the mirror.

I grew up with a lot of rage in the house and I’ve had a lot of rage too. In my 20s, I remember I was a bartender/bouncer in Manhattan. One night, a guy came in and started harassing the female bartender. I came in at 8:00. He looked at me, and my female bartender looked at me and said, David get rid of this guy, he’s been harassing me for three hours. I’ve always been a protector of women, and looked at the guy and I said, which guy, is it that guy?

Being the macho raging maniac that I was, I jumped over the bar, slid backwards, and slipped. I ripped my favorite jeans, a pair of vintage Levis with Snoopy patches on it. I looked at the guy and he started laughing. I got so angry I jumped over the bar, put him in a headlock, put my fingers in his eyes, and told him that if he makes a move, I’m going to fucking kill him. Then I threw him out on his ass.

And as I did it, I said, “you never harass a woman again, you piece of shit.” I was triggered. Rage can trigger me.

I remember one time I threw the coffee table out the window. I remember another time, I got into a fight, mouth to mouth, eye to eye in the streets of New York because somebody cut me off. I remember kicking a cab one time.

I have rage inside. We all do. It’s called emotions, but it’s also frustrated emotions that we have not let out through discussions and talking.

You see, that’s what rage is. I’m sure some of you have been in relationships where you just feel like killing the other person. Do you want to know why? Because you’re with somebody who doesn’t understand you. You can’t communicate with them, so you want to physically kill them. I’m sure people have cut you off in traffic, and you just want to destroy them. I’m sure that you’ve walked out and someone has dented your car, and you just want to do things to them.

Rage, man! I have it. We all have it inside. It’s called our dark side. There are times that we get so dark that we think to ourselves, “Wouldn’t it be fun to just ram the person in front of us at the light? Someone walks in the subway, and they’re right next to you, invading your personal space, and you want to move away from them. A woman comes over to you, and she’s in your face, screaming and yelling at you, and you just want to fucking punch her.

But you don’t. You don’t. As human beings, controlled human beings, we have to learn how to control our rage.

Rage happens every single day. Rage is something we all have. We get pissed at other people. How many times have you worked with people who don’t do a good job? So you just want to scream and yell at them.

How many times are you with your kid, and they drive you nuts, and you just want to scream and yell?

You have to control that. You have to realize that we all have that dark side. We all are capable of killing. I remember one time, I sat down with a convicted murderer. I remember him saying to me, “You have it inside. We all do.”

He said I couldn’t control it. I remember he explained it all to me, what happened and how it happened. You see, we all have rage inside. We all wish we carried a baseball bat to literally fucking beat the crap out of the person that cut us off, so those of you denying it and thinking you don’t have it, let’s get real and in touch with ourselves.

You need to take the rage and turn it into creative energy. So how do you do that? First off, you have to recognize the rage as just being a frustrated child. If you’ve ever seen a child throw a temper tantrum, it really is just anger. If you’re angry at somebody, and you feel like Dexter Morgan.

You have to ask yourself, why are they triggering me in that way? What is it about them in this present moment that is making me feel this way?

It usually comes out of the relationship. You’re probably not being heard. You’re probably not feeling them. They’re probably not feeling you. You’re probably not being able to communicate.

The thing is, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to control all my rage and effectively communicate with everybody. When I’m not being heard, I feel like a little kid, and I just want to throw a temper tantrum all over again. I want to punch things and throw things through the wall.

The other day, my iDrive system was driving me nuts. It wouldn’t fucking release a phone call, so I punched it. Rage. Rage is frustration that’s been built up because you have nobody to talk to, so I strongly suggest that, if you’re walking around with rage or anger, you get some coaching or consulting, or go see a therapist, and work on it.

Communication is the key to life. Recognize the risks. Realize you’re not a murderer or a rapist. Realize you have these thoughts, and then ask yourself, why? What triggered it? And then start communicating your way through it.

If you get angry at somebody, look at them and say, you know what, I want to put you on the table and Dexter you, but I’m not going to because I’m a sane person. The reason why I feel this way is because our dynamic and communication don’t work, and I want to improve this so I don’t feel angry. Or, you’ve triggered me because you reminded me of my childhood or my mom, whatever it might be.

So, acknowledge the rage. Don’t think that you’re wrong or weird for it, and give in. And communicate better.