i hate you because it's not your fault

I ask him what was upsetting him. I get no response. So I blindly console him. It’s times like these when sympathy works best, not empathy. You don’t need to understand.

But it’s not working. Every time he speaks, he yells. I apologise.

“IT’S NOT YOU,” he tells me. But he continues to holler.

Every single thing – even the minutest – pisses him off. Every word I say, he somehow perceives it as me acting “against him”.

I apologise again.

“I’M NOT UPSET AT YOU.”

Really? He has an odd way of showing it.

Whatever he is angry about; whatever his mind is preoccupied with, it doesn’t matter. He needs something, someone, to let his rage out on. And he has chosen to take it out on me. It’s frustrating; aggravating. Whatever it is, it wasn’t my fault. It’s completely unwarranted that I have to suffer his wrath whenever it suits his needs.

I want to help him. I genuinely want to, despite his undue rudeness. But I don’t know how. If he is going to reject my concern, then maybe I’m the wrong person he’s talking to. He should go and infuriate someone else. Someone that allows themselves to be a target of fury. A role that I, alas, refuse to play.

Nonetheless, he has turned to me. I can’t really pinpoint why.

“IF I DON’T EXPEL SOME OF THIS ANGER, I MIGHT GO INSANE,” he says.

And then I get it. I am the only one he can come to. It doesn’t matter to him if he tells me the whole story, part of it, or none of it. As long as I am with him; as long as he has someone he can trust, it will make him feel better.

I am that one person. Am I going to just shatter his confidence? Is my loyalty that shallow?

So I decide to go along with him. It’s exasperating, yes. But sometimes you just have to make that extra effort to bring someone back to their normal self.

In the end, they will show you that getting yelled at for no reason was for all the right reasons.