I don't even know how I came to this realization, but something occurred to me late last night. I'm trigger-stamping this for potential emotional abuse stories.

My dad had a temper. Like, a bad temper. Most of the time, he was very friendly and excitable. His little tantrums were rare, but they were highly destructive, threatening, and you couldn't really tell what was going to set him off.

An example: We were practicing softball one day. Just me and him. He didn't have a glove, so he used mine to catch, and I pitched the balls to him. He was trying to teach me something or the other, and apparently I wasn't getting it, because he was getting frustrated. As his frustration rose, he started throwing the ball back to me harder each time. Keep in mind that I didn't have a glove, and this was an actual softball, not a foam Nerf ball or something.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen him like this, and I'd learned from past experience that saying anything or walking away would've made him lose his ****, so I just kept trying to throw the ball the way he wanted me to. Yeah, didn't work. Eventually, he whipped the ball back at me. I had to dodge it, and it landed on the other side of the street. Dad angrily asked me why I didn't catch it, and then tells me to go get it. We continued on in this manner, with him being all pissy and not a word passing between us. I was around 12 at the time.

Another example: On a drive home (him driving, me riding passenger), we were talking about my guitar lessons. It started out simply enough, with him asking if I enjoyed it, if I wanted to keep taking lessons, yadda yadda. I said that I loved it and (jokingly) that I was going to be a rockstar someday. Out of nowhere, he grabbed me by the throat and twisted my head to face him. He went off on this lengthy, profanity-laden rant about my life decisions. He asked me - and I have no idea where the hell this came from or what it was supposed to mean - but he asked me if I wanted him and my mom to become alcoholics and start abusing me, if that would make me happy. Because apparently child abuse is a prerequisite for becoming a rockstar? I don't know. I was around 14 at the time.

And honestly, these aren't even the worst examples, but it's a good illustration in that it encompasses all of the problems I had with my dad growing up, and might explain some of my psychological hang-ups. You see, I was a straight-A student, musician and athlete who took college-level courses over the summer for fun (or rather, to get out of the house). My dad got frustrated with me because I got a B in Physics. I could've handled mere disappointment. That part doesn't really bother me. It was more the fact that, if I tried to talk with him about it openly, there was a chance he'd fly into a rage. Nothing I did was ever enough, and I couldn't stand up for myself. I felt kind of powerless.

To the point, then. I'm starting to think that these incidences could explain the anxiety I have either when I need to confront someone or when I've made a mistake. I work in a high-stress environment (casino) where I regularly have to deal with angry drunks and vast sums of money. As you can imagine, freezing up is a terrible response when an angry drunk is screaming obscenities at you and your fellow co-workers and there's $10K at stake.

So, basically, I need to work on becoming more comfortable handling myself in confrontational situations. And I think I realize now why I tend to freeze up, but I'm still not sure exactly what triggers it. There are times when I'll shut down a heated argument with ease and precision, and nary a flutter of emotion passes through my psychopathic little lizard brain. I've been in fistfights, and haven't felt much of anything resembling an emotion. But then, why do I freeze up at times where there's much less tension and much less of a threat? I don't get it.