I Take One Pill A Day For My Anger

For most of my life, I thought anger was simply part of who I was.

It took me years to understand that anger does not only live inside you. It spills onto other people. It damages trust. It changes how people feel around you. And eventually, if you are not careful, it can cost you the very people you thought would always stay.

In this episode of THEE BIG SWING, I share one of the most personal stories I have ever told. I talk about my childhood, the experiences that shaped me, the mistakes I made as a husband, father, friend, and coworker, and the moment I began to realize I could not keep living the same way.

This is not about making excuses for my past.

It is about taking responsibility for it.

I talk about therapy, medication, self-reflection, emotional maturity, generational pain, and the difficult work of learning how to forgive myself without pretending the damage did not happen.

At some point, I had to face a painful truth:

I could not keep hurting people and assume they would keep staying.

That realization became one of my biggest swings.

If you have ever wondered whether it is too late to become a different person, I hope this episode reminds you that it is not.

At 61 years old, I finally feel like I am truly ready to live.

Because sometimes the biggest swing you will ever take is not changing your circumstances.

It is having the courage to change yourself.

Recording note: This is one of the earlier recordings of THEE BIG SWING, captured before the show’s current audio setup. The sound is less polished than newer episodes, but the story remains central to the emotional foundation of the project.

Companion song: This episode is paired with an original companion song I Hurt Many People, performed by Marcus Reede inspired by its emotional core.

The episode tells the story.
The reflection goes deeper.
The song carries the feeling.

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THEE BIG SWING with Lloyd Hassell

There's a version of you that existed before something shifted - before a conversation, a decision, a thing you almost didn't say. You don't always recognize the moment it happened. You just notice, later, that you're not who you were.

This is a reflective podcast about those moments: the emotional reckonings and subtle internal recalibrations that change our trajectory over time - and the possibilities still available in life.

Each episode explores what happens when curiosity, courage, accountability, or reflection opens a new way of seeing ourselves and the world.

Through personal reflections and conversations, Lloyd explores changing identities, relationships, self-trust, and the quiet decisions that alter how we see ourselves over time.

This is for people who are quietly realizing they are not the same person anymore - and that there are still choices left.

The biggest swing isn't always dramatic.

Often, it's the shift inside that changes everything.

If something here stayed with you, you can reach me at lloyd@theebigswing.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, everyone, and thank you for checking in and listening in to the big swing. The show is all about people telling their stories of how they reached for something or tried something and what they learned from it. It doesn't matter if they succeeded or they failed, but we want the lessons to come through so that others can learn from their stories. So today I want to share one of my big swings. I happen to think that I'm that I am succeeding at it, but why don't I get right to it? I'm going to expose myself today and be sincere and open and share some things that normally I wouldn't share, readily share in conversation, but I think it's important. So with that said, I'm going to talk about my journey. It actually began in childhood, but when I decided to make some big changes was in 2023. And the reason is because I had lived with anger from the time I was a kid. And that anger led to destroying and disrupting relationships in my life. And it led to a lot of self-loathing, and it led to ruined relationships. It was pretty sad. You know, generally I found myself to be a nice guy and quiet and respectful, a little excitable, but it didn't take much for someone or something to act as a trigger for me to then literally explode emotionally. I did not have much emotional maturity or intelligence. I thought my anger was part of my personality. And at some point, thankfully, I started to think that perhaps it wasn't my personality that the anger stemmed from, but maybe it was just from some biological things that I inherited from my parents. So I began to search because I was tired of hurting people, I was tired of hurting my loved ones, I was tired of being unhappy. So uh my therapist at the time, or prior, years prior, he had suggested that I try um some uh drug that a psychiatrist might think was helpful for me given my behaviors, and I was staunchly against it. In fact, um I had been offered drug therapy many years prior and refused to take any of the drugs. I can tell you now I take an antidepressant. I take one pill a day. Since I'm not a medical professional, I won't mention the medication because I don't want to steer anyone in the wrong direction. But uh this one pill a day has been an immense help to me. I started out with a dosage of 150 milligrams of this particular drug, and uh now I take 300 milligrams. What I found was, and I began taking it reluctantly, I think I can remember the date was April 9, 2023. I took the pill and within days I started to notice some changes. My anxiety levels had gone down. I stopped biting my nails, and I had been a lifelong nail biter. I started to notice, to my surprise, that I didn't want to go into flash anger if a trigger presented itself. I began to notice that I was willing to take a moment to think first before I lashed out at anyone, or before I decided to condemn someone. You see, in times past for decades, since childhood, that's what I did. You know, I recently told a couple of people that, you know, I never learned to protect people's feelings. Growing up, you know, punishment was a thing in our house. Beatings and yelling and screaming and reprimand and just things that would make a child feel bad. And um so I think subconsciously I was taught to, you know, hurt and destroy, not protect people's feelings. And that's what I did. I did that socially, I did that with loved ones, children, both of my wives. I did that at work. If I didn't like what was happening or being said, I was a ticking time bomb that would explode and explode almost uncontrollably. I felt like a Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. I didn't know how I could be a nice guy and then be such a monster when I was angry. It wasn't until my late 50s that I decided I have to do something because if I don't, I'm gonna run out of people, I thought. I'm gonna run out of relationships. Almost all of the women in my life that I had dated, even from my teenage years, I had been a monster with at certain times in the relationship. I can remember as a child, and I'm not looking for sympathy or empathy here, but I I think I figured it out myself, and then somewhat with the help of my latest therapist. My mother beat me quite a bit as a child, and I can remember back to 1969 or 70, and I can remember clearly one day a beating she gave me, and I remember running away from her and yelling, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. And as the story goes, I think that that occurred the me, you know, screaming at her that I hate you. That happened often, but my mother would beat me with wire hangers or belts or belt buckles or shoes or extension cords or broomsticks, almost anything she could get her hands on. And you know, we weren't close. I loved her, but I think subconsciously I resented that, and I think as a result, and I'm not looking for any excuses, but I think there's a correlation. I developed emotional problems with women, and I could become violently angry, I could yell, I could scream, I could insult, I could glare, I could be mad, I could hit. I mean, I told you I'm going to reveal myself and be honest, right? So I have to do that in order for me to be real. I've made amends as much as I could for some of my behavior, and then in some relationships there's been no repair, and there may never be any repair. So I'll continue on with the story. My father was a stern guy, a serious guy. It only took a look for him, from him, to make a difference. But you know, he he was one to to give a a a good beating to as well. But he was verbally, he could cut you with his words. Um I remember being five years old and him uh slapping me one day while we were in the car driving. You know, my father's long since dead, so I can share this story. Um he you know, he had a habit of using cocaine. And so I believe one day we were in his car, it was a rainy gray day, and I think I saw him pick up this white powder and put it in his nose or to his nose. So, what is a five-year-old boy gonna do? He's gonna copy what his father did. And I did, and man did that big guy slap the hell out of me. His hands were always heavy. He was 6'6 and a big strong guy, and he got violently mad with me, probably used profanity and scared the hell out of me. But I mean, that's that's what I that's what I that's what I that's what I knew as a child. And I've heard it said before that hurt people hurt others. Well, I think that's true. And I have to give my mother a little bit of a break because she explained to me how her father was abusive. She explained that when she was a teenager, she liked to dance so much, and she wanted to go out and have fun, but her father forbade her to. So at night she would sneak out of the house, and when she returned, he would beat her brutally. And I think, if I recall correctly, she even was sent away to a convent for punishment. So I just became the recipient of hurt that was dished out prior to my ever coming into existence. I mean, I'm sure she loved me, but that's the way she knew to deal with me. And uh, some of the beatings were bad. You know, I can remember being locked in basements, in the basement, in an old house we lived in. A very old, dirty, rodent, infest infested basement, I imagine. I never wanted to go down there. But after a beating, I'd be locked in the basement, and I can remember from inside the basement, knocking on the door and yelling and screaming to let me out. And eventually I was let out, but you know, that can't help a child's psyche. So as a father, you know, I had great intentions. I have five children. Eventually and inevitably, I became abusive verbally, and with my oldest son, I really probably ruined his psyche with the anger and the violence, and actually, even once physically fighting with him, and it was just bad. And frankly, I don't know if I'll ever be able to repair the relationship with him that I did so much damage to his psyche. My intentions were very good. I wanted to be a great father, but looking back on it, I was not emotionally equipped to be one. I think it's sad, but back to the journey. That's that's the beginning. Well, in 2023, I started to make changes. And I've been changing ever since. And I have learned to, I didn't have patience before. I didn't have the ability or didn't exercise the ability to stop, listen, and think before responding negatively. I do now, and I practice that. I'm better at work, I'm better at home. I did a lot emotionally to contribute to two marriages ending in divorce. I take ownership for that. That anger was not under control. And it's not an excuse, but I knew I had to finally do something about it. What would I like someone to take away from my story? One, change is possible. In 2023, I was 59. That's pretty not late in life, but that's an ex that's an advanced age. I had decided I couldn't I couldn't stay the way I was. The other lesson is that we can learn to love ourselves because prior I didn't love myself. I didn't treat myself particularly well emotionally. So it wound up that in November of 2024, after having done a lot to damage this marriage, this ending in divorce, um I decided I needed to be by myself. So I moved into one of our properties by myself, and that's where I learned to be alone, be quiet, uh, learn forgiveness for to myself, for myself, for others, to learn patience, to learn how to live by myself, because prior I had been very needy. I needed a woman's or felt I needed a woman's attention and adoration and uh validation. I was emotionally immature. I had to learn how to be at peace. It was a necessary part of the journey. Because now I am happy. I know how to be at peace because I am at peace. I know how to accept others' behavior, I know how to respond emotionally, intelligently to things that were prior triggers for me. I know how to be kind. I am not by any means perfect, because I don't even know what perfect is, but I am a lot better off than I was before. And everyone that comes in contact with me is better off because I'm willing to give people a break. I'm not hurt anymore to the point where I need to lash out at others. There was a time, an incident in June of 2022 where I was on at work, and a coworker, they really started a verbal altercation with me. Um they but they had seen me in action at work before, uh, ripping into someone. And so they were on guard to take their opportunity to let me know that they would not allow that from me. And that's basically how the incident began. And so um they used some profanity, that was a trigger for me, and I lashed into them. I referenced their sexual orientation, which is against federal guidelines here in the U.S. My employer sanctioned uh disciplinary action, which resulted in me losing quite a lot of income, the potential income. Uh my income was escalating on the job, and then all of a sudden that income was cut. Probably hundreds of thousands each year since. But had that not happened, probably by April of 2023, I would not have agreed to take the medication and attempt to change. So things happen as they do, and um that may have sent me on my journey. Life is better today. I have practiced treating myself well and loving myself. I'm repeating these things because they're so poignant to me. The lesson here or the takeaway, I hope, is that it's never too late. I'm 61 now, and I'm in the third act of my life, and finally I feel like I'm really ready to live.