If you asked someone about me, they would tell you I am aloof, quiet, serious, soft-spoken, docile, and dumb. They might not mean the same thing, but all these adjectives point to one fact—I am not someone who confronts, fights, or argues. That’s just not me. But there’s one thing I have done several times in my life: snapping at people I feel safe with, or people I feel powerful over. I have been ashamed of it for many years and successfully brushed it under the bed—until a few days ago.
I developed a tendency to snap at kids—my daughter, my niece—and I felt nice about it. It was shameful and made me question hard for the first time: Why does it feel satisfying or relieving? Probably because three- or four-year-olds who really love you with all their hearts feel heartbroken when you snap at them and hold on to you more fiercely. The tiny innocent ones never fight back. It gives you a dopamine high because this was you for decades. Is it wrong? Yes. Does it remind you of your helplessness? A thousand times, yes.
I went over this for hours. The first time I ever snapped at someone was in kindergarten when a girl snatched my hairband. My voice echoed in the otherwise quiet classroom and drew attention from my teacher. I got an earful of scolding and made sure never to lose control in school again. Then, for years to follow, I often snapped at my parents and sister. When in college, I snapped at my best friend, and she didn’t talk to me for two weeks. Around this time, I also enjoyed a new freedom of movement, so I vented at autowallahs, vendors, tailors, shopkeepers. I would not lie—I felt more alive and confident doing this. The girl who always sympathized with the underprivileged was preying on their powerlessness.
Then came marriage, and with it came the loss of power again. I did snap a few times, but the repercussions were worse. The power imbalance was clear. I had an image to preserve—that of the peacemaker, of the ideal woman, of the coy bride. Years turned into decades, and here I was, itching to snap at someone instead of being at the receiving end. And when it’s finally happening, there can be nothing more degrading. This got me thinking: What makes me give up my control so easily? Why am I like this despite deciding I would be better next time? As always, I turned to ChatGPT for learning, and here is what I understood.
I was an expressive kid—enthusiastic, loud, stubborn, headstrong, and I had the habit of blabbering. I would blurt out things before outsiders I was not supposed to know, or worse, tell. So the elders in my life decided to beat me up to control me and my misgivings. The beatings did not change me, but the fact that my behavior shamed my parents changed something in me.
I grew up a little more, and I started getting instructed on how to behave as a girl. It often included hiding your extreme emotions—anger was a trait discouraged in girls, and crying didn’t suit the narrative of empowered women. So emotions were seen as a weakness. My mother often cried out of helplessness and was dismissed by my father. And according to my mother, only my father was entitled to be angry.
I was a teen when I became fascinated by love stories and TV dramas. However, it was not the hero that won my admiration. It was the heroine. Almost all of them had one trait in common: they were so sorted. They might be thin, fat, pretty, ugly, extroverted, introverted, but they were calm. They were always praised. They were all superwomen—good at work, good at home chores. They always smiled, even when hurled with abuses, and were finally able to win over their foes. I internalized this image and worked hard on it. I wanted to please people without even knowing it. I wanted to be the queen of drama without creating one. This obsession with being the good one stopped me from expressing myself, from feeling anything negative. So every time something wrong happened, it was them, but never me, because all dramas need a villain to make the heroine look good.
With time, I was so engulfed by my own conspiracy theories that I stopped growing, stopped taking feedback. My struggles with mental health and living in a joint family complicated this more. Somewhere between wanting to be the “good girl” and fearing the consequences of being anything else, I learned a very strange emotional skill: I outsourced all negative emotions to my environment.
If something negative happened, I became the victim, and the circumstances or the people involved became the villains. I became the heroine, taking it all in stride and maintaining that smile. I was obsessed with becoming the bigger person, the good girl I promised myself. I liked being praised for being the mature and sorted one.
My brain was washed, but my body, wiser than my mind, kept storing what I refused to feel. I hoarded disappointments. I hoarded guilt. I hoarded hurt. I hoarded unspoken sentences. Psychologists call this emotional repression, but to me, it was like carrying a heavy pot filled with hot molten lava with caution. It eventually spilled—usually where I felt the safest.
Children, family members, service workers—they were “safe zones.” Not morally, but neurologically. They can’t punish me. They won’t abandon me. I have power here. Hence, my displaced aggression played out here.
But underneath the displaced aggression is something deeper: learned helplessness.
I had internalized the fact that anger was bad. Showing emotions was a sign of weakness. Crying in public is shameful. So I became calm, soft-spoken, endlessly adjusting. I became the peacemaker, not out of peace but out of survival. I perfected the art of silence.
And unknowingly, I started seeing power as the permission to finally release what I’d accumulated—the anger and resentment.
That’s why snapping gives me a temporary high. A momentary sense of “I exist” and “I am seen,” followed by hours of shame because the anger was never meant for a child or a tailor or a sibling. It was meant for all the moments where I did not allow myself to be human.
And this is where the cycle becomes tragic: The “good girl” image I built became my prison.
It’s painful to admit it today, but it’s also liberating to see it clearly.
So what do I do with this?
I learn.
I am still learning.
I still slip.
But for the first time, I’m not running away from the truth.
I’m learning to pause before reacting.
I’m learning to breathe instead of bursting.
I’m learning to speak instead of suppressing.
And most importantly, I’m learning that being “the good one” is not a personality—it’s a coping mechanism.
The BIOSCOPED Life 