I’m having problems with my neighbors. They moved into the apartment above me about a year ago, and ever since then, they’ve been getting me pretty angry. I don’t know why exactly, but for some ungodly reason they are up at 5:00am every day, and so am I, because of them. I am not a morning person, and honestly, if I had it my way, my day would start at the crack of noon – hence the conflict.
I probably wouldn’t voice my supreme disappointment if their only transgression were waking me up, but there are many other irritating factors about their early risings. They have weird habits, like rearranging their furniture at the crack of dawn (or earlier) in what seem-to-be high heels. Things are constantly sliding, creaking, cracking, falling, thumping, banging or crashing, and it all happens before sunrise.
Once they finish rearranging their living room, their daily morning marathon begins. It occurs precisely at 6:20am, each and every day, including the weekends. And then there’s me, lying awake for hours, furious and agitated, crazed with anger. While I was trying to calm myself the other day, I started to think about aggression, which is first-and-foremost, an emotion, which I can thankfully control thus far.
Emotions mainly consist of three parts: behavior, feelings and physiological responses (both autonomic and hormonal) to a variety of situations. Depending on where a person comes from, and what the traditions/customs/norms of that region are, emotions and their triggers could manifest themselves differently. To an extent, they are classically conditioned responses.
The learning of these responses primarily occurs in the amygdala. It’s the part of the brain that organizes behavioral, hormonal and autonomic input, some of which could produce emotions like fear, disgust, or what I’m dealing with, anger. As one of the most basic and “primitive” (meaning oldest) parts of the brain, it is also involved in processing the effects of various biological odors that affect our sexual or maternal behavior, like pheromones. Think of a lioness protecting her cubs and you’ll get the idea.
Stimulating the amygdala causes a whole slew of responses, mainly emotions and learning, with input coming from a number of different sources, like the olfactory system (smell), the association cortex of the temporal lobe (sound, motion, sight and touch), and the rest of the limbic system that also influences behavior. Basically, the amygdala is stimulated when we perceive particular situations with emotional significance, for example: the early morning ritual of annoying neighbors.
The dictionary defines aggression as “hostile or violent behavior or attitudes toward another; readiness to attack or confront”. After a year of lingering anger towards my neighbors, I’ve now progressed into the unstable realm of aggression, but thankfully, writing is therapeutic enough for me to restrain myself. Control is everything, so it goes. –Liz Belilovskaya
