he was a gentle and sensitive soul, and therefore had a short temper, which is why he went straight after everything with an ax...

    Michael Redhill wrote a novel called Martin Sloane. It is the first book that I ever literally threw against a wall in anger. I was so attached to the characters and so furious at their actions that my only recourse (it seemed) was to chuck it. My vindication came when I hand-sold it to a library colleague after I read it. She reported in a couple days later to tell me that she hated me, that she'd become so agitated while reading it that she'd shoved it off the other side of the table where she was sitting. (She has also not forgotten it over the fifteen years since it was published.) The book contains these words: 

I'd bounced back and forth from one place to another over the ten years, going from a basement to a flat and finally to a house, as if I were coming out of a long hibernation underground. ... 

Keeping busy and the passage of time were the only things that helped. 

Strangers no longer automatically lowered their eyes from mine. I did not give off rads of grief. I wore my normalcy like a lead shield and sometimes I even smiled at people on the streets. ... Sometimes I laughed.

    Be cautious of assigning intent to others' every action and choice, even their life as a whole. Sometimes what you see as a pattern or a decision may instead be some bad luck and collateral results.

     I am a naturally affectionate person. I like to express it, and I appreciate receiving it. Being deprived of it is a misery.
     I am a communicator. Not a huge phone-talker, I rarely initiate calls, though under certain circumstances they are a rare joy. I love mail. I text frequently. I have several email addresses for various reasons.
     I am different from most people. Extra sensitive, extra effusive, extra loyal, extra affected by the things other people do. Being slighted by a friend can bruise me for days, regardless of the logic or reasonableness or fairness of letting it go. By the same token, even a really small thing--a FB mention of something that reminded a friend of me, or a silly email, a photo of a friend's lunch, a kind word--can make my whole week.

[the title quotation is by Bohumil Hrabal, from I Served the King of England]