Dealing with anger

Books on mindfulness are good. I have da anger problems too, heavy cunting all the time for me. I don't care about being mean to others but being angry all da time or a toxic cunt to all da others takes its toll on da body mon.

Were you "a very mild mannered child and teenager" because you were suppressing any anger or rage back then? That could be why you're needing to express it now...because you were a good 'lil' boy.

Some people just have a short fuse. Recognizing that flaw in yourself is a good first step.

Work on counting to ten before you fly off the handle.

The Work of Byron Katie. There are books, podcasts and YouTube videos out there. It’s very simple and was 100x more effective than therapy for me.

Why not turn into something useful? Go to a Trump rally!

Are you drinking lots of coffee or energy drinks? too much of that can trigger anger.

I don’t snap anymore. I just tell myself if I’m still angry about the issue tomorrow I will address it with the person once I’ve slept on it and considered it rationally. I’m almost always over it by the next day. If I do feel an issue needs to be addressed (which is rare these days) lm in a much calmer head space so can discuss it without losing my temper. It’s amazing how something that so enraged me for a few minutes/hours/afternoon can seem so trivial the next day. It has been the best and most life altering decision I’d ever made. These days people are surprised when I tell them I have a temper because some have never seen it.

If you were “mild mannered” you likely didn’t learn how to express anger in a healthy, socially appropriate way. You grew up as a compliant pleaser and now that you are chaffing against this role you don’t have the emotional tools to process or express negative emotions. There are great resources online and mindfulness has some easy, useful strategies for deescalation. It takes a lot of practice to rewire your brain, though.

Do you have a gun? Sometimes shooting a gun blows off steam. Even shooting at the sky can be very therapeutic.

You're being exposed to an asshole or many assholes. The damned truth!

R8 is correct. People who grew up not being allowed to express anger will see any non timid reaction as anger. They then expect you to go along with this family dynamic in YOUR public and social life.Or they push your buttons to express their own anger release onto you.

It all stems from upbringing. R8 is wise.

Exercise is a great outlet and will make you feel better overall, so it is easier to process those feelings. Frankly I don't know anyone who isn't pissed off these days.

^ Can't agree with this. Exercise for men releases more testosterone.

Has anyone read the classic The Angry Book by Dr. Theodore I. Rubin? I keep meaning to...

I learned to (mostly) manage it by making a decision to stop debasing myself. I have a naturally horrific temper and a short fuse and have experienced "rage blackouts". I've said monstrous things to people. There's almost like a switch I can choose to flip or not when I get riled up and it's a kill switch. I believe the "seeing red" thing comes from the over-pumping of blood. After a megaquake, every nerve in my body will feel like it's on fire for at least a day afterward and I'm be just so humiliated for having behaved that way, for having essentially thrown the situation at the wall to shatter rather than emotionally negotiating a proper response. I went to a shrink for CBT therapy. That was useless. But the act of just trying to do something about it and openly admitting what a problem it was gave me the psychological leverage I needed to hold that feeling at a safe distance in the moment. I haven't flown off the handle in more than a decade, at this point, though I still get easily frustrated and have the occasional private temper tantrum. And I can manage the oncoming itch of those rages much better now simply because I have the experience of being able to trust myself to manage them; I know I can do it. If you start keeping a log of every time you become furious, you'll likely see a pattern in what specifically is setting you off. And you can't change the world throwing whatever that thing is at you, but by being able to identify it you can circumvent your basest reaction to it.

First of all, breathe.

You can control anger.

Exercise, take a walk, change your environment.

Change your mood.

Change your thoughts.

Take time. You can fantasize about confrontation. Take action later, if necessary. The heat of the moment is often the worst time unless it’s an emergency. Otherwise, let it be. This too shall pass and it may only be a minor issue.

Finally, imagine different scenarios and how you’d react to the same trigger. Someone spills red wine on your white carpet. How would you react if the person responsible was a) your boss, b) your lover, or c) your child? Same trigger, but I’m sure we’d all respond differently based on the person. A tiny insight into yourself. Should reveal that you CAN control your actions even if you can’t control the feeling. Good luck.

Dude smoke a Bowl and stop taking yourself so seriously. Just Relax. Let's meet up in New Orleans for drinks next weekend.

OP - you haven't told us your age or sex. You are describing one of the signs of depression in men. You may need a therapist not a self help book.

I always trace back the anger to the root cause. CBT is useful for this as is a psychoanalytic approach (ex, inability to express anger as child, need to control things because you were controlled as a child). Whenever you are angry and want to blame someone else, realize that blame is being directed at yourself and a standard that you set often unintentionally. Anger only hurts you.

The other key thing I’ve learned is anger is an extroverted mode of depression. Feeling constantly angry is a more active form of depression - and feels safer for some people than felling helpless and down. Feeling constantly angry has always been a sign to me of deep rooted unhappiness and sadness. That’s why it’s so cathartic to express and vent. But not healthy - better to sort through the underlying throuhts and feelings and not react immediately.

As an aside - That’s why the Trump anger is so powerful. There are a lot of unhappy and depressed people who would never seek help but are finding an outlet for that sadness via anger. Communal anger therapy is considered ok - communal crying is not. But anger will destroy you - and harms the world as well.

You could have CTE. Did you play football growing up. How many head injuries have you had?

I have severe ptsd and sometimes the anger I feel scares me. It's so overwhelming, I'll have episodes where I am physically shaking and in tears because something triggers an episode. On the outside though, mostly I'm "flat ". This is not going to be a popular idea but I find I control my anger best by avoiding people as much as possible. No, it's not a cure but I live in a area where people tend to be rude and aggressive and I already have severe pre existing issues from things that have happened in my life so avoidance helps to an extent. The really weird thing is up until I was about 20 I could put up with anything and keep a smile on my face . I was actually fairly resilient for a while.

Thanks for the thought provoking posts, especially R19.

I ignor stupid people so miserable in their sad little lives they go around trying to provoke people. They are mentally insane.....ignor them and their antics or....smile at the idiots.They will think they've won and get tired of the juvenile games.

As you grow older, you find you just don’t care about things as much so you don’t get hurt or angry as easily. I’m not necessarily saying that is a good thing, but it’s kind of a consolation. By the way, I’m firmly convinced that anger is not a bad thing as long as it doesn’t become too destructive. It can be justifiable and self protective to stand up for what is right. Suppression and submission can be damaging too. Good luck in your struggle, OP.

OP, some wise person on another thread recommended a book titled "Everyday Zen" by Joko Beck. The best thing about the book is that is doesn't try to sell you any quick solutions for your problems, not even any mental exercises you could practice to improve or ease your state of mind. Nothing. But what it does it teaches you to think about life and what is real in a profoundly different way. And by teaching I mean - it forces you to engage and participate and wrestle, in your own way, with the ideas in the book. This is the best kind of teaching that there is.

In the book there is a story that resonated strongly with my own problem with anger (related to other people and just anger in general). I’ll copy it here - from a chapter “Do not be angry”:

[italic]Suppose we are out on a lake and it’s a bit foggy – not too foggy, but a bit foggy- and we’re rowing along in our little boat having a good time.  And then, all of a sudden, coming out of the fog, there’s this other rowboat and it’s heading right at us.  And… crash!  Well, for a second we’re really angry – what is that fool doing?  I just painted my boat!  And here he comes – crash! – right into it.  And then suddenly we notice that the rowboat is empty.  What happens to our anger?  Well, the anger collapses. . . I’ll just have to paint my boat again, that’s all.  But if that rowboat that hit ours had another person it it how would we react?  You know what would happen!  Now our encounters with life, with other people, with events are like being bumped by an empty rowboat.  But we don’t experience life that way.  We experience it as though there are people in that other rowboat and we’re really getting clobbered by them.  What am I talking about when I say that all of life is an encounter, a collision with an empty rowboat?  What’s that all about?[/italic]

R11, what about me (R2)?

I had the same issue OP, I would get into terrible fits of anger that would cause damage, and destroy my whole day in any case. Anger is incredibly draining and it makes you feel like shit afterwards. Now when something triggers me I ask myself "will this matter when I die", and the answer is usually "it won't matter in two hours". I know it's true, I have to state it to myself and once I do it makes my anger sharply decrease. Then I get kinda grumpy for a while until I forget about it. It beats spending hours at work in a state of near rage. It's silly but it works for me.

op = Brett Kavanaugh

Good post, r19.

I’m an introvert. I contain my anger & turn it inward...hence, depression.

Im so upset about my job I’m calling in sick the rest of the week. I can’t eat or sleep...

R24 it's strange but just the opposite has happened with me. It's like I have no reserve of inner strength left and everything hits me like salt in a wound. Everything just hurts so intensely non stop I was actually tougher 12 years ago then I am now.

R8, R11 and R19 are very insightful; thank you.

What would you suggest to an grown 'good lil boy' who never learned how to express anger in a healthy way? Instead I brood over it, being sullen, sulky and full of resentment.

Ironically, I seem to be a magnet for unstable people full of rage - people who, for the most part, don't show the same hostility towards others.

I would like to know what things at work make the OP angry?

I can relate, r31.

This world is fucked up. Seems like the nice I am the more people hate me.

I do get a lot of positive interactions from people when I keep a smile on my face.

But seems like a steady number of people just hate me for no fucking reason. I want to ask friends: why do people HATE me? What the fuck did I do? I don’t grimace. I don’t send out a negative vibe.

And my coworkers who just bitch & complain all the fucking time...instead of working...seem to be well loved.

But I can’t catch a break.

Does it have anything to do with the fact that I’m openly gay & all my immediate coworkers are Trump supporters?

R31 I have had the exact same experience, and honestly it's left me deeply embittered. If I had the resources I would move to a ranch out west and just care for animals.

[quote] "^ Can't agree with this. Exercise for men releases more testosterone. —Anonymous"

Testosterone is not the "bad guy"'here. Exercise is good stress relief. What is your age, O.P.? Low testosterone can be the cause of rage, poor impulse control, depression/worthlessness, poor appetite/weight gain, fatigue and poor aleep, irritability, low sex drive, etc. Please ask your physician for a testosterone blood level.

R33 annd R34: R31, interesting to hear that it isn't just me going through this. When I try to figure out what is happening, I wonder about my own role in these situations - if I subconsciously seek out angry people, and, failing to find them, create situations to intentionally incite anger in those around me? Or if those people were somehow 'sent' to get me to express my own anger?[italic]

[quote]Does it have anything to do with the fact that I’m openly gay...[/quote] [/italic]

Perhaps, but I have had several openly gay coworkers and colleagues do this to me as well.

Meant to sign R36 as R31

i bet that advice is from that Insta-shrink!

R36, and one of my tormentors at work is gay...he’s like their Roy Cohn. Instead of Uncle Tom he’s an Aunt Mary.

I could have written your entire first paragraph. I do the exact same thing.

In my case, the haters are all angry white men. Things first got tough for me at work when Trump got elected. Perhaps I’m paranoid, but I have wondered if the Trumpies are trying to drum out the non-Trumpies of good paying jobs. It’s like a hidden army to make non-Trumpies financially insecure...unstable...scared. A select few like as in the FBI.

(I’m beginning to really fear the midterms. Things are just getting crazy...the dirty tricks & trolls are everywhere. Trump has weaponized the news...all forms of it...)

But back to our inner worlds. Yes, I think we have subconsciously attracted these personal crucifixions. In a general way...like recognizing a pattern in an ink blot. We see things the way we subconsciously want them to be...and then they become real to us. So...even in an entirely different environment, we might subconsciously seek out the same things, such as confirmation of childhood beliefs like “I’m unworthy”, and find them. And produce the same monster.

Everybody has anger...wasn’t it Thoreau who said we all lead lives of quiet desperation? So...we don’t attract angry people per se. But maybe we piss people off with our integrity & kindness on a level even they don’t see. It’s nothing personal. It’s their own projections on us...as we have done to them.

And humanity is cruel. Just look at Medieval times. Punishing, humiliating, torturing and even executing people was a form of public entertainment. People crowded around to watch it happen.

Those are our ancestors.

People need an outcast to assuage their own fear. In the Trump era, people like us are considered as both weak & threatening. Even though we know that we are actually strong & harmless...because we don’t succumb to our barbaric instincts.

Nice people attract bullies. Bullying is human nature. Again, it’s nothing personal.

I don’t know about you, but to me, our conversation proves how connected humanity is. We each think we are alone in our suffering, but we aren’t. We are connected.

This connection is what will save us from the dirty tricks & trolls. AI can’t outsmart it.

We are in a new dark ages. We need to bring about a new age of reason.

The New Enlightenment.

[quote]Bullying is human nature. Again, it’s nothing personal.

When I have held onto this thought, things had improved - but it's so hard to maintain. I know DL shits on positive thought like [italic]The Secret[/italic], but keeping an optimistic outlook seems impossible at times, and taking action to change isn't possible unless you are optimistic about change.

Do we have to take action to change...doesn’t it happen naturally?

I am going to change jobs. I can’t take this one anymore.

I’ve been there almost 20 years. I wanted to stay a few more to retire from there. But I just can’t. I’m getting an ulcer.

It’s like ending a marriage. I’m very sad about it, but I can’t live like this anymore. I’m grieving the end of my longest relationship.

But I’m in an ok place. Not rich...but ok. Maybe I need a new beginning. Maybe this will work out well for me in the long run.

This will hurt them more than it will me. I will give a hell of an exit interview. Plus, they need me to do the work that I do for them. They will suffer without me.

Of course I won’t burn bridges on my way out. But I will answer questions honestly. I did see a coworker call another coworker a “faggot” via text in a department meeting. My boss does tolerate that kind of stuff. There’s no point in complaining about it...unless you’re on your way out. Let the chips fall where they may. Heck he may get a promotion for it...who knows.

So, r40. I guess we are here to lessons. How to take care of ourselves & our own thoughts regardless of what is going on around us or even happening to us. How to send out light & love from a broken heart.

Maybe when we forgive ourselves, we will be able to forgive others. We are only human. Stay the course...focus on love. We have to learn these lessons or we will never escape them...

I'm stuck living in a place where I have never fit and truly and deeply despise. I'm so unhappy here I pretty much avoid leaving the house . I wish i had left when I got the chance. Fuck being "pragmatic ". I spend my days hoping that I develop a terminal illness as soon as possible.

I’m sorry, r42.

I was able to leave a small midwestern town in the middle of nowhere.

FWIW, life sucks no matter where you live. It’s just a different kind of suck. Pick your suck.

R43 thanks . I know life can suck anywhere, but I just desperately wish I had picked a different type of suck. I won't go into details but trust me when I say life would have been better almost anywhere.

Is there no way you can move out of state, R42?

I recommend meditation.

Fall asleep with a guided meditation on YT on.

Life sucks. Deal.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Quit being THAT cunt we all hate....grow up slut.

R47, the only way I can explain it is with religious jargon...and I don’t want to agitate those offended by religion.

Maybe try reading “The Road Less Traveled.”

Life is hard. That’s the point. The gym is hard. Birth is hard. Accept it. Deal with it. Life is hard. But it happens.

How are you going to spend your time here?

I’m certainly not going to set the world on fire...and I’m fine with that. Both my parents were very successful but died too soon. I want to work less, stress less, rush less, manage less than they did.

I want peace of mind. More than anything else. And that’s fucking hard. But I still want it. I still strive for it.

And, predictably, the closer it is to my reach, the bigger the challenges the world sends my way. Sometimes it’s shocking.

But the only way through it is through it. The pain is temporary. This too shall pass. And then that will pass. And so on.

R45 unfortunately I can't for a number of complicated reasons. Among which are money ,employment and being stuck in a quasi caretaker role.

My old therapist used to trace anger (particularly obsessive anger) back to some kind of shame I was trying to conceal from myself. It's pretty common, especially in men. Shame is not an acceptable emotion to have - anger is. So, you end up stuck with that instead. It can't be resolved because that is the effect and not the cause. Also, with shame you often have to look at the role you played, and with anger - it's rarely focused on you. People have said that suicide is intense anger focused in on one's self... but a lot of the research into it shows shame.

Example: I'm ashamed I have to live with this deformity vs. I am angry at the world for giving me cancer and at the doctors for being so aggressive and leaving me with the deformity. They're the same thing, but you can only control the first one, really.

I saw this therapist for a very long time, and he retired 4 years ago so I can't unfortunately recap his treatment of anger issues that well... and I've lost some of the coping mechanisms he had given me over the years, but I found it effective and he was the most effective therapist I ever had.

I have lots of anger issues too. I used to hate my mother a lot but now it has lessened a bit but still dislike strongly. Also just certain situations in life where you have no control and things don't go your way...and you're stuck.

I listen to meditation music but I don't really know how to meditate.

Thanks for all the advice in this thread.

Watch out for the “collective ego”...it is very powerful & insipid. Because we are all connected on some deeply unconscious level, we plug our little selves into the sea of other selves. Like a wave in the ocean, we get sucked up into what the hell everyone is doing & we ended up being carried along into their madness.

It’s real. I need to unplug from the rat race. I’m not a rat & this isn’t a race. I have to control to what I am exposed.

I work in a large company...20k employees. Last week, an employee got arrested for an under cover sex sting operation. His name, along with his employer, was reported in the news. Everybody was gossiping about it...that it was a pedo ring...and now gross that is....and you never know....and the anger that causes...the punishment a pedo deserves...how can anyone harm an innocent child...

The week before we had a shooting. A customer went off & claimed he had a gun & boom he was dead. He didn’t have a gun. It was business as usual at work.

And don’t get me started on the commute & parking situations. Plenty of opportunities to get pissed off even before sitting down at my desk.

So...here’s where courage is required from us. We have to send out love. We have to smile. We have to inwardly wish everyone we encounter deeply well.

We can change the course of the sea. It doesn’t have to be so rough. We are all connected. We have to send peace and love to the other parts of ourselves. We are the white blood cells surrounding a flesh wound. Each of us counts...and each of us has an important part to play.

I misread as, Dialing with Anger'. Imagine all the pencils a DL would break.

Just get laid, you moron

R53 I agree

My father is always showing his ass and is a deeply angry shame-filled victim, but the funny thing is that his anger comes out in very girlish teenage ways. He'll roll his eyes and huff and loudly bitch about anything and anyone when he's irritated, then flounce out of the room if he doesn't get his way. He doesn't seem to realise other people, especially grown women, are laughing at him behind his back for this incredibly dumb-snatchy behaviour.

Maybe he’s trans, r57

Many of the comments here are very helpful OP, so I don't want to repeat them and will instead suggest to you something else in addition, that needs to be addressed as well. That is, stop eating foods (or at least limit them) high in ammonia; raw onions in cold salads and on subs, cold cuts, sliced deli cheeses and processed cheeses. Limit "aged" foods like aged cheeses for one, and anything with high fructose corn syrup. Also limit ketchup/French salad dressing and other foods made with ketchup, as ketchup is very high in ammonia. Margarine is also very high in ammonia so use organic butter instead.

Limit eating out/take-out food, since many cooks in restaurants use margarine in their cooking. None of these foods are bad for you when eaten in moderation, they are just high in ammonia and for people with anger issues only intensifies the anger.

And, also be sure to include more calming foods in your diet, like fresh organic blueberries every morning, wild-caught (not farm-raised) Alaskan Salmon and fresh steamed vegetables. Along with some of the other suggestions here and this dietary change, you'll notice the difference within a few days.

Get the frau at r59.

R59 is pissing me off.

R59 I agree with you somewhat Diet can absolutely help mood and well being, as well as reduce mood swings. But some people suffer from deep rooted, intense mental pain and trauma and diet is not necessarily going to be a cure all. Another issue is money. In this country it's difficult to eat healthy on a limited income.

Healthy food is great, but it’s not magic. We have to face our fears to get beyond them. Focusing too much on diet could be a distraction from the continuous low-grade pain.