Losing hope regarding managing anger

[Justmehere]

Losing hope regarding managing anger…

I don’t even know what to try anymore. “Therapy” is a lecture of 1,087 “coping skills” of which I can repeat endlessly. Nothing improves. I even hear the words “how about grounding skills?” and I get tense. What follows is a checklist.

I not sure when that switched and felt like shit.

I will destroy me, whatever is left of me, if something doesn’t change. I don’t know what to do.

 

[littleoc]

What's something you're angry about? Is it everything, or some things in particular, or are you overwhelmed about something, etc?

If you're angry about something, make sure you aren't accidentally invalidating yourself with ways to calm down quick and/or coping skills. If you fight anger, it tends to fight back. It helps much, much more to validate your anger and instead find ways to express it that won't hurt you. If that's any help?

Edit to add: I hate being angry because it's an emotion I struggle with the most. I don't like how it feels, and I often struggle to cope with it when it does appear. But it's serving a purpose, and for me, sometimes it helped to observe it nonjudgmentally, like a cloud going by, and just to identify it. Oh, that cloud is shaped like anger. I bet it's there because I'm tired of living with someone who yodels every single day. Maybe I better tell my roommate to yodel outside or do it at some other time so I'm not constantly worried I'm going to randomly have to deal with yodelling at different hours.

Which is different from saying, Okay, anger is bad. Time to make it go away by doing a coping skill and not allowing my anger to be heard by anyone ever.

If you're experiencing generalized anger, that's a tough thing to handle. Sometimes that's a symptom of depression or anxiety. Many people treat that with medications, or else try to dig deeper into it to see what the anger is trying to do.

 

[Freddyt]

“Therapy” is a lecture of 1,087 “coping skills” of which I can repeat endlessly.

That is not right. You need to look for different therapy or a different therapist. I do EMDR and we have been working on that anger thing for a long time. Especially after I changed therapists last year.
Almost the first thing my new T said was "you have a lot of anger". So it was near the top of the pile to start dealing with it.....

 

[arfie]

“Therapy” is a lecture of 1,087 “coping skills” of which I can repeat endlessly. Nothing improves.

heartfelt empathy, justme. i hold anger as the meanest bubble in my psycho cauldron. i started my own anger management therapy in court ordered anger management workshops somewhere in the last millennium and it is STILL the meanest bubble in my psycho cauldron. my own collection of coping skills might be bigger than 1,087 by now, but i am not the world's most meticulous collector. keeping score doesn't often get past my busted give-a-damn. that collection remains a trial and error event. i just keep trying until something works.

sigh. . . why can't i be a proper lady?

 

[Justmehere]

I get so angry … tonight just isn’t a good night. Every day it’s a battle. I don’t even understand it. Meds are no longe working. Even the bad coping skills and like self injury don’t really work. Deep breathing doesn’t work… it slows me down a second… so maybe it does.

Maybe I need to look at it as a stop yelling and stop self injuring thing.., anger is anger… it’s the behavior….

Everywhere I turn… I have to figure out something.

 

[Sideways]

Do you know what’s making you so angry?

 

[Justmehere]

I know what triggers the anger but it’s frankly not really rational. Sometimes it’s just ordinary frustrations of life.

Like shipping my computer into be fixed under warranty… and they didn’t fix i… company agrees they screwed up…. they shipped it the second time to the wrong address… etc.

Legit frustrating situation. Not worthy of the fire I feel though.

There is a situation of injustice I’m handling. Friends and family get mad about the little they know…. But they don’t get to the level of anger I have. It’s legit unjust, actually in an administrative appeal, and led to a big loss… one that kind of ties to self worth and major losses relates to childhood abuser.

I lost it over a family member (getting cranky Christmas Day. They were cranky and crabby all morning, and I was trying to be so patient and helping make Christmas Dinner last minute… they sort of escalated that opening the wrong drawer in the kitchen. They had been cranky for hours and I just snapped. Was it about the drawer of pots? No.

Probably more about my deep insecurity that it was all happening in the house I grew up in with so much trauma … all my insecurities rumbling under the surface as my sibling and I try to forage a new path after the childhood abuser (my father) died.

It made sense it’s be fight or flighty, but my level of feeling didn’t match the situation.

Mostly, it’s like… just hell in my brain.

All the childhood trauma has been talked about to death… in therapy and outside of it.

But tonight, I couldn’t fix an internet problem because I knew I’d be an idiot handling it. I’d get frustrated with normal nonsense or navigating technical support… and they don’t deserve my cranky self.

It’s like I have near zero frustration tolerance.

 

[littleoc]

Sounds like your stress cup is overflowing, so to speak. That's a lot to deal with.

You said your meds are no longer working -- do you need higher doses of something, or a new medication?

Were you feeling this angry overall before Christmas, before abuser situation, etc? Or has it been triggered from a particular event?

 

[Charbella]

Not worthy of the fire I feel though.

Have you considered that the reason the things others have suggested aren’t working is because it’s legitimate and the problem is the judgement? By that I mean how harshly you judge yourself. The more you judge and think what you’re doing is wrong, the more likely you’ll be frustrated and therefore angry. You’re layering anger upon anger and then expecting yourself to cool it. Be angry, welcome the anger and vent it appropriately instead of trying to get rid of it.

 

[Friday]

Maybe I need to look at it as a stop yelling and stop self injuring thing.., anger is anger… it’s the behavior….

That’s always my first step.

Feelings come & go, if I want to encourage/discourage them? I start with my behaviour. Rather than attempting to force my feelings to conform to the behaviours I want.

 

[intothelight]

I am ALL fight and regardless of trauma, I pretty much came to the conclusion that is who I am. I was reading your examples and honestly, the computer thing would irritate the f*ck out of me, but I would have a loaner computer, no costs incurred and if it isn't completed to my satisfaction a NEW replacement computer. Thing is, I lay out the expectations at the start of every transaction or conversation. It helps as there is no doubt as to what my expectations are and leaves me without frustration. Just an idea.

When dealing with grumpy or unpleasant family it is pretty simple, I let them know strait up I won't tolerate the behavior and if they insist, I will walk out or they can leave. Simple...strait forward and if they can't handle it, that is on them as they were advised. With three daughters that crap would happen too often and now it doesn't happen. My house, my rules. Adults should act like adults and not petulant children.

Until I stopped trying to be a peacemaker, make everyone happy, or fix things that were not mine to fix, I found myself angry and frustrated. Now I live life and have relationships on my terms and negativity and toxicity have no part of it. Anger issues pretty much gone.

 

[Justmehere]

All the frustrations of life - both normal, abnormal, and traumatic - I can handle much better with the smallest validation. Any invalidation outside of work just feels like hell

At work, nothing gets to me. I’m known for being good at deescalating people. Why? Dunno.

Everywhere else?

I did talk to my counselor about it today. He won’t do the checklist of coping skills with me because I’ve told him up front I can’t do it. I’m not opposed. He respects the boundary. I had tech issues - we do online therapy. I was already in a headspace of anger. He was totally fine with whatever… but I was ready to throw one of the 4 devices that were being glitchy across the room for no reason. I verbalized to him what I felt and how I was coping to not do that and be chill enough to keep talking while I tried to make my video work. It all worked out okay.

It wasn’t about the tech issues. I got that solved while we spoke by phone… but it’s like I had zero capacity for frustration. Ordinary frustration. All I had to do was reset a password and it took 30 seconds but it took me 20 minutes before I could do that because I was so irritated I was afraid to touch my laptop for fear I’d throw it across the room.

I can feel tremendous panic or anxiety at times and still function, cope, and not let it run away with me. Feels awful, but it’s not in charge. Anger? It drives the car and I want it to just be a passenger that… sure, i can’t ignore… but doesn’t drive the car of my life.