May I ask how do you manage your anger?
Lots of running! Lol. I'm half joking but also serious. Honestly, it's something I work really hard on because it's really hard for me to do. I can really identify to the feelings you are having.
Just two days ago, a nurse really messed up a form for a service I needed. I have been really hurt, traumatically hurt, by someone in a helping profession and it is so hard for me to let anyone in to help me. I told her I needed the form corrected and she told me it didn't matter. She told me I should just pay out of pocket instead of having to do the form over. Myself and my doctor had spent hours doing the form. She knows I am really big on patient advocacy and that this service was really important for me. I had admitted to her before the embarrassing truth that I couldn't pay for it out of pocket. Her response made me feel like she was trying to silence me and shame me for what I needed. I felt like I had wasted my time and the doctor's time asking for help. I was livid. I have a voice. All I could think was that one has the right to silence me or tell me my needs don't matter, and she had just thrown away all the work the doctor I had done - and it was all help I was embarrassed to ask for in the first place.
At the time, all I could feel was this intense anger. The kind of anger that would fit for a really serious situation, and to me, at the time, it felt like a really serious situation. It felt like it was all the more serious because of the past. All I could feel was - I will not let her hurt me. I felt like I would never go back to the doctors office. The nurse apologized, but it made no difference. In the moment, I knew my anger about this nurse was about the past, and it was like... not again, I will not let her hurt me like others have before.
I have learned that when I feel a certain amount of anger, regardless of the situation, I have to stop and ask myself, if there is a threat that I have to solve right now, or can I wait to solve it until later. If I can wait, then I will wait several hours or even days before I engage anyone that I am directly mad at. I try not to evaluate so much if my anger is fitting or not, because honestly, in the moment when I am feeling it, I can usually find some way it is fitting the present situation.
My therapist keeps reminding me that anger is a fight or flight response, I am getting as angry as I am because I am trying to keep myself safe and ok in the world. So when I feel really mad, I try to get space, and then I use that time and space to do things I do when I feel terrified or scared. It seems backwards... but it kind of is working for me.
With this particular situation, I went home and I wrote out what happened and how it made me feel. I connected with a friend who is safe and kind to me. I went for a run to get out some of the anger physically. I also spent time thinking of a "safe place" - the same kind trauma therapists often have people come up with. That really shifted things for me the most. I find it odd that it does, but for me, it does.
With this nurse, it took me several hours, but eventually I was able to see the situation without my "anger colored" glasses on. Eventually I was able to see the nurse that screwed up as a tired overworked nurse who was being lazy and dismissive... but not worth my level of fury. I was able to go back, and when I was not so angry, tell her how much it wasn't ok with me what she did and she received it with a lot less defensiveness and she apologized. To be honest, I haven't fully forgiven her and what little trust I had isn't restored, but my anger about her is no longer taking up so much space in my life and I'm was able to stop feeling so out of control like I was feeling initially.
It's much different in a dating relationship. It's a much closer kind of relationship and level of trust. And when that kind of trust gets broken, it can feel so much worse too. So I get it, why you feel the way you do too. I don't have any answers - this is just my experience and perspective.
