How Do You Cope With Angry People?

[rainy_daze]

In this situation I've now been accused of being judgemental and critical, and told that this hurts a great deal. That I should know the difference between what is shouting and angry, and what is just a loud rant that is justified. This conversation made me feel greatly ashamed, which then turned into me trying to fix literal objects that weren't mine to fix to try and make the situation bearable. I do a lot of it without realising. Welcome to complex trauma everyone, come and take a seat :eek:.

@FridayJones your post makes sense and gives me something to think about, as do the other posts (thank you all). Right now, my best strategy is to bite my tongue. It's to realise that other people have their own stress cups that can explode around me. I'm still figuring all this stuff out. [It's also about trying to empty my stress cup so this kind of stuff doesn't affect me so much]

:laugh: Asking these family members to stop is like asking a lion to act like a zebra. Please don't eat me giant lion.

My reply isn't the best but that's all I've got right now.

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

How do I deal with angry people? It depends on the situation. There are four responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn that I've learned from reading and, depending on the situation, I usually can fight or freeze/fight. By learning to be a Christian in the best faith I can, sometimes four letter words come out of my mouth that are very unnecessary and I can come back with the Latin words: Tesete te, which means, "I feel sorry for you." You can't help but feel sorry for their anger because in all aspects, if they come off as a-holes, then that's how they are.

 

[ghotiff]

There is a technique called Reflective Listening. I have used it a few times with angry people at work (where you also can't walk away) with great success. It's simple to understand but takes some learning to be able to implement. Maybe it would help?

 

[rainy_daze]

@Ladyghosthunter what is the Fawn response? It sounds familiar :confused:. I like the Latin a lot. I also like the a-hole remark :laugh:. I'm trying to engage less in Fight. Freeze makes one of them more angry. Flight is not an option really. I don't like people bringing out the worst in me. Or me letting myself get to the stage of having to shout back just to be heard. Maybe it's a stage I'm going through now therapy is over.

@ghotiff when I can calm down, I can listen a lot and this seems to help. I do end up saying sorry a lot though, which annoys me because I don't think I need to if I haven't done anything to deserve this level of shouting. Can you give any examples of the reflective listening?

I'm working on boundaries. I realise I'm going through a bad patch, which is probably making the angry people harder to cope with.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

The last time someone raged on me was my sister. I froze. Now I just do not have much to do with her. She scares the hell out of me with her rages which are out of control and figments of her imagination.

Eventually she will rage on the wrong person and bad will come to her.

No one rages on me anymore. I just cut angry producing people out of my life. No more drama producing people.

I wish you get good replies that help you.

 

[ghotiff]

Reflective listening is basically when you respond to the person, repeating what you think they are trying to say without passing judgements.

Eg.
I can see that you are very angry about this.
The toilet seat being left up made you feel disrespected.

What happens is that the person starts to feel heard and after a while they seem to run out of steam and have nothing left to say.

Choosing the right words to reflect takes some practice so I would suggest practicing it in a non angry situation first. Kids are great to practice with because they love talking and being heard

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

Rainy_daze, let me get my book out that explains "fawn".....love & service, compromise, listening, fairness, peacemaking, codependent, groveling, loss of self, people-pleaser, doormat, slave, social perfectionism, parentified child (whatever that last one meant). The meaning of "fawning" is a type of codependency to make the situation for you to be less severe, especially in abuse cases. When I was a child, I was always fawning, never the other three and it was the only way to make things less severe as I was being mentally and physically abused by my family. I would do what they wanted just so that they would be happy; servitude. It says in my book that I'm reading, "Real or imagined dangers typically triggers us into these roles and behaviours when we are in an emotional flashback."

For instance, I no longer fawn. Many PTSD victims have what they call "hybrids", Flight/Freeze, Flight/Fawn, etc. which are typical that many of us who suffer have many "reactions" to the types of situations (depending upon the situation, mind you) that blend in as one response or a two different responses as response number one and response number two. It says in the book that the "freeze" response is also the one that is associated with the dissociative defines if that helps at all.

Let me say before I go any further that the man who wrote this book (please PM me in regards to the book title because I do not want to advertise it here on this site) has PTSD and is also a psychologist who deals with this through his eyes and through the eyes of a psychologist point of view. It is a HARD HARD read (forgive the caps) for those who have experienced H**l and have a hard time reliving it but I have to understand what I have so that I can help myself, thus help my therapist help me so we can work together to somewhat eliminate some of this terrible weight I've carried all of my life.

I have tattooed on my back in Elvish the name Frodo Baggins. Do you remember how innocent he was in the very beginning and in the end became a victim of not only the evil that he carried but how he had to travel to rid himself of the evil? He had his best friend, Samwise (or your Higher Power), with him the whole time and an imp who wanted the evil for himself because of the obsession of the evil he so desired? In the end, all evil was destroyed but at a huge cost as Frodo lingered with the spider bite after effects, the memories of the horror he sustained at the hands of being stabbed, and so on and so forth. I have this tat as a reminder that I too carried a weight so heavy but hopefully in the end, when I get on that boat to Avalon, that I will be free to start a new life and happily ever after.

 

[rainy_daze]

@gizmo thank you for sharing that. I've learned a lot from your emotional strength since I joined this forum. It is good to have less drama producing people, especially if they scare you.

@ghotiff I will practice the reflective listening, thank you for the example and explanation. I know what it is like to feel unheard, so maybe the angry family members do not feel heard by me. I know that my health has impacted on them greatly, and I also know that they have a lot of stressors around adding to how they feel. A lot to think about.

@Ladyghosthunter thank you for getting the book to describe more of that to me and for sharing. It all sounds familiar, so I think I've read people on here talk about it before [Flight/Freeze/Fawn]. It's funny because this part of Fawn all sounds fine to me:

love & service, compromise, listening, fairness, peacemaking

but the rest of the description does not. I've been a doormat before, and I don't want to be one again. I assume you think similarly to me on this point, given what your family did to you.

It says in the book that the "freeze" response is also the one that is associated with the dissociative defense if that helps at all

^ Yes that does help.

I'm getting used to capital locks being used for emphasis now, whereas sometimes I thought a person was just shouting.

That's a really cool tattoo and I love the meaning behind it. I think if you want it Ladyghosthunter [the freedom to start a new/happy life] then you will get there. The difficulty is in the getting there, like what Frodo endured on the journey.

I wish you get good replies that help you

I think there have been many helpful ones already :). It makes it easier knowing this is something others have dealt with or are learning to cope with.

 

[ghotiff]

I know what it is like to feel unheard, so maybe the angry family members do not feel heard by me

In response to this. I think you are correct that they don't feel heard (which is why this technique works), but I don't think it's necessarily due to you. For example at work, I have definitely listened, but I have assumed other people in their life weren't listening to them, so they compensated for this by taking it out on me.

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

Rainy, the FAWN description describes a codependency issue in regards to PTSD (negative things) for YOU to make things better so that the abuser can like you or the abuse be lessened. It makes me shiver as I had to do this quite often and it makes you just want to vomit up what you did to APPEASE the abuser (they should've used that word instead).
I asked my new counselor who deals specifically with PTSD if I should continue reading this book, he definitely said yes and to share (if you all want me to) what I've read. I'm also keeping a diary in regards to what I'm going through and I hope it will help others in their struggles.