Military Conditioning (Anger/Aggression)

[Jimmy1]

Military Conditioning (Anger/Aggression)

Anger is a major problem with I suppose all veterans. So I thought I would share with you my opinion.

I have hidden my anger with substance abuse since returning from the sandy place; however, gave that up over two months ago and am now facing the horrible effects of anger/fury.

I believe most of it stems from Military Conditioning (Training).
When you are taught hand to hand combat, or even bayonet fighting, they teach you to use your aggression and push past the normal anger even when hurt and teach you to turn it into 'controlled hate/fury' to successfully defeat the enemy.

When you are booted from the military due to mental illness (PTSD), they don't de-program you.

This means when you get into a confrontational situation, whether it be with your partner, children, or even just some tool in the street, your training takes over and that is why I believe we lose it a lot of the time.

Some of my friends who do not suffer tell me to just walk away. In hindsight, this is a good idea, but if you have had a bad day and your head is 'red lining', it just does not work.

There are anger management courses which are great, and cognitive behavioural therapy, but I believe each situation is different and it depends how your day is going.

People told me when I returned that I was angry with the world. In a way, I suppose I was. I was brought up with good morals and beliefs, and these were shot to shit. Like a lot of you guys, I have seen things that my mind just could not comprehend. For example, how women and children are treated in other countries, and just their value on life.

I am struggling at the moment with my medication because I tried to be my own chemist and use natural green leafy substances and alcohol. All they did was hurt me in the back pocket and the issues were still there the next day.

Now, my children are proud of my progress even though I don't tell them that some days I want to cut my head off.

Would be interested in anyone else's coping strategies.

:confused:

 

[anthony]

Well said mate.

My first learning curve towards not so much controlling my anger, but learning how to think differently, was with road rage. When I had uncontrolled PTSD, being it just developed and had no idea what the hell was wrong with me, I had beaten people, gotten out of my car and hit people, even run into a few people intentionally... pretty bad stuff even when I reviewed my actions afterward. Something my therapist said to me just clicked. She said... what if they had PTSD and their thoughts were exactly the same as my thoughts?

Well, that gave me a little different perspective to use. From that point on, when I got frustrated with an idiot motorist cutting me off, being in my way... hell, just existing, I said to myself... "maybe they have PTSD and are just as pissed off with me as I am with them" and I could relate to that, thus my anger just soothed... was atleast controllable. I did this for months until now... I rarely get angry on the road. Sure, I still do with some total morons, but I don't ram people or punch them any more.

My further growth in controlling my anger, was learning to identify what I felt. My therapist introduced me to the iceberg of emotions theory. Basically, anger, rage, hatred, etc... these are not actually emotions, instead they are emotional responses. This being, you feel something else in order to get angry. Anger is the result, but not the cause. So this furthered my own development in coming to terms with deprogramming my own anger response to a more acceptable civilian response. When I get angry, I immediately look to the underlying emotion... ie. usually frustration is a big one. A motorist is frustrating me. So I deal with the frustration emotion which works for me to remove the anger response, or atleast calm it down.

These were two of the best things I was ever introduced to in order to calm my own anger... and they have become part of me nowadays and I use them instinctively, just like the military taught us to use anger, instead I reversed it moreso recognising and framing it as an instinctive behaviour. A little military positive learning turned the negative military learning for the better.

 

[Jimmy1]

Thanks Mate,

I have read the info on both your sites, and it is exactly like they teach on the PTSD course. The problem is, that like anything if not practised, we forget.

My anger as I explained before was shrouded and hidden by first alcohol abuse, then substance abuse. Yes, it is great for problems as it makes you not 'give a rats' but when you come off them, the issues are still there.

This is the major problem I am experiencing now.

The anger coping strategies are just not working at the moment as I am dealing with a virus. These are all linked.

My resistances and immune system, including my pain receptors are all screwed due to substance abuse. So anti-depressants, antibiotics, and pain medication just is not working at them moment.

My GP has said that its only been nine weeks and eventually everything will come good, but its just so darn tempting to go back to what I know; however, my boy is too important.

I have booked in to a mood disorder course in the new year and hopefully everything will be stabilised by then.

Thanks for all your support Anthony, I am going to pass on to the PTSD coordinator and Dr John Rogers, probably one of the leading PTSD psych's in Queensland about your site mate. Maybe they can offer you some useful info or feedback and maybe able to use it as a tool for the guys just coming out of the program or just being diagnosed.

Have a great New Year mate.:cool:

 

[dave1]

I was one of those angry at the world for not being how I grew up thinking it should be. I didn't ask to be changed and no one warned me that my scale of what's important in life would become completely different than "normal" people. What most people spend their lives worrying doesn't even register on my radar screen. I didn't want to be different, I wanted to return to the life I had before the war but it all seemed shallow and empty shortly after coming home. I was confused about why everything had changed. I was embarrassed and frustrated about reactions I learned to survive that now I couldn't control, so I used anger to push people away and protect myself.

We learned to survive by getting control of situations that threatened us. Anger and fear were easy ways to raise adrenalin immediately and overpower any threat. I've been told that our brain doesn't distinguish between real life threats and threats to our ego, our bodies react the same to each confrontation. Many times I have to tell myself "no one is going to die here, now, if I don't react." The physical strain my body goes through and the later embarrassment just aren't worth it anymore.

I've had to accept that people are not perfect (including myself) and they certainly don't have to act the way I think they should. Unfortunately, people are just people. I can't expect things that are not in the hearts and minds of others.

 

[BioHazard]

I used to stay angry a lot, sometimes for days on end. Especially when I first came home from the sandy place. I started to drink because before my deployments I was a happy drunk. I am not a happy drunk anymore, so I have stopped drinking after three years in a bottle. Some days I just want to crack open a bottle of rum and drink until I hit the floor, but most days I don't entertain the notion of taking even a single sip.

I used to get angry over the most minor things. A program I want to watch has been delayed for a Presidential address? Let me throw things and yell for 20 minutes. Can't find my work uniform? Let me threaten to leave my wife for someone better organized. The puppy had an accident on the rug? Smack it with a newspaper and yell incoherently. I literally almost threw away all of the good things in my life because I was so convinced that i was guilty of such bad things that I did not deserve to have good things, so I almost chased the good away. It took my wife threatening to leave and take the kids if I didn't get help for me to agree to see a psychiatrist, which is when we found out that I suffered from PTSD. That has been almost three years ago. I know it will never be cured, but it can be controlled and managed quite well.

 

[Jimmy1]

Thanks Dave and Bio,

That's what I really like about this site. Everyone here has experienced a combat environment. And can empathise.

In my previous thread I explained about my current problems. Its when it changes from anger and builds to fury over trivial little things. Like you said Bio.
I hate losing control. And like you said Dave

The physical strain my body goes through and the later embarrassment just aren't worth it anymore.

.

As I am a single Dad, my children have had to learn to sometimes not have a say and its not fair on them.

The other problem is the anger at the Defence Force for kicking me out. I loved my career and was a Sergeant Major. Now I have to fill that void. I started by filling it with alcohol and substances, now I am searching what to fill it with.

I have a great vegetable garden. hehe
:D

 

[BioHazard]

I completely understand about the anger toward the military for kicking you out. The Army didn't kick me out, per se. They just told me I could not re-enlist due to my growing mental problems and alcohol problem. I was a staff sergeant (E-6) before they started taking my ranks for trouble I got into.When I left the military, I was an E-4. I started drinking, and almost lost everything important to me. I spend a lot of time working on my car or buildiing plastic models. I couldn't grow a weed in a pile of manure, lol.

 

[dave1]

One of the bitter pills of life is that it's not fair. To the military, we were just damaged goods and couldn't function as they wanted anymore. It's a hell of a thank you for giving your best but there is life after the military. You're doing the right thing for yourself - you're more than what the military took from you. Life is a process, not a series of events. You're moving into a new area of your life. It's frightening because it's unfamiliar, but you've learned to deal with fear before, you're in the beginning of making a new life for yourself.

 

[anthony]

The things you mention Bio... cost me my first two marriages. I could literally hold onto having the shits about something for weeks, then just suddenly I was ok again.

People used to ask me if I was angry at the military for discharging me. Initially I was, but then I realised something different. It wasn't them that signed me onto the dotted line with the responsibility and knowledge that deployment was a possibility, it was me who signed on the dotted line and I knew in the back of my head that what I was signing could also be me signing my own premature death from combat. Took me a while to figure that one out... but its true. Some of my mates were also angry at the Army for discharging them, but when I said that to them, they sat on it for a while and thought about it, and they honestly knew that when they enlisted that death was a possibility for an outcome from enlisting.

When I was asked after this little realisation to sit down and reassign blame after my own epiphany, the blame for me incurring PTSD due to combat was actually more 95% my own fault, 5% Army for not highlighting to me before deployment that such a thing was even a possibility, being PTSD. They did provide us after deployment counselling, but like usual, I just said what they wanted to hear and wanted to get the hell out of their and be with the boys and having a drink, getting home basically, not answering questions or reliving what had happened over the past months. What I know now vs. then!!! If I had prior knowledge that I could be mentally f*cked up for life if I didn't talk about what I felt at that time and during my deployment... well.... my actions could have been different, they could have been the same, but that was a choice I was not given... hence the 5% blame assigned to the military for their lack of information on an important aspect of deployments.

The military have certainly taken care of me as a result of obtaining PTSD from my operations, but I really think if I knew more before deployments, then this could be avoided for many people, along with the heightened anger. I was angry for many years about getting PTSD due to my deployments... but I actually could only blame myself because I chose to sign on the dotted line knowing I was going / possibly going into combat zones during my service. That rid a lot of my own anger in one very short period.

 

[BioHazard]

Yeah, I know what you mean about costing you so much, Anthony. It took the best, most caring person I have ever met packing her clothes and threatening to leave to get me to even see a counselor. But, it also pulled my head out of my ass and got me to start looking at my actions from someone else's point of view.

I got out of the military in 2006. By that time, I was already a raging alcoholic, more prone to throw things and yell profanities than to rationally discuss a subject. It culminated in my assaulting someone I considered to be one of my best friends. He was trying to calm me down during an argument over a card game. I also attacked one of the M.P.s when they came to take me away. The next morning, when the wife came to bail me out of the stockade, she told me that I could see a therapist and try to work out why I was suddenly so angry all the time, or she was taking the kids and going to her father's house. I made an appointment for later in the week. It has been 2 years, 8 months, and 26 days since I started therapy. It has helped me work through a lot of my issues, but there are still things I need to fix, and there probably always will be.

For a long time, I thought the same way you did, Anthony. I thought it was all the Army's fault. It took seeing my aunt's youngest son telling me that he wanted to join the military to realize that at one time, I was just like this fresh faced young man. Eager to sign my life away in a fit of patriotism. I told him that I disagreed with his decision, but respected his status as an adult capable of making that decision, and that I would fly a flag for him every day that he was deployed. I went with him to the recruiter's office and made sure that they didn't put the screws to him. I stopped the recruiter dead in his tracks when he tried to tell my cousin that he probably would not get deployed. I told him if he could put into the contract that my cousin would never get deployed in a military operation, I would let my cousin sign the contract. When he admitted that he couldn't do that, I told him to stick to the truth, or I would find a recruiter for my cousin who could stick to the truth. Best time I have had since I joined the military, lol!

I am still at odds with the Veteran's Administration about my PTSD treatment, because they keep trying to charge me for it every few months, until I show up with my release forms and psychiatric evaluation documents. Eventually they will give up.

 

[anthony]

Wow... that is harsh that they try to continually sting you with the bill for PTSD treatment... which I am an avid believer that is the one thing the military will always be responsible for with any soldier who has PTSD from operational deployment. The bare minimum IMHO is that they take care of that cost that the person never had prior to serving their country. Good for you for fighting them on it.

I know what you're saying about pulling your head out of your arse though... the amount of times I had to learn that one myself, accept I was being a right cock about something and remove my own head from my arse... I firmly believe one of the hardest things is to accept being wrong and apologize. Still bites me in the arse sometimes.

 

[phil]

Anger is all i know

I always feel like i am going to explode and get into an altercation. i always feel as though i have to be on the defenxive or that i am being attacked does this ever go away