My Anger Comes on So Fast

[kitkat]

I know why I'm angry but I thought I got over all the stuff that happend to me, obviously I didn't. I guess I am going to call a T. I stay at home most of the time unless my husband and I go to the store or someplace like that. I cant stand meeting new people cause I cant trust anyone. I'm more comfortable at home anyway, but when we do get around people I get so nervous and shaky. One of the men who raped me and had a knife threatening me, is still out there somewhere. It happend in 2001 but I feel like he could be out there and I'd run into him. Every year around the end of may (when it happend), I start feeling weird and angry more often. I try to forget but I cant. I clean and always try to be up doing something to help my mood but sometimes it just doesn't work.

 

[Deleted member 541]

october903....

Isolating yourself because you feel unsafe isn't a good idea either IMO!!!! It causes more harm than good. It breeds fear, and the more fear you have, the more you isolate. Vicious cycle.

What I would encourage you to do is.......Therapy, work on your trauma, and get out everyday a little bit. Ground yourself, do self talk, and remember that you can not control what others do, you can only control you and your actions......

 

[2quilt]

SheCat said: 0 to bitch in .01 seconds

That's me.

 

[kitkat]

Good advice...thanks. Now that you do bring up the "blank space", I have noticed that I do get very quiet and to myself before I go off. I made an appointment to see a T and I hope this time I don't get stuck with someone like I used to go to. My last T was arrested for kidnapping and murder...yes I'm serious. It happend a few years ago, in WV. This guy tried to teach me how to cope with my anger, but he ends up killing someone.....Talk about not practicing what you preach......

 

[Anonymoose]

I've been holding back rage toward my significant other for quite some time now. Today I spoke more honestly to him on the phone and in some emails and now he's threatening to cut me off. It feels so good to express myself honestly to him but because I've been avoiding that for so long, my feelings are much stronger.
In general, rage as a symptom or response to flooding comes on suddenly and sometimes I can't make it let go of my conscious mind. I just distract myself and eventually it leaves.

 

[Dylan]

I sometimes have trouble with anger, as well, particularly with those closer to me.

My counselor pointed out to me something that I've found to be both interesting and helpful:

We are reward-based creatures. If something gives us a reward, we do it. We evolved, or were created if that's your belief, with this to ensure survival: eating when hungry feels good. Drinking when thirsty feels good. And sex, if we haven't been traumatized into losing that reward/pleasure link, gives some of the best reward (high-dose pleasure)...unless you're a woman, in which case chocolate might be right up there at the top :smile:.

Anyway, she pointed all this out to me to help me understand that, if I believe/perceive that when in distress, blowing up will make me FEEL better, and if my survival instincts are aroused at that time ("can't take another bit of stress"...I found the cup visual aid here on this site extremely beneficial), then of course I'll continue that behavior. If my brain perceives that I get reward (reduced stress/survival) by a behavior, I'll keep doing it.

I've been practicing this on the lower anger reactions: will this (being caustic, sarcastic, snide, contemptuous) really make me feel better? If not, what WILL? What do I really need - right here, right now? My counselor is helping me to realize that the things I do are attempts to protect and take care of myself. And I can change them, with persistent/patient effort, and develop skills that allow me to truly protect myself.

It's been helping me a lot, to slowly re-learn that there are other, actually better/more effective, things I can do - which, for me, is usually about needing to feel safe, like I won't be overtaken/overwhelmed.

Dylan

 

[Deleted member 487]

I have anger. Hell, I have an anger problem. But I ain't gonna get rid of it. Screw the doctors and screw the courts. If I had that problem back many years ago I may not have been raped. I doubt I would have been assaulted. A lot of problems would not exist, period.

But when I "blow my fuse", for me it's fight. Some folks have called it the "fight or flight" syndrome (military know what I'm talking about), but even if I can run, I won't. I stay until I win or I'm dead. A couple guys nicknamed me "badger" for that. If you can start a fight with me, you best surrender quick and run. Otherwise I'm out for blood. Like when that mexican fella pulled the stunt he did and I wrecked my bike. He's lucky he stayed in his car. Otherwise I might have hurt him. I was that mad.

 

[hodge]

I have been having rages lately, too, which erupt very suddenly. After thinking about them afterward, I realize that they came after some series of minor stresses which, in turn, triggered the deep anger I still have inside me. Like you, October903, I thought I had dealt with all that. But noooo...not enough, apparently, or not with the depth required...not sure how to put it at the moment.

Anyway, this week my therapist suggested this strategy (which I haven't tried yet): About once a week - or whenever you feel a rage coming on - stop what you're doing, and for about 15 minutes, get yourself alone and do some structured thing you have planned out in advance. It could be punching a pillow, writing a no-holds-barred letter to the person your anger is really directed toward, tearing up paper, phonebooks, whatever - as long as you don't hurt yourself or someone else.

I've had several therapists tell me that such intense emotions are the ones that go back to the earliest and/or deepest injuries and abuses. Their advice on dealing with the anger is consistent - recognize that the younger you who was hurt so badly is trying to come out and express what he/she was unable to express or process at the time, so we need to be kind and gentle with our younger selves and create an appropriate structure for the expression of those powerful emotions.

I should go do this in my diary here, since I need to do it and it might help someone else.

Oh, and about the blank space...I'm thinking part of the key to dealing with this kind of rage is to reflect on it afterward and try to fill in that blank space: what were you thinking about or hearing or seeing just before you got so angry? It's hard to do, I know, but with practice and persistence, I found I was able to identify some of the triggers that get my old rage going. I sure haven't mastered this yet, but I keep trying.

Good for you for trying a new therapist after that last one (yikes, and double yikes!) and take care,

Hodge

 

[goingonhope]

My anger is so strong and out of control and I try so hard to calm it down but it comes on so fast

Me too. My anger comes on sometimes so quickly. I hate it. I feel ashamed and it is so, so discouraging.

I'm not angry nearly as often, but when I get angry it's so scary to me, because though it is not entirely out of control, and I do have some working controls on it, it rips through my mind in such a way that it feels frighteningly out-of-control. In fact, I'm scared of my anger and the best solution I've found is to step away, go off on my own or withdraw into some activity, all the while in reflection and processing the anger without emotional outbursts. My biggest discouragement here though is that, circumstances are not always such that I can do this - step, escape and get away that is.

Today, what a disappointing and depressing fall; I failed and allowed much of my anger, in the form of resentment, to spill-out and all over another who had gotten the ball rolling with his unpredictable outburst of anger, but still who gives a sh't who started it, ......I need and so want, to be able to mangage my anger 100% of the time and regardless as to whose being abusive to who first.

I really dislike anger. I'm afraid of angry people. And, I'm afraid of anger, and I'm most especially afraid of the anger within myself.

So there we were today, and there was peace and together we were all enjoying a good time and I was feeling both joy and peace and then..........bammo, some sh't having nothing to do with me, some anger having nothing to do with me hit and at first I tried to get away, but I couldn't, another's anger followed me...........and then bammo there came mine. And, now I'm feeling discouraged, depressed, frigtened and still just as scared of my anger and everyone else's, as ever before.

Hope

 

[Irton Pike]

I have been in a nasty situation at work where my part time boss had taken to shouting at me for forgetting stuff. That had me going ballistic in no time at all. Fortunately, as soon as i blow i walk off (whilst making judicious use of the anglo saxon). The only way i have to deal with this is to refuse ALL contact with him. I honestly don't know how to stop the anger coming up at all. But walking away removes the stimulus.

I am trying to approach this problem by working through previous situations but imagining myself as a neutral, invisible observer and try to see things from other peoples point of view.

 

[kitkat]

I cant stand when people tell me to "just stop thinking about it" or "put it in the past". (My Mom says that by the way). It pisses me off even more after she says something stupid like that, then she's like "why are you so angry"?) HELLLLOOOO! She gets so mad when I cry and just shuts off. Then after years of opening up to everyone but her, she wonders why we're not close and why I cant come to her. Today we got into it and I told her she was the one person I could never open up to. She makes me so angry...she's mean to my Dad which makes me despise her more. Nothing is ever good enough for her and she is excellent at correcting everyone and judging people. I hate people like that.

 

[Irton Pike]

october903

I think thats just normal mother behaviour....:thumbs-up