So what's the fuckin' deal with ANGER

How can I unlearn that family pattern? Therapy didn't help, music doesn't help, exercise and yoga and meditation haven't helped, and smoking is not an option. Is this shit a Permanent Part of my life? God DAMN it, where's my time machine so I can go back in time and warn my younger self that if he doesn't start telling people when he's pissed off or worried or scared about something, then he'll learn some really bad habits that he'll carry with him forever?

Then again, the younger me would have seen now-me and run away.

It's already a step to have recognized a pattern here, & then the trouble is.. hell, you get mad for falling back into the pattern, on top of being mad anyway. You can't relive the past though, you can only start NOW to tell people what's on your mind instead of letting it build up to explosiveness - because you know it's not good for anyone to keep stuff bottled up & let it build. And if you fuck it up sometimes, whatever, everyone fucks up sometimes.

I don't suppose you live in a stressful busy city, or have a job you despise (or that is deadly boring, & thus induces massive anger too - just look at what they do to that printer in Office Space), or have to deal with many situations that cause anger: namely, situations in which you are treated shitty/unjustly and are powerless to do anything?

For instance, this is ridiculous and trivial in the extreme, but I went with some friends to this French bistro in Dupont Circle at 10:30pm for a nice dessert and a glass of wine. So like, I had recently gotten back from living in France and if the place is calling itself a bistro (it was, and much of the staff was French so voila), by definition it's a place where you can perfectly well stop in for just a dessert or a snack or a drink. Plus 10:30pm is past the usual dinner hour in Washington DC and there wasn't a wait for tables. And AFTER we were seated by the hostess, the waiter came over and said we couldn't have the table, and that we had to sit at the bar if we weren't ordering a full meal. Do you know how MAD I got? I was about to bust out and start screaming obscenities in my best street French in the middle of a crowded restaurant, and as it was I ranted about the stupidity and incivility of the situation for a full half-hour afterward. Now, I bet that if I had been more levelheaded and kindly asked the waiter in polite French for the table, he'd have obliged.

actually, I don't live in a big messed-up city (just a medium-sized messed-up city), but yeah, lots of job stress and family stress and life situation stress (probably move next year, what the hell am I gonna do, etc.). But I was doing all this shit last year, and the year before. As it is, I've already helped exacerbate a gulf between myself and the only people (person) who might be able to help me out of the hole I get in. Now, even when I'm "good" or "nice" or whatever, that person (those people) still hold themselves at a distance. That is DUDD all the way. Hell, that's Elmer Dudd.

But thanks for your kind words/analysis. I'm working on it, bit by bit. But my list of other people who could stand some help with this grows every day.

long story made short -- b/c of the foregoing childhood, i don't have much trouble expressing my anger. but i've intimidated other people a lot of times in doing so -- i.e., i've gotten a reputation for being a "hot-head," having a "potty mouth," slamming down phones, being overly willing to tell off other people, etc. which i always find odd, 'cause 90% of the time i'm perfectly mild-mannered and all ... and people note the difference b/w reputation and reality and are "surprised" that i'm usually so nice and polite.

I think I have tried them all myself. Most of them involve getting on roads whose names do not end in the number five. I've lived here for over a year and am seriously considering getting a GPS system for my car.

So what are socially acceptable ways to be angry?

:) I hope the advice was not totally cheesy & somewhat helpful, N. I don't get mad like that anymore, which is a good thing, as I was driving in BOSTON today, taking several wrong turns along the way, and my car doesn't have air conditioning. The phrase 'scary mama' freaks me out b/c it makes me think my story + my writing style makes me sound like Kathy Bates in Misery or something, whereas if I pictured myself it would be like Enid's best friend from Ghost World having a temper tantrum, which is not scary at all. Unless yr trapped in the passenger seat I guess.

(ME ANGRY! ME SMASH THINGS!)

I went to go see Hulk with my brother last night and we spent two hours in the parking lot afterwards talking about our family anger shit and how it's affecting our lives. I recommend this...but only if said talk session doesn't start at midnight (10:00 movie) before both of you have to go to work. Hulk...must...nap....

One other thing that hasn't already been pointed out by the many astute posters on this thread so far: Anger is often the by-product of depression and/or anxiety. As in, you feel shitty (or worthless or insecure) and/or tense and irritable, and the anger explosion gives the crummy feelings a cause and a target for attack. Sometimes having the tantrum in private quarters doesn't just show you how silly the tantrum is, it can also reveal that the person to whom it was going to be thrown isn't a culprit of any kind in the first place.

Andrew, I'm with you. Punching a window hard enough to go through it once is a really good "hard way" to learn. I highly recommend kicking a futon matress or something similarly sturdy, soft and unlikely to be ruined. Exercise helps too, if you're able to go work out or run or even just walk. Like, right when you think you should tell the people around you to leave because they "wouldn't like [you] when [you're] angry," that's a good time to make your exit to the weight room or go for a short jog.

anger

I used to be really angry. I'm pretty sure my outbursts went hand in hand with my depression, because as soon as one went away, so did the other.

Are you angry because you quit smoking weed Surmounter?

ug maybe,

Agh I am so angry lately and I've got angry in public with 2 people who didn't deserve it and then realised afterwards that not only was the thing I was angry over p. trivial but that on reviewing the evidence it seemed that I was probably completely wrong, i.e. the trivial thing I was angry over didn't even exist. And then I get ashamed over being angry and it adds an extra layer to the self-loathing and general on-edge-ness which I think is what is making me angry in the first place. i.e.

Anger is often the by-product of depression and/or anxiety. As in, you feel shitty (or worthless or insecure) and/or tense and irritable, and the anger explosion gives the crummy feelings a cause and a target for attack.
― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 30 June 2003 14:32 (11 years ago)

aaargh otm. I have been really hating my job lately, or hating my inability to concentrate at my job and my crummy CV and lack of any genuine work skills which render me unable to pick and choose a job which might not have the features which drive me to anxious distraction, and that has been spilling over into everything else and threatening to shit up the parts of my life which aren't already shitty

not sure whether to look into "anger management" or just hope to fix the root causes of tension inside my head instead (but how? etc)

???....both?

Like being more self-aware about the outbursts is further than some people ever get, but the price of that success is that it's only a first step. Then you have to decide, "Do I want to do what would be necessary/make the changes or sacrifices to change the conditions of this?" Even if you decide it's NOT worth it, there should be some kind of peace available to you that that agency.

hey a passing spacecadet, just want to say i totally relate to both your job situation and your angry feelings. you are not alone. there are A LOT of people in your sitch right now.

anger is a conditioned response to feeling trapped or thwarted i have to deal with all the time. i don't know if this applies in your situation but it has definitely helped me to recognize when i'm angry, not try to push it down but instead ask why? usually the answer is something "known" and i can go from there, remind myself of the steps i'm taking to address the issue, do something to recenter, meditate, whatever. i know that might not be exactly what you need. even just a little bit of investigation like googling "anger management" lol could probably lead to more helpful info for you.

i am also with you, and it's very uncomfortable for me because i've never thought of myself as someone prone to angry feelings. i also have a new job and it's really bringing me down, and then i have the usual smorgasbord of personal failures going on. and bedbugs. the idea that anger is tied to anxiety and depression seems completely on the mark, for me at least. i don't dispute it. i customarily turn bad news and anxiety inwards and try to drown it in my carefully cultivated black hole of self-loathing, but at some point it's all too much and it has to find release somewhere else.

so the diagnosis seems clear. but the harder part - feels impossible right now - is reducing the stress in the first place, and the depression. that's the topic for a million other threads, and we can all trot out the advice that we know will be provided for dealing with those things. but goddamn, it feels impossible to ever be light again.

thanks and <3 everyone! also, bedbugs, ugh, that really is stressful. hope you get them sorted out.

I hear you on "never thought of myself as someone prone to angry feelings" - well, I've always had a temper and I've always let it fly around family but I used to believe I was at least good at keeping a lid on it in public. I was always embarrassed whenever my dad complained about any aspect of the service anywhere and now here I am complaining about the service and not even being right. Dammit.

I've been meaning to get into meditating but I have this kind of mental block with things like meditation or relaxation exercises that I get very hung up on whether I'm doing it "right", am I feeling the right things that tell me I'm doing it right, etc. I should persevere with a more carefree attitude, I guess.

just hope to fix the root causes of tension inside my head instead (but how? etc)

I'll tell you what I think I know and hope it somehow meets your situation. It seems reasonable that most of what I'll say you already know, but sometimes it helps just to be reassured that your suspicions are correct.

Your feeling of anger over trivialities is most likely a redirection of your real anger over the things you mentioned in your post: "hating my job lately, or hating my inability to concentrate at my job and my crummy CV and lack of any genuine work skills". In that event, the simplest question to ask would be, why is your brain redirecting your anger to the wrong targets?

The simplest answer would be the one you strongly hinted at, which is that you feel unable to DO anything to affect the real causes of your anger and feel equally unable to release your anger TOWARD those causes. This blocks all the legitimate avenues, so you release your anger on illegitimate targets.

If all this sounds too familiar and it is ground you've travelled over x1000 times in your head, then we are on the right track at least. Now comes the hard part. You won't fix the tension in your head until you fix your job situation. If you don't take some kind of effective action, it will only continue and probably get worse.

Effective action can be either constructive or destructive. An example of the constructive type would be that rosy scenario in your head, retraining, gaining skills, writing a killer CV and getting your dream job. An example of the destructive type would be parading into work, telling off the boss, and quitting, whether or not you have a new job lined up.

My suspicion is that you have told yourself that absolutely under NO conditions are you allowed to take that second path, and to use the destructive solution to your job problem. My advice is simple enough. Allow yourself to contemplate quitting as a real option. Tell yourself that you ARE allowed to quit if it gets to where you can't stand it. This will reclaim some part of your lost power to control your life right away.

Ideally, this would relieve enough of your internal tension to get you unstuck. It means you don't have to go through all the long, time-consuming, difficult steps of perfecting your job skills before you are allowed to fix the throbbing pain of hating your job. You are permitted to work your way toward something better by fits and starts, imperfectly, make mistakes, and muddle through. Once you can throw off the burden of fixing everything before you can fix anything, you may be able to make more progress.

Good luck.

Yes, I have told myself not to take that second path (partly from fear for the future but partly - mostly? - because friends and family would think it crazy), but I've sometimes wondered if being forced into it would reveal any new possibilities. Not ruling it out in the hope of freeing myself up to take smaller steps sounds like a good mindset; thanks.

(Someone quit here a week ago with nothing else lined up. I was quite impressed but told myself he was younger, freer, smarter)

Right, so now to identify some smaller steps. I have a few in mind but need to work out a compromise between actually getting somewhere, however slowly, without pressuring myself to get somewhere...

feel like this will always be the thing that holds me back - not that I usually act on my rage, but it's always there, simmering below the surface, until it comes out at inconvenient moments.

feel like the Trump era is going to send it through the roof. maybe i should channel everything into being a vocalist in a death metal band.