by Leo Volont » Mon Sep 04, 2017 11:01 am
Dear Purpledog,
Yes, I understand perfectly…. In fact I am wondering whether you are my brother writing in… no, just kidding. But yes my family was also not exactly a scene of pastoral beauty from “the Sound of Music” either.
I got to tell you that in regards to Anger Management, when it comes to none Rage anger, in which the Anger manifests mostly as cussing, yelling, “freaking out” and that kind of thing, well, FAMILY ANGER is the most difficult to deal with.
You see once we grow up and get out of the house we encounter many people who become our friends and acquaintances who remind us of friends we had growing up in school or wherever. We can get along with them. And everybody is a Little Bit different from Any Pattern we knew before, and so we respond to every New Person a little bit differently. It is like we are Free to make Choices and choose the Direction we take. We can compare that to being like an All Terrain Vehicle out in the Open Field. We can Go Anywhere we Want with people.
But Family. Especially if the Family setting was often seething with conflict. Well, there are Thousands, or maybe even Millions of Memory Associations which Strictly Define how we perceive our Close Family Relatives. The Idea you have of your Brother is FIXED – Fixed by a Million Memories, and a lot of them really aren’t very good are they? So in regards to your brother, you are NOT an All Terrain Vehicle out in an Open Grassy Field. You are a Train stuck on a track, and there is only one place to go, and that is where you have always gone. Anger City.
Yes, you can Change that, but it would take almost constant and very intensive work, just to get over one guy… well, he is your brother. It would involve the application of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The Cognitive Part is that you would have to review every Thought you had regarding your brother in terms of evaluating whether it was a true and productive thought, or just dredging up ancient bad history. You can imagine how busy you would be doing that for every one of a thousand collected thoughts. Ordinarily with None family anger, the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy needs to focus on maybe just 10 or 15 areas of Negative Thinking and Bad Behavioral Habits, but with a Brother with all that Personal History, you could have Hundreds of Habitual thought Complexes to Review and Revise. For instance, “My Brother is always such a Bonehead when we are watching TV” “Well, No, I guess he isn’t Always a Bonehead”. “One time we had a good laugh at a TV show”. “I should watch TV with my Brother expecting a good laugh”. That is how you Review and Revise negative thinking. But, like I said, with your Brother there would be a Million of them.
The Reason it is so hard to control your Anger with a Relative is because mentally you are a creature of habit. You know how experienced drivers can just automatically drive – steering and slight changes on the gas pedal happen like Automatically without thinking about it. Well, that is how you behave toward your Brother. It is REALLY hard to wrest back Conscious Control of that behavior. With Parents too. Back when I was 35 I remember still sometimes sounding like an adolescent when I would be speaking to my Mother. I was finally able to break out of that when I got over 40. That is one of the reasons they say Life Begins at 40… that those Childhood Patterns of Behavior finally begin to weaken and lose their stranglehold grip on one’s behavior.
But, yes, it might be good practice to Work on your Anger with your Brother. Review and Revise, Review and Revise. That is because if you had Anger growing up then you can expect to be revisited by Anger out in your Career Life and Relationship Life and Social Life. You might only get angry once or twice a year, but if you get angry at the wrong time with the wrong people you could Blight your Career or lose Social contacts permanently. Some people simply DROP Angry People from their list, even if you have been calm a hundred times, one blow up and you’re out. So working on your Anger now while you are young is probably the Best thing you can do for yourself. I would not wish the “Hot Head” Label on my Worst Enemy… or maybe I WOULD! That’s how Bad it Is!
You might also have Adrenaline Issues. Read that Long Post I just wrote before I got to you addressed to Daisyclose “How to Stop Anger from Pouring Out on Ones You Love” . That is probably the best exposition I wrote regarding Adrenaline so far. And then I also discussed Books and Authors and Cognitive Behavior Therapy with her. Check it out. Let me know what you think.