Looking for advice

First figure out what things trigger your anger, then work on adjusting how you cope when those triggers occur.

Thank you. I am constantly trying to make things better and figure out what causes my anger. I just don't know anymore.

Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems: problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life.

Here are some simple steps for reducing anger that you can try:

- Breathe deeply, from your diaphragm; breathing from your chest won't relax you. Picture your breath coming up from your "gut."
- Slowly repeat a calm word or phrase such as "relax," "take it easy." Repeat it to yourself while breathing deeply.
- Use imagery: visualize a relaxing experience, from either your memory or your imagination.
- Non-strenuous: slow yoga-like exercises can relax your muscles and make you feel much calmer.

Practice these techniques daily. Learn to use them automatically when you're in a tense situation.

Take care and be safe!

Thank you. I appreciate the advice and I will try all of it.

As a person with a sometimes violent temper I like Daniel878's answer. Especially about the practice part because when the anger comes on -- it is too late!

When you are already seeing red just step away and do not engage anyone until you cool down!

I like to practice noticing the warning signs that come before the actual anger so you can intervene before it is too late. Signs like irritation or aggravation at what would normally be trivial things. Also notice what specific things can trigger it and re-associate those things to something else.

Example: I used to get involved in road rage. Now I will play a game to see how many people I can get to cut me off while going the speed of traffic and maintaining a safe following distance. The very thing that used to throw me into a fit of anger now helps me win my game.

There is nothing wrong with you. You do not need to be “fixed”. You just picked up some associations (probably from your parents) on how to deal with certain circumstances with anger.

Hi,

Another tip I can offer is this, start a journal or diary. Write down...

1. What was the trigger that caused you to be upset, irritated or angry
2. How many times you lost your temper in a day
3. Do you get uptight only with your partner or every one else?

Write down your thoughts and your feelings.

Record them every day. At the end of each week, go through your journal and look for the "common" thing.

By doing some refection, you can learn about yourself, which then can help you find solutions to your issue.

I wish you happiness and peace of mind.

CikTim

Thank you everyone for the advice. I have been trying new things that all of you have suggested and it seems to be helping. I have learned a few things about myself and I am learning to control my temper. I hope this is a positive step to better version of myself.

Try to follow these tips to avoid outburst:
Think before you speak always
Once you are calm, express your anger then
Take a timeout
Get some exercise
Don't hold a grudge
Practice relaxation skills
Use humor to release anger/tension
Consider seeking help

Talk to your bf, and tell him about this so he could understand you better and figure things out.

Lookingforadvice wrote:Over the past couple of years my anger and temper have gotten drastically worse. I get into arguments with my boyfriend over stupid things. I scream cuss say things I don't mean and I hate it. He is a good man and doesn't deserve it. I don't know what causes me to loose my temper so badly. I am just looking for advice on how to fix me. We have a son together and I don't want him growing up seeing me like this. They both mean the world to me and I don't want to loose them. Please help.

You sound a lot like what I used to be. I would explode in anger and it would seem to come just out of the blue. How could anybody ever control anything that happens so instantaneously. Well, it’s really not all that ‘instantaneous’ once you have learned to pay attention to your moment to moment feeling and reactions.

Here, read this list of things that happen to your body just before you “explode”:

“Unconscious tensing of muscles, especially in the face and neck. Teeth grinding, breathing rate increases dramatically, face turns red and veins start to become visible due to an increase in blood pressure, face turns pale as blood is channeled to muscle groups (fight response), feeling hot or cold, shaking in the hands, goose-bumps, heart rate increases, adrenaline is released into your system creating a surge of power”.

Well, not everything in anger is so ‘Instantaneous’. For myself I notice that my first warning of Anger is a clinching of teeth. I have 5 kitty cats at home and of course they get in my way sometimes and inconvenience me, but I notice that when I am getting ‘displeased’, my teeth will clinch, and that is my warning sign to not raise my voice and yell at the poor little things, but to talk to them in the English that they understand, to be ‘good things’ and to stay within the confines of certain boundaries which of course they know about, none of them being naïve little kittens. And they understand that. I am able to perceive the warning signs of anger, given to me by my own body (yes, you only have a second or two to catch such a sign) and that enables me to redirect my behavior toward a more peaceful and calm resolution of the original problem.

Anyway, what you really need to know now is that you are not helpless. You just need to read a few books and get aware of what you can do to fix all of this for yourself.

One book I recommend, because I found I gave it a splendid review on Amazon is “Angry All The Time: An Emergency Guide to Anger Control” by Ronald Potter-Efron (my review is on the 3rd page of the 5 Stars). I had said that it is the one book most likely to bring anybody back ‘from the edge’.

Then there is watching your THINKING. Yes, a lot of people, even on this Site will tell you that your Anger sources out of your Emotions – that you are Angry because you ‘FEEL’ angry. But just pay attention to what you are THINKING. In most every case your FEELINGS come out of the way you are THINKING. You know, you don’t instantly FEEL anything. First you have to think about what somebody meant when they said this, or why somebody just walked by when you said that – it’s all how you have been thinking about what has happened to you. And the Most Important Thing to Realize here, is that when you try to come to conclusions about what people REALLY MEANT when they did things, is that it is very likely you are wrong. Look at everything else you think about. Are you always right about everything else? In school, were you an A student and got everything right? So, there, your feelings, for the most part are based on what you are thinking, and you KNOW your thinking is not always right. So you should conclude from that that you should never take your feelings entirely seriously. If you don’t know anything for sure, then it simply makes no sense to get angry over anything.

Well, that is Anger Management in short. I wish you the best of luck. I remember when I was in your shoes, and all you have to do is to do what you have already started to do already, and that is to figure out how to control yourself. There is a Way and you have found it. You only need to keep following it.

I've done many bad things in my teenage years/early adulthood. Today I am almost 23 and deeply regret all of them and don't act the same way anymore but that doesn't matter to me. I still hate myself and start thinking about suicide from the moment I wake up.

The particular memory that has been making me want to kill myself lately is related to a dog I had when I was 16/17 years old. She was like 4 years old and really big and strong. Up to that point I had always treated her right but when then she started to misbehave. Namely she wouldn't stop barking no matter what. Frustration and anger would build up and I didn't know what else to do so I began to physically punish her. Most of the time I'd throw water/shoes at her but sometimes I would also kick and punch her. One time I remember completely flipping out and punching her in the ear 5 or 6 times, that was the furthest I went. These never helped and she didn't seem to grow afraid of me. I must say that at that age I started to have other interests and looking back I didn't give her enough attention. I also couldn't take her for walks because she was too strong and would go crazy when she saw another dog.

I've done many bad things in my teenage years/early adulthood. Today I am almost 23 and deeply regret all of them and don't act the same way anymore but that doesn't matter to me. I still hate myself and start thinking about suicide from the moment I wake up.

The particular memory that has been making me want to kill myself lately is related to a dog I had when I was 16/17 years old. She was like 4 years old and really big and strong. Up to that point I had always treated her right but when then she started to misbehave. Namely she wouldn't stop barking no matter what. Frustration and anger would build up and I didn't know what else to do so I began to physically punish her. Most of the time I'd throw water/shoes at her but sometimes I would also kick and punch her. One time I remember completely flipping out and punching her in the ear 5 or 6 times, that was the furthest I went. These never helped and she didn't seem to grow afraid of me. I must say that at that age I started to have other interests and looking back I didn't give her enough attention. I also couldn't take her for walks because she was too strong and would go crazy when she saw another dog.







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Atif

Dear Kanwal,

My God! Do you need some perspective. You feel bad because you treated a bad dog badly. Well, that is supposed to be the way to treat a bad dog.

Why do you think there are so many Good Dogs in the World today. All that attention to Breeding did not happen by some feely good accident. It is certainly not because of the way just any dog is pampered today, good or bad. No. The way it used to be was that people would select from the ‘pick of the litter’. What happened to the little weakling others… nobody much cared… they were only little dogs that no one even named yet. They ‘disappeared’, and nobody gave a second thought as to where. Then the ‘pick of the litter’ was brought up and trained. If it was a good and fine dog, then all was well, but if it had some nasty habit that it could not be broken from, or could not develop some working dog skill that was necessary for it, well, again, that dog would simply disappear. There is always going to be another “pick of the litter”. And that system gave us all of the splendidly wonderful dogs we have Today. But nowadays, when people tolerate just any dog – stupid, mean, disobedient… and then let them breed! Well, dogs are going back to being wild animals again – wolves – like Humanity did not take almost 15,000 years to domesticate them. We are falling down on our responsibility of maintaining Dogs as a quality symbiotic specie.

And here you are letting a stupid dog, one that you should have gotten rid of, make you feel guilty enough to harm yourself.

You need to understand that you are a Man. It is perfectly okay for you to make judgments about dogs… especially when they make judgments about you. That dog was not going to obey you. It was personal. Apparently you never hit it hard enough. Maybe it was waiting to be bitten, but it was a bad and defiant dog. The only guilt you should feel is that you let that obstinate beast make a fool of you for so long. You should have taken it to the Vet as soon as you even suspected a problem and said “this dog will not obey and I don’t wish it to suffer any longer”, as though not obeying is the worst disease a dog can have. Well, it is.

You’re a Man. Men can make hard decisions. That is what we are here for. Not that we can be proud of everything we do or ever have done, but we can take comfort in the fact that we did what needed to be done when no one else would do it. And that includes beating a dog that won’t obey vocal commands. The stupid thing should have known that was its last chance.

I've done many bad things in my teenage years/early adulthood. Today I am almost 23 and deeply regret all of them and don't act the same way anymore but that doesn't matter to me. I still hate myself and start thinking about suicide from the moment I wake up.

The particular memory that has been making me want to kill myself lately is related to a dog I had when I was 16/17 years old. She was like 4 years old and really big and strong. Up to that point I had always treated her right but when then she started to misbehave. Namely she wouldn't stop barking no matter what. Frustration and anger would build up and I didn't know what else to do so I began to physically punish her. Most of the time I'd throw water/shoes at her but sometimes I would also kick and punch her. One time I remember completely flipping out and punching her in the ear 5 or 6 times, that was the furthest I went. These never helped and she didn't seem to grow afraid of me. I must say that at that age I started to have other interests and looking back I didn't give her enough attention. I also couldn't take her for walks because she was too strong and would go crazy when she saw another dog.




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