Extreme Anger

Dear Ian,

Welcome to the Forum.

First, at some point you have to Respect your Girl Friend’s Repeated Demand to Break Up. You were not explicit, but I infer that she is the Mother of your Child. So, she, as the Mother of your Child, will never be totally out of your life. But what surprised me is that you seem to think MORE of the relationship with the Mother, than you do for the Child. What I have found for the most part is that Parental Love is far more powerful than Romantic Love. I would suspect that your Girlfriend sees all this clearly and her Love for the Baby now takes precedence over her ‘feelings’ for you. After all, it is reasonable that your Girlfriend would see all your seemingly Constant Fighting and Bickering as Bad for the baby. It is. She is acting sensibly when she insists on ending your Romantic Relationship.

Honestly, if you think about it, with all the quarrelling and fighting, you can’t possibly believe that She has Made you Happier. You should really be glad that you are set free of that Terrible and Violent Romance. Yes, you will have to save up for Child Support, and if you learn to Behave Yourself and act Calmly and Responsibly, then She won’t have any reason to object to reasonable Visitation Rites.

I myself was once Divorced and thought that I missed being in a Relationship. I confided in a much older women (way back then) who I felt was very Worldly Wise, and she told me that she had been observing me in the months since my Separation and she could only see that I HAD NEVER BEEN HAPPIER. As soon as she said that, I realized she was totally right! The only thing that was bringing me down was the IDEA that I should be in a Relationship, but the actual Working Fact of NOT Being In a Relationship was actually planting something of a Permanent Smile On My Face. My point is, here, that you are probably Very Lucky but you don’t realize it yet.

BUT, even with all that, you STILL have a tendency toward Anger. Now, Angry Thinking and Angry Behavior is a Product of a Lifetime of Bad Mental and Behavioral Habits. You can’t Change That over night, but, given Time, and a Very Committed Attitude, you can gradually drop the Negative Habits and Negative Thinking and acquire a more Positive Outlook and a repertoire of more pleasing Behaviors.

One of my favorite Anger Management Authors – Ronald Potter-Efron -- wrote in one of his more recent Books, “the Angry Brain” that Anger as a Process starts in the Brain and Runs on the Subconscious Level for up to 3 seconds before Conscious Thought is Notified. What that means is that your jaws are already clinched, your hands already balled up into fists, and your face is already red, and your heart is already racing, before you think to yourself, “I don’t think I like what my girlfriend just told me.” SO, what that means is that you Have To Be on the alert for Situations of Type that Make you Angry, so that you can be prepared to Calm Down the moment you find that you are Angry. You can focus on trying to be calm, and do the calming sort of Breathing Patterns that you should learn about. Remember it is very likely that a Negative Train of Thought may be one of the Provoking Elements in the Body’s Decision to Turn on the Anger, so Consciously Staying Calm may be a Great Help in preventing a lot of Anger from ever occurring. Also, you Should Be ready for THE FIRST SIGN OF ANGER – which for most people is the CLINCHING OF THE TEETH – THE SETTING OF THE JAW. In Order To SHUT DOWN the Anger (really, the Adrenaline Rush which causes all that Physiological Stuff) you Only Have to Relax your Jaw (one poster told me that she shuts her Anger down by Opening Her Mouth). Then you need to take some Calming Breaths, and THINK how you Just Dodged the Anger Bullet, and then Be On Guard. And, Remember, that whatever Started to Make you Angry is STILL THERE, and you must be Determined to Deal With It Calmly. As I said, All of This Takes Practice. You will screw up Situations for quite a while before you Finally Get the Hang of It, and can face a Provocation with Assured Level-headed Calmness.

So, do you see why it is Important to at least Temporarily Break Up with your Girl Friend. Give a Letter for your Girlfriend to a Trusted ‘Go-Between’ , some Friend that both you and your girlfriend have in common, and who can speak on your behalf, to the effect that ‘you agree with her that a separation would at this Time be the Wisest Thing, because you need Time to deal with your Anger Issues… perhaps as long as a few years. And that if she meets Somebody Else, well, that is how Life Works and you would just have to Deal with such an Eventuality should it occur. But, for the Present, you would like to consider the Breakup as at least ‘Tentatively Temporary’ and that you yourself have no plans for Tomcatting Around to find some new girlfriend, etc. If she really likes you then she might give you your time and wait for you to even out and become Civilized.

Maybe, you could keep in touch. If your Anger Management Works is going well, you could go on Limited Dates. You could both Set some Rules – No Serious Talking about the Future. Nothing that could Provoke an Angry Response. You could get together sometimes just to Have Fun – out to dinner, go to a club and do some Dancing (Girls Love to Dance, so if you are not presently the “Dancing Type” you might add some “Ballroom Lessons” to your List of Things To Do). Maybe just going to a Movie (oh, Always Ask somebody to tell you about the Movie – Beginning Middle and END. You don’t want to be sitting with your Girlfriend and suddenly get some BIG MESSAGE from the Movie that will make you both uncomfortable. Oh, and let her Pick the Kind of Movie. Going to a Guy Movie would be a mistake if she prefers ‘Chick flicks’. But perhaps the Most Important Thing about a Limited Date is that it needs to be Short. For the Time of the Date both You and She must be able to stay on your Good Behavior. Neither one of you wants to Tire Out and get irritable simply from Fatigue. I would recommend no longer that 3 hours for the first few Limited Dates. And if they go well, you can add an hour or so.

Anyway, that seems to be enough advice to get you started. Ofcourse I am always here if you need more advice. Let me know what books you decide to read. Let me know what exercises you are doing. You see, by connecting regularly to This Forum it may help you to take Solid Root into the Process of Eliminating your Anger and Replacing It with a More Positive YOU. Most people, if relieved of Stressful Situations, will THINK that they are Not Angry Anymore, simply because they have nothing to be Angry About. To Truly Deal with one’s Angry Personality, one needs to engage in Some Anger Management Activity Every Day. Anger Management has to be one of your Daily Mental References. You can’t change yourself without that kind of Consistent Focus and Intensity. So, it will help if you keep reporting in. Remember This is all Free, so what would it hurt, right?

Oh, I almost forgot about your Celexa. It is one of those Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. From my Experience and Extensive Reading, the only Sure Thing about all of the Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors is All the Side Effects. As for Screwing Up the Natural Process of Serotonin Metabolization (so your body is too confused to know whether or not it is depressed), well, they All Do That. But rarely is the Effect worth all the Side Effects. So, yes, the Pharmaceutical Companies may point out Studies that there Drug may reduce the Incidence of Depression by a Few Percentage Points (and these “Studies” are they Paid for and Conducted by Themselves, where the suspicion is that they can Weed Through, Shape and ‘Cherry Pick’ the Data most helpful to their Agenda, trusting that Nobody can Pay Enough Money to do a commensurate Peer Review Study to check their Conclusions, and that the FDA has been suspected of having basically turned into a Rubber Stamp, approving Drugs on basically the Drug Companies say-so). Well, now think about it… is WHAT is happening to you NOW better than being a few Percentage Points More Depressed? Maybe being a little bit Depressed is what you need – it might keep you out of trouble. But, seriously, I think that the SSRI Family of Drugs are Permanently Screwing People up. People who Quit report that the Funny Post Withdraw Symptoms go on for years – the “Brain Skitches” or “Brain Zaps” become less common but never completely go away. And the problem with those Brain Skitches is that they Wipe Out All Mental Process for the duration of the time it takes for the Skitch” or “Zap”… only a fraction of a second, but what if a Brain Skitch were to occur while you were trying to Catch Your Balance on a Ledge, or while you were reacting to avoid a Car Accident – you would be effectively paralyzed and helpless for as long as it takes for some serious damage to occur. So my advice there is to just wean off that poison. But that is only a non-medical opinion.

The best thing to eliminate anger is meditation.

Angrr Controll wrote:The best thing to eliminate anger is meditation.

Yes, you would think so. But a great many people in the Spiritual Meditating Communities are Angry People. Meditation has a great Appearance because a great many Inherently Calm and Peaceful People take up Meditation, as simply an extension of what they would do Naturally. But ordinary People get into Spirituality too, and unless they specifically take on a Discipline that Targets Anger, they will likely still be subject to occasional Angry Episodes. I can site myself as an example.

Of course, WHILE one is Meditating, off alone somewhere, it is easy to be Not Angry. but we could say that about any Activity that takes us away from the Ordinary Stressors. Watching TV. Reading a Book. Fishing.

Now, once a person is Working on his Anger Problem, THEN certain skills learned in Meditation could finally come in handy, such as the practiced ability to shut down and redirect the Content and Direction of our Thoughts. But Meditation is often a bit Overblown and Nebulous for this purpose. I was always involved in the Spiritual Community and Meditated, but the best means I have found for Re-Directing Thoughts is to simply Silently Count. If you find your mind preoccupied by Negative Trains of Thought, simply start counting silently up to One Hundred, and then Again and Again. The Trick to This is that Almost Always the Mind Takes over and you lose you Count, and so you simply have to catch yourself when you catch yourself and start over again. The Most Important Thing to remember is that The Counting is more important than what you were Thinking. The Thinking Mind is a very Proud Thing and it values its own Opinions, so you need Lots of Practice in over-ruling that Proud Thoughtful Mind.

Now, Meditation doesn't seem so Active and Purposeful as my Counting Method. Meditation to the degree in which it is Passive, becomes Less Effective a tool for Doing anything that Positively must get done. Working on Anger is not a Passive Discipline.