I’m always angry, no matter what

Photofreak22 wrote:I met my husband when I was 16, . . . We got married when he turned 18.

. . . and even when I want to be alone and my husband tries to see what’s going on,

. . . my life is so busy, I work and go to college full time, then I come home and clean, etc.,

Sounds to me that you don't now, and never have had, any "alone time".

I think you need to make it High Priority to get alone time into your life, and that means away from anything that would distract you from that alone time, like a husband around the corner asking how you are.

Hi Photofreak,

Welcome to the Forum. First, about your career choice -- I’m glad you decided to reach higher than nursing. Of course I have the utmost respect for Nurses, and because of my ongoing medical problems I get to meet a lot of them, but I often feel that they are so intelligent and gifted that being a Doctor would have been well within their reach, only there is little or no money for ordinary people anymore, and the rich kids are too lazy to take up medicine. My own daughter got a PHD in Psychology and I am extremely proud of her. I wish you the best of luck in your own pursuit. But first we have to deal with your extreme irritability and anger.

Oh, about the background history you gave of yourself… you omitted any word about your mother except that she and your father had their disagreements. What strikes me as odd concerning your focus on your father is that one would think that the most likely role model for a young woman would be the mother. Certainly it was not wonderful for you that your father had his imperfections, but the person that you grew up emulating and modelling yourself on was probably your mother, no? If you did not model yourself after your mother, then we would be curious as to why. If your father provided the far better exemplar then I could understand focusing on him as an adult role model. But, wait, we are most influenced by Role Models while we are still very young, before we are even capable of making intelligent value judgments. Well, whatever your History, let’s see what we can do for you while accepting your anger and irritability as a fait accompli.

We can assume that your irritability is in response to stress. The way that works is that you are aware of a great many demands on your time and energies. I would guess you look at the clock and the calendar and have a difficult time imagining how you can get everything done. Oh, by the way, you say you come home and “clean house”. But you also say that you Work and are a Full Time Student! So the first thing you need to do in order to make things manageable is to discontinue all House Work and Cleaning that isn’t absolutely Life and Death necessary. Many career people who put in long hours and who are very successful live like absolute pigs, simply because they have set realistic priorities. For instance, they can get 6 hours of sleep a night if they don't 'tidy up’ or just 4 and a half hours of sleep if they care about what the nosy neighbors think. Maybe your husband would like to do all of the cleaning. And if it is not important enough to him whereby he would do it all himself, then it is not important enough for him to expect you to do it. After you have your PHD and have worked off all your Student Debt then you can hire a maid. I myself live like an absolute pig. You see, for years I was living with severe osteoarthritis of the hip joints and so had to prioritize every move I made, and so I learned how to be quite comfortable living in clutter. One learns soon enough what demands to be cleaned and what can be allowed to pile up.

Well, back to your stress. What cause anger and irritability is either Fear or Threats. Oh, before going into that let me say that if you read many of my current postings you will see I speak a lot about Adrenaline Reactions, but I just got a new book, which seriously updates my knowledge of the Adrenal System and Anger. The book is written by my favorite Self Help Anger Management author, Ronald Potter-Efron. He had written a college level Psychology Text Book about Anger Management in 2005 which I couldn’t afford, but he wrote a 2nd edition recently which unifies anger management therapies with domestic violence and has an expanded section on how anger and violence are governed by the brains neurochemical processes. “Handbook of Anger Management and Domestic Violence Offender Treatment”. It wasn’t cheap so I saved up for it. I’m glad I got it. It is far more food for thought than the usual self help books. So, anyway, my advice to you is still relatively fresh in my mind from that Real College Text Book. …. So you are reacting to Every Stress as though they represent some real threat or something that that must be feared in a life or death way. But you know that none of these Little Things are anywhere near being so significant. What has happened to you is that your body and brain chemistry has been habituating to the arousal of Anger responses, instead of the inhibition and suppression of them. Repeated stress wears down the Hippocampus part of the brain that should turn off unwanted releases of Cortisol (not Adrenaline as I had previously believed). Your brain can recover, but it will take some serious Cognitive Behavioral work on your part. You are lucky you are a psychology major. What you learn now in treating yourself will come in very handy later when you do actual clinical work.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, reduced to its basic parts can be summed up in the words Review, Revise, Rehearse. You have to begin immediately to Review all of your Actions, Behaviors, Thoughts and Internal Dialogues for harmful and unproductive elements, such as snapping at your husband for sticking his head in the door and saying “How you doing Honey?” or being inconsiderate to your wonderful little animal pets (I myself share the house with 4 cats). When your internal dialogue is running to useless worry, make a note of it. Now, it would be great if we could just Stop the Bad, but often we need to Replace it with something better. Our Thoughts and Actions do not like a vacuum. This is where Revise comes in. We need to replace Habitual Bad Behaviors with new Habitual Good Behaviors. For instance, think of some cute and charming way to get rid of your husband when he bothers you, which won’t take much longer than physically assaulting him, and the same goes for your pets when they wonder by and ask you in their own way how their Mommy is doing. The Rehearse part of the treatment trilogy is to go over in your mind how you will specifically implement these new habits of thought and behavior. Just picture the situations in your mind’s eye. About revising your Internal Dialogue, well, just start thinking of new and better stuff. Many of the Books talk about Disputing your old themes of Internal Dialogue. For instance, “I hate Mondays”. You would dispute that by suggesting to yourself that it could be far worse… “Monday in Somalia” for instance.

Oh, there is a new therapy I heard about – Eye Movement Desensitization. Seems some lady psychologist was walking through the woods with her eyes darting back and forth between the birds and the butterflies and she noticed it cancelled out her obsessive worrying. So she elaborated that simple useful observation into a vast and elaborate Treatment Protocol (which I read up on and found to be mostly superfluous with many unnecessary elaborations). Nobody knows how it works but we can guess. You can demonstrate it for yourself. Hold up both hands at eye level with your elbows bent and with your hands about 18 inches apart so each hand is off to the side. Now, keeping your head straight forward, first with one hand and then the other, extend the fingers up from a closed fist position and down again, as though you are waving to yourself. Let your eyes go from first one hand wave to the other and go as quickly as you can without confusing yourself and your eyes. It will be like you are alternately flashing your hands. What happens is that Brain Activity is bouncing back and forth between right brain and left brain and so the brain doesn’t know what to think. I’ve only been aware of this New Thing for the last few days, but have already tried it out with falling asleep, where I typically waste about 10 minutes waiting for my thoughts of the day to calm down. Ordinarily I count to a hundred and then start again at 1 and back up to a hundred. But the thoughts tend to interrupt the count for more than a few minutes. It seems this Eye Movement Desensitization Technique has a very effective quieting effect. I also used it at the Math Table (studying for a second career) today when I would notice that I was stuck on a problem, hoping that the EMD technique would clear my head and get me out of whatever conceptual mental rut I was in. Seems to work. Anyway, use this technique for clearing your own head. I found that it only takes about 10 or 15 seconds to notice its calming effect.

Now, about Cortisol, which I have written much about, but in terms of “Adrenaline”. Much of what I had been saying was all very correct. That Cortisol begins to be released by the Hypothalamus in response to instructions from subconscious portions of the core brain, up to a few seconds before the Conscious Mind is aware of any problem or threat. But, and this is where I got the Book beat. The Book says that until we become Consciously Aware of the Problem we are helpless in the face of the flood of adrenals that are even then beginning to get us all fired up and excited. But I have discovered that if we become Aware of the First Physiological Sign that Cortisol has been released, we can shut down the process simply by relaxing that first reflex. That First Reflex is a tightening of the jaw muscles or the clenching of the teeth. One lady who wrote in says that she can only get angry after she closes her mouth. So, Photofreak, pay close attention to your jaw muscles. The instant your jaw muscles tighten, relax them – open your mouth and take a deep breath through your mouth.

One reason why you might be chronically angry is that you are not giving your body long enough between cortisol hits to metabolize those excitatory hormones. If you can catch these Rushes before they get a chance to release their full fury, perhaps you can get ahead of the curve.

It is good you have pets. You can use them for practice. I noticed also that when one of my kitties bothers me when I am in the middle of a kick butt math problem that my jaws will tighten, SO I instantly relax that reflex and then (Review and Revise) reach down and pet the Kitty, ask if it is okay, and then tell it in an authoritative tone that it is okay, and then say “Let me read my book you Big Goose”. Traffic Anger I handle in the same way. If some car cuts me off and my teeth clench, I just relax the reflex and (review and revise) remember all the times when I was late for work and drove like a madman. If you can suppress all these Rushes at first reflex, then your poor over stressed brain will be able to begin recover.

Anyway, that seems enough for now. Please continue to write. Because you are following the same path as my daughter I would naturally be very solicitous for your success in all of this. But, yes, let me know what you think. I hope I was able to help.

[quote="Leo Volont"]
“First, about your career choice -- I’m glad you decided to reach higher than nursing.”

I took AP Psych in high school, but thought that I could do psychiatric nursing or something like that. In all honesty, nursing bored me because of all the small, seemingly “useless” things they teach you before you actually go into the real nursing. One of my classmates mom is a nurse, and she said she didn’t have to know anything we were learning. I know it’s all good to know, but even my Anatomy teacher (who is a doctor) said that he didn’t remember it all and kept textbooks around.

“What strikes me as odd concerning your focus on your father is that one would think that the most likely role model for a young woman would be the mother. Certainly it was not wonderful for you that your father had his imperfections, but the person that you grew up emulating and modelling yourself on was probably your mother, no?”

Since I was six, I’ve been going to church. My mom has never given up her faith, and has been the best role model a daughter could ask for. She’s had a tough life herself, she got divorced twice before marrying my father (her first husband was abusive, her second husband abused drugs), and then she married my father, who doesn’t hit her and doesn’t do drugs, but he used excessive force on my brother and I, and came home angry from work every day. The reason I didn’t mention her is because I basically only mentioned my problems, and my mom has never caused me any problems. She’s been the best mother to me, and has always made sure we had what we needed. But she didn’t sit idliy and let my father act like a maniac, she fought back, sometimes verbally and sometimes physically. She did what she had to do to keep my brother and I safe, I remember at one point we all slept in the same room and she slept with a knife, because she was even afraid of what he might do. He was unpredictable and honestly insane, and we still don’t know why. But he isn’t like that anymore, he’s back in church regularly and only flips out when my little brother (who is now 17) gets physical with him (he also has anger problems, which is why I link my anger most with my father).

“So the first thing you need to do in order to make things manageable is to discontinue all House Work and Cleaning that isn’t absolutely Life and Death necessary. Many career people who put in long hours and who are very successful live like absolute pigs, simply because they have set realistic priorities. For instance, they can get 6 hours of sleep a night if they don't 'tidy up’ or just 4 and a half hours of sleep if they care about what the nosy neighbors think. Maybe your husband would like to do all of the cleaning. And if it is not important enough to him whereby he would do it all himself, then it is not important enough for him to expect you to do it.”

I hate having a mess, that’s one of the things that sets my anger off too. I ask my husband to help, and he just doesn’t care to. I flip out on him, I just can’t deal with things laying around, dishes not being clean, clothes piling up. I’m also not pleasant when I get less than 6 hours sleep, I can live on it of course, but I’m definitely not nice when I get less than 6 hours of sleep.

“Your brain can recover, but it will take some serious Cognitive Behavioral work on your part...Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, reduced to its basic parts can be summed up in the words Review, Revise, Rehearse.”

When I took Psychology and my professor taught us about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, that’s immediately what I thought I needed, I just never knew how to go at it. I feel like I’m not good enough to do it myself, and my husband works full time (40-50 hours a week) so he can’t really help me. Plus, he thinks that all problems resolve on their own, which obviously isn’t true. He’s the naive one with his head in the clouds, I’m the one who is grounded and stressed all the time.

“For instance, “I hate Mondays”. You would dispute that by suggesting to yourself that it could be far worse… “Monday in Somalia” for instance.”

I live by this, and when my husband starts to feel depressed about his work situation, I tell him tons of people have it worse. I realized how blessed I am to have what I have, but it doesn’t make me less angry, if anything it makes me more angry because people out there are suffering. I do try to use that as much as I can, because I know people deal with things that I can’t even imagine.

“Oh, there is a new therapy I heard about – Eye Movement Desensitization...The instant your jaw muscles tighten, relax them – open your mouth and take a deep breath through your mouth.”

I will definitely try these! After you said something about the jaw muscles being tight, I realized my jaw was tight, even while reading this. I wasn’t angry or anything, I’m just tense all the time. I feel like I’m always on edge, and I don’t really have a reason to be. I think I naturally hold my jaw tight though because my bottom jaw didn’t grow correctly, and shifts when I open my mouth, causing me to keep my mouth closed moreso than others.

Thank you for your long, detailed response! I will definitely apply to techniques you reccomened, hopefully they help.

What you believe = feelings

This means: if you believe your life is terrible you will feel no other but terrible about your own life, if you believe your life is really good you will feel no other but really good about your own life .

i dont recomend ppl to bs themselves to believe they have no problems when they do, but because of the reasoning try not to make it worse than it is

Sometimes you need a rest from responsibilities; dont always stand focused on responsibilities have a plan when you work, rest, play; there should be moments you dont care and you just enjoy living

Photofreak22 wrote:

Leo Volont wrote:“First, about your career choice -- I’m glad you decided to reach higher than nursing.”

I took AP Psych in high school, but thought that I could do psychiatric nursing or something like that. In all honesty, nursing bored me because of all the small, seemingly “useless” things they teach you before you actually go into the real nursing. One of my classmates mom is a nurse, and she said she didn’t have to know anything we were learning. I know it’s all good to know, but even my Anatomy teacher (who is a doctor) said that he didn’t remember it all and kept textbooks around.

Leo Volont wrote: “What strikes me as odd concerning your focus on your father is that one would think that the most likely role model for a young woman would be the mother. Certainly it was not wonderful for you that your father had his imperfections, but the person that you grew up emulating and modelling yourself on was probably your mother, no?”

Since I was six, I’ve been going to church. My mom has never given up her faith, and has been the best role model a daughter could ask for. She’s had a tough life herself, she got divorced twice before marrying my father (her first husband was abusive, her second husband abused drugs), and then she married my father, who doesn’t hit her and doesn’t do drugs, but he used excessive force on my brother and I, and came home angry from work every day. The reason I didn’t mention her is because I basically only mentioned my problems, and my mom has never caused me any problems. She’s been the best mother to me, and has always made sure we had what we needed. But she didn’t sit idliy and let my father act like a maniac, she fought back, sometimes verbally and sometimes physically. She did what she had to do to keep my brother and I safe, I remember at one point we all slept in the same room and she slept with a knife, because she was even afraid of what he might do. He was unpredictable and honestly insane, and we still don’t know why. But he isn’t like that anymore, he’s back in church regularly and only flips out when my little brother (who is now 17) gets physical with him (he also has anger problems, which is why I link my anger most with my father).

Leo Volont wrote: “So the first thing you need to do in order to make things manageable is to discontinue all House Work and Cleaning that isn’t absolutely Life and Death necessary. Many career people who put in long hours and who are very successful live like absolute pigs, simply because they have set realistic priorities. For instance, they can get 6 hours of sleep a night if they don't 'tidy up’ or just 4 and a half hours of sleep if they care about what the nosy neighbors think. Maybe your husband would like to do all of the cleaning. And if it is not important enough to him whereby he would do it all himself, then it is not important enough for him to expect you to do it.”

I hate having a mess, that’s one of the things that sets my anger off too. I ask my husband to help, and he just doesn’t care to. I flip out on him, I just can’t deal with things laying around, dishes not being clean, clothes piling up. I’m also not pleasant when I get less than 6 hours sleep, I can live on it of course, but I’m definitely not nice when I get less than 6 hours of sleep.

Leo Volont wrote: “Your brain can recover, but it will take some serious Cognitive Behavioral work on your part...Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, reduced to its basic parts can be summed up in the words Review, Revise, Rehearse.”

When I took Psychology and my professor taught us about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, that’s immediately what I thought I needed, I just never knew how to go at it. I feel like I’m not good enough to do it myself, and my husband works full time (40-50 hours a week) so he can’t really help me. Plus, he thinks that all problems resolve on their own, which obviously isn’t true. He’s the naive one with his head in the clouds, I’m the one who is grounded and stressed all the time.

Leo Volont wrote: “For instance, “I hate Mondays”. You would dispute that by suggesting to yourself that it could be far worse… “Monday in Somalia” for instance.”

I live by this, and when my husband starts to feel depressed about his work situation, I tell him tons of people have it worse. I realized how blessed I am to have what I have, but it doesn’t make me less angry, if anything it makes me more angry because people out there are suffering. I do try to use that as much as I can, because I know people deal with things that I can’t even imagine.

Leo Volont wrote: “Oh, there is a new therapy I heard about – Eye Movement Desensitization...The instant your jaw muscles tighten, relax them – open your mouth and take a deep breath through your mouth.”

I will definitely try these! After you said something about the jaw muscles being tight, I realized my jaw was tight, even while reading this. I wasn’t angry or anything, I’m just tense all the time. I feel like I’m always on edge, and I don’t really have a reason to be. I think I naturally hold my jaw tight though because my bottom jaw didn’t grow correctly, and shifts when I open my mouth, causing me to keep my mouth closed moreso than others.

Thank you for your long, detailed response! I will definitely apply to techniques you reccomened, hopefully they help.

…………………………………………
Good Morning Phreak (interesting conjunction, huh?)

Good! Your reply was much better than I dared to hope for. Your mother is most admirable and while she may have had her reasons to be sometimes nervous, distracted or edgy while you two were bonding in your infancy (setting up the Social Attachment Format that you would follow for the rest of your life), I would fully expect that she was in fact a very good formative role model for you. So that would mean that you are intrinsically just as good as she is. For instance, your World View, while positive, is also realistic and full of empathy. Right now you may seem to yourself to be ‘damaged goods’ but there is nothing there that can’t be fixed.

Oh, I am not clear about whether I was able to convey to you the basics of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It really is as basically as easy as I had said. I myself had a history of anger and had gone to a Psychologist for it. When he found I was college educated he said “Good, that will save time” and gave me a handbook on Anger Management Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I’m sorry I did not save it, or maybe I had, but it got mixed in with all my other Anger Management Books and I can’t remember which one it is). But my Therapist had no magic wand. For all of our sessions he would ask me about whether I had uncovered any new Bad Habits of Thought or Behavior, and what thoughts and behaviors I planned to replace them with. We would also discuss any instances where I was able to implement these changes, or where I had failed to. Basically my Therapy consisted of the Therapist being supportive of everything that the Book was already telling me to do. And many of the inexpensive Self Help Books are quite effective (but stick to books written by Medical Professionals and stay away from all the New Age crap, until you have a strong background in Anger Management Theory and only wish to read the New Age materials in order to laugh and sneer at it). Regarding myself, my reading a chapter a day from one of all the books that were then on the Market kept me mindful of my Anger Issues and eventually I noticed that the CBT Methodology was substantially changing me for the better. It does take time. Old habits cannot be broken overnight, and new habits take a while to develop. For instance, the Post Op Protocols for Hip Replacement. Because my Hip Replacement had been delayed so long, I was living with the Post Op Protocols for close to a year before I ever got the Operation. What those Protocols are is basically the patient is instructed to keep his or her range of motion within certain bounds in order to prevent accidental dislocation of the new joint. Ordinarily they inform the patients of these Protocols just prior to the operation or even told of them only in their Going Home Instructions. But Motions and Moving are Habitual Behaviors (you drop something and so you bend down to pick it up out of pure kinetic second nature habit) but people forget and so there are dislocations which the Doctors blame on the patients for not following instructions. Crazy, right? Forget all Systems Theory and Models of Learning, and be satisfied that when Failures occur, that Blame can be assigned away from those who are In Charge of assuring that there should be no failures. Anyway, it was because of concerns such as that that I Lived the Post Op Protocols before the operation. It took about 6 months before I was consistently doing naturally and without forethought all that I needed to do in order to not ever accidentally exceed the Protocols. Also, I am an amateur musician and have been all of my adult life. Sometimes for a challenge I will pick up a New Instrument and start over from scratch… I play by ear. Skills build slowly. Within six months I come to understand that I am not wasting my time on a dead end. Within a year I typically begin to get really interesting, but usually within two years it seems like I develop an actual ‘knack’. The Psychologists would attribute this to Neuroplasticity – the brains ability to reallocate or create new neurons and neuro networks in order to perform to new demands and expectations. Also, Neuroplasticity is responsible for stripping away neurons and neuron networks from complexes that have fallen into disuse (where everyone forgets most of their High School French, and complain that while they got an A in Trig, now they wouldn’t know a tangent line if one were to bite them on the butt). So, while the books optimistically talk in terms of ‘weeks, or months’, I would instead suppose that the Smallest Unit of Time you should be thinking in terms of is 6 Months, or Half Years. You would need solid daily commitment to CBT Practice and Attention for six months before you could expect to recognize any solid level of achievement or positive change in your life – that is, where you can acknowledge that Hope is Real and that you are actually getting Good at It at creating a better You.

Perhaps a good place to start is with your Obsessive Compulsive fussiness. Your husband is apparently on board, or maybe he only doesn’t care about whether there is a mess or not because you keep the place immaculate. In any case, it would be great practice for you to take a great deal of the power out of this internal imperative you have for keeping everything neat and clean and all the ducks in a row. Yes, you can argue that Neatness is a Virtue and that Cleanliness is next to Godliness. However, one of the things you learn in Anger Management is that People ALWAYS come up with Great Excuses for everything they feel compelled to do (automatic self-justification is a semi-delusional tendency that all rational people need to guard against). So we have a great deal of Justified Anger and Righteous Indignation that gets people into a lot of trouble or which serves only to make their lives worse, not better. So, while you must certainly recognize the necessity of Limiting Demands on your Time as a necessary ingredient to reducing your total of Life Stressors, you need to prioritize away from housekeeping concerns. You might also consider that your marital relations might improve if you eliminate compulsive housekeeping as a bone of contention between yourself and your husband, whose patience and tolerance for you should not be taken so much for granted. And, as I said, it would be great practice. If you can Prove-In the System and show yourself that it actually works, then you will have greater confidence going forward.

Oh, a quick comment on Nursing. Nursing, as I have seen it is often mostly administrative – Nurses handle the paperwork. This is not to minimize that. Maybe I would still be waiting for my Hip Operation had it not been for a nurse taking it on her own initiative to make a series of phone calls and push for an inquest concerning allocations of funds and the moral ethical implications of a prosthesis vendor freezing the hospital’s credit line for replacement knees and hips. It turns out that around 20 patients had been awaiting surgery because some piece of paper got stuck at the bottom of an Inbox somewhere, and that that Nurse pinging everybody caused the obstructing issues to be expedited through. A Nurse did that. I still remember how much pain I was living with from day to day. She, more than anybody else, brought me relief. I sent her a Christmas Card. Oh, and then I notice variations from Nurse to Nurse. Now recall what you said about all the stuff that people tell you ISN’T that important. Well, it IS important, but only if you know it. It is unfortunate but people who ‘half-ass’ through life think that all anybody needs to know is what they themselves have been able to skate by on. You can believe this until you meet people who REALLY know their jobs. So, don’t get hypnotized by the slackers and the 80% of people whose only ambition in life is to be good enough to get by. They are the place-keepers and the slot-fillers. All the Important Stuff is done by the Skilled and Knowledgeable Top 20%. The Best Companies look for this Skilled Elite. The Worst Companies hire only the place-keepers and the slot-fillers because they come cheaper. You should aim for Personal Excellence. You might not get paid much more for it, but you will find that Like-Minds will gravitate your way. People you respect will likewise respect you. Also, while everyone else might be bored with their jobs, your excellence will stand out so obviously that the Powers That Be will bring you in for special projects and all the Mission Impossibles. It will make you feel like your Life has meaning, even when on the Job.

Well, thanks for giving me your attention. Again, it would be nice if you were to report on your progress. Only seldom do people write in and report on positive changes in their Lives that their attention to Anger Management had fostered. Of course you can understand how such positive reports would give hope to New Members writing in with their problems. It could be their ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.

Hello,

First off, before you take my advice, please try what everyone else is saying first. After that then i'd say try what I'd say.

I've gone through a lot of what you went through. At least with the anger portion of your statement and I'd have to say medication and therapy helps SIGNIFICANTLY for me. Like now all I get angry about is in the orning and the rest of my day is under control. I highly recommend not doing it first and try some techniques to do first such as medication, binaural beats, exercise, etc. and if you are having no luck then I'd go to therapy and then follow it up with a psychiatrist and consider medication.

Here's why I say do it this way instead of jumping to it. While I recommend medication, I do think you should try whatever you can to cope with it first and make meds the last resort just so you know that you've tired everything within your ability and it's not getting better. That way when you do meds, you know that you're dedicating your insurance and money to this and you won't need to worry about regrets.

That's just my experience. I really wish you nothing but the best and I hope things get resolved.

Sports helped me to reduce my anger big time

lol4er wrote:Sports helped me to reduce my anger big time

Even when you lose?

Often sports give us just one more thing to be territorial about, where our status may be challenged, may we may strongly disagree with the referee calls.

Chronic Anger is not so much about momentary inclinations... that is more just "irritability" -- 'being snippish before one has had one's coffee'. Anger is more like a Frame of Mind that offers a susceptibility, and then too many Anger Episodes lead to too much Stress in the Adrenal System, and so the Adrenal Neurochemicals that Anger rides on never really clear (Cortisol and Adrenaline). And the Cortisol Gland becomes 'leaky' after a while and will trigger over nothing. To fight that kind of Anger Susceptibility one needs to get in Control of one's Internal Dialogue and Dispute every Negative Thought with "This is nothing to worry about". The Job doesn't Matter. The Game doesn't Matter. The aggravations of one's Mate don't Matter. The only thing that matter is just Not Caring and Being Cool. That is the only way to let that Cortisol Gland come back to normal, but simply not condoning your Stress.

Lol4er, have you read many of the Historical Posts. I've written a lot about the Cortisol Reaction and how to switch it off. Maybe you would be interested.

What I do when I get angry, is to use my imagination to let it all out. For example, I play fruit ninja with everyone, or imagine I'm knocking everyone with a hammer, it helps. You don't have to really grab a hammer and kill someone, imagining it works just as well.

bogdan9310 wrote:What I do when I get angry, is to use my imagination to let it all out. For example, I play fruit ninja with everyone, or imagine I'm knocking everyone with a hammer, it helps. You don't have to really grab a hammer and kill someone, imagining it works just as well.

Hi Bogdan,

You really need to be careful about actively cultivating negative reactions, even if they are imaginary. It is a form of self conditioning. Have you studied much in regards to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Well, there is your Internal Dialogue... you mind sort of speaking to you all the time. Well, the Trick with Cognitive Therapy is that we can Dispute what our Mind is telling us. We don't have to encourage ourselves if we are just bumming ourselves out. Is Hostility and Aggression really the answers we are looking for? Also, a lot of Anger is Emotional, and Emotion needs to be built up. Our Internal Dialogue is 'egging us on'. If we Dispute the train of our Emotional Tendencies, we can stay much calmer. It takes practice.

Leo Volont wrote:Hi Bogdan,

You really need to be careful about actively cultivating negative reactions, even if they are imaginary. It is a form of self conditioning. Have you studied much in regards to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Well, there is your Internal Dialogue... you mind sort of speaking to you all the time. Well, the Trick with Cognitive Therapy is that we can Dispute what our Mind is telling us. We don't have to encourage ourselves if we are just bumming ourselves out. Is Hostility and Aggression really the answers we are looking for? Also, a lot of Anger is Emotional, and Emotion needs to be built up. Our Internal Dialogue is 'egging us on'. If we Dispute the train of our Emotional Tendencies, we can stay much calmer. It takes practice.

You are your mind, and emotions are just more complex thoughts. I think you should not try that hard to suppress emotions, even anger. If it makes you feel good for a little bit, do it. It's fine if it doesn't get too far.
That being said, I think you can deviate your mind from anything, since emotions are more complex thoughts, now you can set up a thought signal do deviate from it. Once you had your fun, and you feel better, think about something else. It's that simple. Your mind should not control you, because you are your mind, and with enough practice, you can learn to own it.

bogdan9310 wrote:

Leo Volont wrote:Hi Bogdan,

You really need to be careful about actively cultivating negative reactions, even if they are imaginary. It is a form of self conditioning. Have you studied much in regards to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Well, there is your Internal Dialogue... you mind sort of speaking to you all the time. Well, the Trick with Cognitive Therapy is that we can Dispute what our Mind is telling us. We don't have to encourage ourselves if we are just bumming ourselves out. Is Hostility and Aggression really the answers we are looking for? Also, a lot of Anger is Emotional, and Emotion needs to be built up. Our Internal Dialogue is 'egging us on'. If we Dispute the train of our Emotional Tendencies, we can stay much calmer. It takes practice.

You are your mind, and emotions are just more complex thoughts. I think you should not try that hard to suppress emotions, even anger. If it makes you feel good for a little bit, do it. It's fine if it doesn't get too far.
That being said, I think you can deviate your mind from anything, since emotions are more complex thoughts, now you can set up a thought signal do deviate from it. Once you had your fun, and you feel better, think about something else. It's that simple. Your mind should not control you, because you are your mind, and with enough practice, you can learn to own it.

Hi Bogdan,

Well, if you are saying that emotions are thoughts, then we aren't understanding each other. We can train ourselves to influence out Internal Dialogue, what we can volunteerally think. Emotions are more automatic. Yes, there are physiological tricks for influencing emotions, for instance, forced smiles and forced laughter can cause emotions to follow. But largely Emotions are reactive. Emotions react to circumstances, but also they react to how we are thinking about such circumstances. Now some people are really screwed up in how they think about things, and it predisposes them to negative emotions.

In your case, you play with Negativity because you think it is fun. But what when things get serious, and there is so much cortisol pumping through your veins that your hold on control is becoming ever more tenuous. Well, this is when your Self Conditioning in FUN Negativity will come back to bite you in the butt. Also, do you ever drink or do drugs? Again, this Negative Behavior you treat yourself with as though it is some kind of Reward, will come back to haunt you.

Also, Bogdan, this is an Anger Management Forum. People come here who have Anger Problems. So Anger is not something that we train people to play with here. There are people who come here who will lose their Job or lose their Marriage the next time they even raise their voice. So, no, Anger, for such as these, is never what we do for FUN. Its like going to Alcoholics Anonymous to play Drinking Games.

Emotions follow the same pattern as simple thoughts. What makes you think that emotions aren't thoughts?
I think the best action in controlling your anger is using it only when you decide to. Anger cannot be completely removed, the best you can do is contain it.

bogdan9310 wrote:Emotions follow the same pattern as simple thoughts. What makes you think that emotions aren't thoughts?
I think the best action in controlling your anger is using it only when you decide to. Anger cannot be completely removed, the best you can do is contain it.

Hi Bogdan,

I think that emotions are not thoughts because they come from two different parts of the brain. there is a very good book out there regarding the structures and workings of the brain and neuro-chemistry in relationship to Anger: "The Angry Brain" by Ronald Efron-Potter who holds a PhD in Psychology.(and who has written a slew of very good Anger Management Books, all along the lines of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Now, in regards to your advice: "the best action in controlling your anger is using it only when you decide to", well, here we are again caught up in your idea that Emotions are Thoughts, and that we have volitional control over them. Well, yes and no. If you read down through the posts, you will find that in many cases Anger seems to come involuntarily -- "blow ups". they seem to occur instantaneously. However, what we find in people is a HABIT to engage in the same kind of Negative Internal Dialogues, or the same kinds of HABITUAL Negative Behaviors, which inexorably lead to these Emotional Situations. If we clean up our Behavioral Conditioning through Awareness and Restructuring our habitual behaviors and if we monitor our Internal Dialogue and steer away from Negativity, then we are less likely to be caught in these Negative Emotional Traps.

Also, there are ways to mitigate Anger Episodes. Rage Episodes are fueled by Cortisol. It's been found that if you can INSTANTLY relax the first sign of Muscle Tension (usually in the jaw muscles), then you can SHUT DOWN a Cortisol Rush. But most people GO ALL IN. they get Angry and Clench their Teeth and keep them Clenched, which keep the Cortisol flowing. Now, what Cortisol does is it focuses the Brain AWAY FROM the high thinking functions and directs all mental resources to the Kinetic Centers in preparation for FIGHT or FLIGHT.... or in most cases nowadays, for cussing, swearing, yelling, throwing things, battering spouses and getting fired from jobs.