Blue-elephant wrote:Hi, Im a 23 year old girl .
I was abused alot as a kid , my father use beat me or my mum alot , sometimes to the point my face was messed up . As i grew over 20 it got less , mainly because I got faster at running away lol~
The problem is , I thjnk im like my father , I loose control , I DONT WANT TONDO IT but I just do, usually with the weaker ones like my 14 yo sister and my mother .
I hurt my mother emotionally even thou i love her to death, but with my little sister , when she insult me or idk make me really angry , I find myself attacking her ,
She does fight back at even thou it makes me angry i let her beat me back because i know i deserve it,
Over years I did get better at managing my anger but obviously its not enough ! I hurt me so much to see my loved ones crying or hurt .
What do I do!!!?
Good Morning Blue-elephant,
Sorry for the late answer, but I was out of town yesterday. Yes, I understand that you are from a dysfunctional home, but, really, the way our Culture is in this modern era and how they expect us to live, well, we are all from dysfunctional homes. We should live more in Community/Extended Family Situations where the Adults can keep an eye on each other and where Cooler Heads would always prevail. But instead we are coped up in isolation with young inexperienced first time parents who are under all the stresses of trying to advance in their careers amidst relationships that are for the most part founded on tenuous premises of faded romantic love. So, it is more or less a given that we are all kind of screwed up. We don’t even really have to speak about it or concern ourselves with it, at this time. But, all that being said, there is something relatively easy that you can do to keep your violent anger under control.
Blue, have you ever heard of Cortisol? It’s a compound that the brain secretes when the mind-body feels threatened, frustrated, insulted, etc. Cortisol excites the emotions and stimulates the body into activity, but at the same time shuts down the brain’s higher thinking functions. That is why it seems like we lose control… because we really do lose control. People who are under a lot of stress seem to be pumping out at least some Cortisol all the time. The Brain gets into a habit whereby the more Cortisol that get pumped, the more the brain will tend to pump out even more. But there is a way to reverse this process. There is a Trick for shutting down the Cortisol. You see, to understand this Trick you should understand that the very first muscle group that feels the onset of a Cortisol Rush is the jaw muscles, because they are closest to the brain. As soon as you feel your jaws tighten – your teeth clench – THEN IMMEDIATELY RELAX your jaws – open your mouth. That tells the Brain to shut down the Cortisol. Now, you can imagine how Primitive People living in the Jungles with all those animals would have opportunities to be legitimately frightened, but also that they would be jumpy with so many False Alarms – a stick that looks like a snake, or the village dog that for a moment looked like a wolf or a bear – well, in order for the Cortisol to be shut down in these False Alarm situations the People back then learned to do something like saying “Oh!” (which you can’t say with teeth clenched) which would force their mouths open, and they simply learned from habit and watching each other how to relax and laugh these things off. Well, this Trick seems to have become a forgotten art.
But, Blue, you need to practice this. Nobody gets loud and angry and starts beating on somebody – losing control, without Cortisol. Simply watch yourself and relax that jaw whenever it tightens. One lady told me that ‘she can’t get angry as long as she is breathing through her mouth’. So Anger Management, at this level, is not about Attitude, Self Knowledge, Will Power and all of that. Anger Management simply involves Learning a Trick. Blue, do you think you can handle it? I’m pretty sure you can. Let me know if you have any questions.