Whenever I get angry I write on myself

Hi Sully,
I definitely think that your writing on yourself with red ink and a sharp pen is much preferable to taking a knife to yourself and leaving permanent scares. You need to keep in mind that Self-Harming (as they call Self-Mutilation nowadays) is only a transient ephemeral psychological mechanism, a way the Personality has of transferring Inner Pain into Outer Pain… but with a knife it leaves permanent scars that will forever label you as somebody who needs close watching. So for your present purposes Red Ink and a Sharp Pen are doing just fine. I congratulate you on your inventiveness, and the Red Ink is positively Poetic. You must be a very creative person. But now let’s deal with your Anger.

I have a Short Term Solution that can reduce the greater part of your Anger Problem, and a Long Term Solution that will reduce your dependence upon the Short Term Solution, and make you a better person in the long run.

The Short Term Solution involves a way of taking charge of the Bio-Chemical Neuro Process in your Brain that excites such intense Anger. I will show you how to turn off the Cortisol. You see, when your Body, or the Personality within your Body, feels threatened or endangered, then a gland inside your Brain, which is close to the brainstem and up above the roof of your mouth, begins to secrete Cortisol which excites the Muscles and seems to give you the strength of three big hairy men. With Cortisol pumping into your blood steam you can definitely fight harder and run faster. Even coordination and muscular intelligence is increased (and some Martial Artists endeavour to learn how to use their body’s Cortisol to improve their ‘Game’). BUT the downside of Cortisol is that it redirects Brain Activity away from the Rational Responsible Thinking Part of your brain – the Frontal Cortex and those Big Lobes that you use in School or to follow along with Dialogue when you are watching movies. So the reason Angry People seem to go so CRAZY is that their Intelligent Mind is turned off by the Cortisol (and so the Trick for the Martial Artists, who wish to use the benefits of Cortisol, is to develop a Learned and Automatic Routine for when they get into fights that does not involve Craziness, BUT anything that bumps them out of their Practiced Routine could possibly cause them great trouble and possible danger to others. For instance, a friend of mine decades ago, a Martial Artist, got into a bar fight, but he had never Practiced around beer bottles before, and so he simply automatically broke a beer bottle that was conveniently close by and shoved it into his opponents face, blinding him for life. Luckily for my friend, it was a new bar for him and nobody knew his name, and the Cortisol gave him the internal Wisdom to know that there is a time for Fight and a time for Flight, and so he split before the Bouncer could bust a chair over his head or the cops arrive. Oh, and the fight was over a woman, but that’s another subject. Oh, and my friend WAS sorry and was in fact telling this story to warn the World away from the Martial Arts.)

Well, back to Cortisol. Psychologists had a devil of a time trying to figure out how to deal with Cortisol. You see, the Cortisol begins to Turn off the Responsible Thinking part of the Brain even before the Person knows that he or she is angry (and, yes, the internal parts of the Brain that are in towards the Brain Stem are the Old Primitive Animal Parts of the Brain which are more governed by Instinct, and often Instinct makes us Angry before our Conscious Minds have had time to figure out whether we have just really been Insulted or not – the Animal In Us is quicker to draw conclusions. So, yes, there is a Time Lag between when the Cortisol starts pumping from when we even know that we are about to have a Serious Problem.

Well, it turns out that the Answer to the Cortisol Riddle is NOT Mental, that is, what we Think, but instead, it involves what we FEEL. It turns out that because the Gland that pumps Cortisol is just above the roof of the mouth, well, the First Muscle Group that GETS the Cortisol is the Mouth and Jaw Muscles – YOUR TEETH CLENCH! It seems that all you have to do is RELAX your Jaw Muscles -- Open Your Mouth – and the Cortisol will immediately shut off. When you learn to Relax your Jaw the Very Instant that it Tenses Up, then only the slightest amount of Cortisol ever gets into your general Blood Stream and there is not enough time for your Thinking Brain to be turned off. You might only have a few jitters to shake off, but you will be in no danger of Flipping Out. Sully, you should read about two or three of the recent Posts underneath this one. It seems to be good general advice for people who have relatively intense Anger Episodes. But, yes, I happen to think that THIS explanation is one of my best… Practice makes Perfect. But reading various forms of my Explanation about Cortisol may help to bring it home to you better. Oh, you will also find that other Posters have found this advice very helpful. I wish my advice here was General Knowledge. I suppose that many Cultures must know about it, but somehow Western Civilization found a way of forgetting it. Maybe at some time Anger became a Virtue and so efforts to quell it were abandoned.

Now for the Long Term Solution. As I said above, the Cortisol turns on when the Body feels endangered or threatened. But how often are we Angry because we feel as though we are in PHYSCIAL Danger? Most of the time we get angry over Disappointments, Frustrations, Insults, Social Betrayals – really just a lot of Play Ground Crap, right? People flip out with Animal Rage for stuff that they could really just have handled with cutting remark, or, better yet, a glaring look (later, after things should be forgotten, people could say “Remember when you said THIS”, but if you only use Glaring Looks… well it almost sounds crazy for a person to say “Remember how you looked at me”, to which you could say, “Well, that was just a look of surprise!” Plus, Glaring Looks are more private and less public then saying things out loud, as sometimes only the person you are angry with will see the way you Look at them, when it is nobody’s business to hear what you say, but they all hear it anyway and make their judgments about you. So it is best to keep your Anger at the None Verbal level. You can practice your Nasty Glare in a mirror.)

So, yes, most people get Angry over what is actually in the greater scheme of things, practically nothing. We only have to think about stuff that we had been angry about just 3 or 4 days before, and we can see it in its proper perspective and KNOW that we over-reacted. So, THAT is what we have to address in our Long Term Solution. You see, most of the time we get Angry out of Habit. And there are Two Kinds of Habits that get us Angry – Habits of Thought, and Habits of Behavior. The only way to fix this in yourself is to Watch Yourself Carefully and note the kinds of Mental Habits that get you into Trouble, and the thing you just do without thinking that get you into Trouble. Yes, you can’t stop yourself at the time, BUT you can remember to think about it later. “I really need to stop thinking like THAT because it just stirs me up. It is like I am a Big Bummer at my Own Party. If thinking about THAT pisses me off, then I should just stop thinking about THAT. I have better things I can be thinking of. Heck, I could be watching Cat Videos on YouTube instead of bumming myself out!”)

Most modern provenly successful Therapies for Anger Management are based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is what I just explained above in a nutshell. You can remember it as Review and Revise. Review your thoughts and actions through the day, and Revise everything that you have doubts about. Always ask yourself “Could things have worked out better if I had Thought or Acted differently”. That is the Review part. Revise is when you think of HOW you could have thought or acted differently. The Third “R” can be Rehearse – for when you come up with a really cool New Way of Thinking and Behaving – and then you just run it through your mind, or act it out in front of a mirror.

Now, often times, people get a Good Start on dealing with their Anger, but they lack follow through. They forget that they have an Anger Problem until they make trouble for themselves again by Flipping Out at the most inconvenient of times. So my advice there is to begin reading Anger Management Books. In some of the other Posts below, I give people my Book Recommendations, if you are curious. But, yes, just reading a Chapter out of an Anger Management Book a day will keep your Head in the Game and remind you that you have to keep working to stay Anger Free.

Oh, a lot of people say “I can’t be phony… I got to be Me! And I just happen to be an Angry Obnoxious Person”. You get a lot of people like that in the Assertiveness Training Community. Well, we can be whoever and whatever we want to be. It just takes Practice and some kind of an Ideal Mental Image to pattern around. So if you are an Angry Person, well, look around for some Ideal Personality to pattern yourself on, or not just one, but as many as you can pick or choose from. Look for Cool. A Personality that is Intelligent and never reactive. People who get loud in response to other people getting loud is NOT a good model for behavior. Aim at being calm and even tempered no matter what. That is not really a Modern Media Ideal, is it? But it should be.

anger is your own creativity

anger may have its positive side, idk about that, because mother nature has its own ways, but i do know that sometimes hate may go too far and worsen your life

and you have to ask ; why am i angry? what do I hate?

the more you hate something/someone more angry you become about

who is making you angry? if someone is always fighting

there was ppl i hated, there was ppl i fighted in my life, but at the end you always want to come back home, to relax, to enjoy, you want to keep your heart warm, but sometimes cant manage to do it because it got your attention

we have the idea of forgivness
the idea of being thankful
activities that can lead to relaxation

but this is only possible when you are willing to do it, sometimes we dont want to relax we want to do is keep hating something

are you willing to change?

Why don't you do it on paper, Sully? It's easier and you can keep it, look over it and see what you got wound up about. Writing is a great, safe way to get difficult emotions out.

If you're thinking of hurting yourself or anyone else too often, you might need some counselling sessions to get to the bottom of these unmanageable feelings.

laureat wrote:anger is your own creativity

anger may have its positive side, idk about that, because mother nature has its own ways, but i do know that sometimes hate may go too far and worsen your life

and you have to ask ; why am i angry? what do I hate?

the more you hate something/someone more angry you become about

who is making you angry? if someone is always fighting

there was ppl i hated, there was ppl i fighted in my life, but at the end you always want to come back home, to relax, to enjoy, you want to keep your heart warm, but sometimes cant manage to do it because it got your attention

we have the idea of forgivness
the idea of being thankful
activities that can lead to relaxation

but this is only possible when you are willing to do it, sometimes we dont want to relax we want to do is keep hating something

are you willing to change?

Hi Laureat,

Oh, yeah, one of the biggest problems with Anger is often not in regards to the repercussions of the actual Angry Episode, but with the personal mental and emotional aftermath -- the Mind just racing on and on about the same thing -- one can't just put Anger out of one's mind. One stays wound up for at least a day. Often the night's sleep after an Angry Event is troubled and disturbed.

Oh! So, yes, while we are on the subject. Many times when one is in the wake of Anger, the Thoughts are in regards to "What I Should Have Said", but in a BAD WAY. People think of Cutting Remarks and Insults they could have used, which, really , would only have made the situation worse. Also, the line of thought is often in regards to Justifying the Anger -- "Why I was Right to be so Pissed Off". Well, you always need to consider that if you DIDN'T get pissed off, then you would be able to relax right now. But if you DO get Angry, and it is difficult for people new to Anger Management to not still get angry a lot, well, you should USE all of the Thinking that is forced upon you to think in regards to What You Could Have Said to de-escalate and calm down the situation, and Why You Should NOT have gotten Angry but figured out a better way to deal with the situation.

I remember back in the days when I used to get excited about Traffic problems -- people cutting me off, and it would 'make me' cuss and swear, and then for the rest of the drive I would still be worked up. But, when I started dealing with my Anger, well, being angry with strangers over car lanes was one of the first issues I tackled. I decided it is best to just drive defensively and let people do what they like and not let it bother me. So, yes, I would notice when people drove badly, but as long as I didn't REACT, then I would be able to retain my peace of mind. You will feel so much better afterwards if you just don't REACT.

Anger is Bad Socially, Professionally and in Relationships. but it is also bad for you Personally. Nobody needs to be living in the Dark Cloud of anger.