Introducing myself to the group and asking for help

renman67 wrote:
Hello. I'm a 49 year old married guy living in New England. I have a career in education which I've worked in for the past 22 years. My wife and I have no children and two cats. I'm currently on a small dose (10 mg) of prozac which I was prescribed several years ago to combat anxiety issues. I have also been on injectible testosterone for the past 6 years to combat low testosterone. The dosage has been "tweaked" several times and I'm currently taking .4 mg a week.

I'm on this forum because I'm seeking help/support with anger management issues. My anger management presents as a need to argue with people on internet forums and social media, and occasional impulsive use of email to respond to people at my workplace. The former behavior has resulted in loss of friendships with tangential relationships and temporary loss of contact with close friends and family members. The latter behavior has resulted in problems for me in the workplace. In short, they have jeopardized my position at work.

After hearing my wife tell me that I need to work on these issues, I've finally decided for myself that I need to. I understand that a constant need to be right and to prove my worth and my knowledge is unhealthy as it exhibits in my behavior. And my penchant for "pressing send" at work rather than to compose something that I then sit back and reread, have trusted colleagues reread, etc, BEFORE pressing send is not healthy either.

I'm not quite sure why I do this. I have had problems in the past with alcohol and sexual obsessions, and these also negatively impacted my life. These are now under control, but I feel that my new behaviors are just proof of my "latest addiction."

Any comments, suggestions, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Dear Renman,

I am so sorry that I did not answer your Post sooner… I had seen it this morning and had intended to answer it after answering another New Member, and I guess I forgot I had Two Jobs in queue instead of just One. Ooops!


First Thing -- Oh! Those Anti-depressants! None of them are effective at what they are SUPPOSED to do, but you can certainly count on the horrible side effects they are famous for… and if you Try to quit, well, you’ll be in for a real ride there too. Just THINK, maybe the Prozac (or Paxil, or a half a dozen others) is Decreasing Your Anxiety in Regards to Maintaining Proper Social Inhibitions. I suppose you are lucky that you are not parading around Naked because you no longer have any anxiety about being nude in public, but what you ARE doing is potentially far more damaging – upsetting other people At Work, and making these people Have Bad Days. You know, sometimes the difference between a Good Day and a completely Rotten Day is getting just one Piece of Spiteful and Nasty Email…. And that is what you are Doing to your Friends (ex-friends) and colleagues. So you Know the People in charge of Hiring and Firing are looking for the First Excuse to send you packing. But, as you said, you Know All This. Now, of course, I can’t be sure it’s the Proxac, BUT… in the 20 years that Stuff has been around, I am STILL waiting to hear the First Good Thing about any of It. If I had Stock in Pfizer… well there would be my Good Thing right there…

Moving on… Well, there is One Bit of Good News in your Story – that you acknowledge that you have a Problem. You see, MANY Angry People are Narcissistic , Sociopathic and Predatory , which Translates into Them NOT Thinking that they have any problem at all. When you tell an Angry Predator that he has an Anger Problem, he is likely to reply that His Anger is not HIS Problem, but the Problem for the People whom He is Angry At – they are the Ones with the Problem, and if they don’t know it by Sooner, they will certainly know it by Later… But YOU are clearly not one of THEM.

Anyway, where does that leave us now. Yes, of course, I think you can be helped… even if it is the Proxac… I wouldn’t dream of asking a Long Time Prozac Addict to try to Stop Using – the Withdraw Symptoms are horrible, even terrifying… and for YEARS afterwards one notices Funny Things happening in the Brain and the Perceptions… even essential Balance can be impaired at the most inopportune times. So we might assume that you are hooked on Prozac … a Slave to It… and to Pfizer!... and that you will stay hooked all the way up to the Grave. BUT we have to find a way of dealing with your Impulsiveness. If your Primary Problem is Writing Nasty Emails and Flaming Posts Online, you could perhaps SLOW YOURSELF DOWN, by first Writing your FIRST DRAFT in a Word Document that you can’t SEND anywhere without making a Few Additional Moves… copies and pastes and all of that . Those few additional moves may give you Pause to Think.

Oh!... You are also injecting testosterone? You say you are cutting way back. Why not cut back All The Way. Testosterone is simply Nature’s Drug for making People Aggressive, Possessive and Territorial… and Hairy on the Face but Bold on the Head. The World would be so much more Peaceful without that old Caveman scourge of testosterone. Why did you get on it in the first place? I suppose, correct me if I am wrong, that you Hit your Forty-Something Mid-Life Crisis and started to see all your Youthful Firmness go soft and flabby… Following the Course of Nature… nobody could have blamed you at all for any of it, BUT, you apparently have a Good Health Plan, or you are Independently Wealthy, and you could get the testosterone shots for practically as little as a wink and a smile and thought Why Not!? If I wasn’t a Real Man Before, I’ll certainly be a Real Man after. Fill yourself full of Macho Juice. Well, what did you Notice happening after That? DO YOU THINK it might have made you more Aggressive and Territorial at Work (that includes being Defensive about everything)? Your Wife seems Very Supportive. Talk it over with her. If she is fine with you Getting Older and Showing Your Natural Age, well, totally kick the testosterone. As an aside… I also have a number of Kitty Cats, and whenever I take a new ‘Tom’ into the Vet to get Neutered, I have a Standard Joke – I ask how much to have the Tomcat neutered, and after the Customer Service Person replies, I ask “how much would you charge to do Me next”? …“Testosterone”… it begins with a “T” because it only Spells ‘T R O U B L E’.

Well, I think I have come to the end of my Specific Observations in regards to your Case… oh, and please forgive me for all my discernment errors. But what is Done is Done and So let’s move onto the General ‘One-Advice-Fits-All’ section of my little discourse. Firstly, you obviously have a GREAT Health Care Plan. I think you can Get 10 Treatments for just the cost of your Co-Pay… depending on what Country you are from. But while 10 Sessions might have a Great Impact on your Life at the Time… momentarily… after a while Old Therapy Wears Thin. So I always advise Everyone… who can post in more than just a semi-literate Tweet… to READ all of the Good Anger Management Books they can find. I could tell you my favorites, but I already wrote all that this morning… look at the Post by the New Member just ahead of you.

I hope I haven’t offended you. Please let me know if my advice suggested any further avenues for you. And Good Luck. Please keep us abreast of how things are going for you. (and PM me and tell me about your two cats)

I always benefit and learn something from Leo's posts...

(You had him at, I have two cats...)

It has been merely 2 weeks and people noticed an immediate difference upon my implementing Leo's advice. I came upon it in a Google search and my life is not the same. I am simply encouraging you to read and heed this and his other posts.

BTW-welcome to the forum!!

renman67 wrote:Hello. I'm a 49 year old married guy living in New England. I have a career in education which I've worked in for the past 22 years. My wife and I have no children and two cats. I'm currently on a small dose (10 mg) of prozac which I was prescribed several years ago to combat anxiety issues. I have also been on injectible testosterone for the past 6 years to combat low testosterone. The dosage has been "tweaked" several times and I'm currently taking .4 mg a week.

I'm on this forum because I'm seeking help/support with anger management issues. My anger management presents as a need to argue with people on internet forums and social media, and occasional impulsive use of email to respond to people at my workplace. The former behavior has resulted in loss of friendships with tangential relationships and temporary loss of contact with close friends and family members. The latter behavior has resulted in problems for me in the workplace. In short, they have jeopardized my position at work.

After hearing my wife tell me that I need to work on these issues, I've finally decided for myself that I need to. I understand that a constant need to be right and to prove my worth and my knowledge is unhealthy as it exhibits in my behavior. And my penchant for "pressing send" at work rather than to compose something that I then sit back and reread, have trusted colleagues reread, etc, BEFORE pressing send is not healthy either.

I'm not quite sure why I do this. I have had problems in the past with alcohol and sexual obsessions, and these also negatively impacted my life. These are now under control, but I feel that my new behaviors are just proof of my "latest addiction."

Any comments, suggestions, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,

I hope it's still not too late to send you a reply

While I totally understand and acknowledge that the causes of your emotional problems may be deep, I would like to offer you a very practical piece of advice.

Make it a habit (a ritual, if you will), that when you are about to send something to someone, to hit that "Publish" button, INSTEAD just save the message as a draft, or leave it alone, and go do something else for 5 minutes. After you come back, re-read the message to make sure that it's still what you would like to say.

If you reply to all your e-mails at the same time, just write a bunch of responses and save them all as drafts. Then come back in a few minutes and make sure that you will not regret sending them.

DO THIS EVEN WITH THE MOST NEUTRAL, INNOCENT MESSAGES. Your goal is not make this a habit.

This will help while you are working on the deeper cause of your anger.

Hope this helps, and let me know if you ever need to talk.
Olga

Leo Volont wrote:

renman67 wrote:
Hello. I'm a 49 year old married guy living in New England. I have a career in education which I've worked in for the past 22 years. My wife and I have no children and two cats. I'm currently on a small dose (10 mg) of prozac which I was prescribed several years ago to combat anxiety issues. I have also been on injectible testosterone for the past 6 years to combat low testosterone. The dosage has been "tweaked" several times and I'm currently taking .4 mg a week.

I'm on this forum because I'm seeking help/support with anger management issues. My anger management presents as a need to argue with people on internet forums and social media, and occasional impulsive use of email to respond to people at my workplace. The former behavior has resulted in loss of friendships with tangential relationships and temporary loss of contact with close friends and family members. The latter behavior has resulted in problems for me in the workplace. In short, they have jeopardized my position at work.

After hearing my wife tell me that I need to work on these issues, I've finally decided for myself that I need to. I understand that a constant need to be right and to prove my worth and my knowledge is unhealthy as it exhibits in my behavior. And my penchant for "pressing send" at work rather than to compose something that I then sit back and reread, have trusted colleagues reread, etc, BEFORE pressing send is not healthy either.

I'm not quite sure why I do this. I have had problems in the past with alcohol and sexual obsessions, and these also negatively impacted my life. These are now under control, but I feel that my new behaviors are just proof of my "latest addiction."

Any comments, suggestions, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Dear Renman,

I am so sorry that I did not answer your Post sooner… I had seen it this morning and had intended to answer it after answering another New Member, and I guess I forgot I had Two Jobs in queue instead of just One. Ooops!


First Thing -- Oh! Those Anti-depressants! None of them are effective at what they are SUPPOSED to do, but you can certainly count on the horrible side effects they are famous for… and if you Try to quit, well, you’ll be in for a real ride there too. Just THINK, maybe the Prozac (or Paxil, or a half a dozen others) is Decreasing Your Anxiety in Regards to Maintaining Proper Social Inhibitions. I suppose you are lucky that you are not parading around Naked because you no longer have any anxiety about being nude in public, but what you ARE doing is potentially far more damaging – upsetting other people At Work, and making these people Have Bad Days. You know, sometimes the difference between a Good Day and a completely Rotten Day is getting just one Piece of Spiteful and Nasty Email…. And that is what you are Doing to your Friends (ex-friends) and colleagues. So you Know the People in charge of Hiring and Firing are looking for the First Excuse to send you packing. But, as you said, you Know All This. Now, of course, I can’t be sure it’s the Proxac, BUT… in the 20 years that Stuff has been around, I am STILL waiting to hear the First Good Thing about any of It. If I had Stock in Pfizer… well there would be my Good Thing right there…

Moving on… Well, there is One Bit of Good News in your Story – that you acknowledge that you have a Problem. You see, MANY Angry People are Narcissistic , Sociopathic and Predatory , which Translates into Them NOT Thinking that they have any problem at all. When you tell an Angry Predator that he has an Anger Problem, he is likely to reply that His Anger is not HIS Problem, but the Problem for the People whom He is Angry At – they are the Ones with the Problem, and if they don’t know it by Sooner, they will certainly know it by Later… But YOU are clearly not one of THEM.

Anyway, where does that leave us now. Yes, of course, I think you can be helped… even if it is the Proxac… I wouldn’t dream of asking a Long Time Prozac Addict to try to Stop Using – the Withdraw Symptoms are horrible, even terrifying… and for YEARS afterwards one notices Funny Things happening in the Brain and the Perceptions… even essential Balance can be impaired at the most inopportune times. So we might assume that you are hooked on Prozac … a Slave to It… and to Pfizer!... and that you will stay hooked all the way up to the Grave. BUT we have to find a way of dealing with your Impulsiveness. If your Primary Problem is Writing Nasty Emails and Flaming Posts Online, you could perhaps SLOW YOURSELF DOWN, by first Writing your FIRST DRAFT in a Word Document that you can’t SEND anywhere without making a Few Additional Moves… copies and pastes and all of that . Those few additional moves may give you Pause to Think.

Oh!... You are also injecting testosterone? You say you are cutting way back. Why not cut back All The Way. Testosterone is simply Nature’s Drug for making People Aggressive, Possessive and Territorial… and Hairy on the Face but Bold on the Head. The World would be so much more Peaceful without that old Caveman scourge of testosterone. Why did you get on it in the first place? I suppose, correct me if I am wrong, that you Hit your Forty-Something Mid-Life Crisis and started to see all your Youthful Firmness go soft and flabby… Following the Course of Nature… nobody could have blamed you at all for any of it, BUT, you apparently have a Good Health Plan, or you are Independently Wealthy, and you could get the testosterone shots for practically as little as a wink and a smile and thought Why Not!? If I wasn’t a Real Man Before, I’ll certainly be a Real Man after. Fill yourself full of Macho Juice. Well, what did you Notice happening after That? DO YOU THINK it might have made you more Aggressive and Territorial at Work (that includes being Defensive about everything)? Your Wife seems Very Supportive. Talk it over with her. If she is fine with you Getting Older and Showing Your Natural Age, well, totally kick the testosterone. As an aside… I also have a number of Kitty Cats, and whenever I take a new ‘Tom’ into the Vet to get Neutered, I have a Standard Joke – I ask how much to have the Tomcat neutered, and after the Customer Service Person replies, I ask “how much would you charge to do Me next”? …“Testosterone”… it begins with a “T” because it only Spells ‘T R O U B L E’.

Well, I think I have come to the end of my Specific Observations in regards to your Case… oh, and please forgive me for all my discernment errors. But what is Done is Done and So let’s move onto the General ‘One-Advice-Fits-All’ section of my little discourse. Firstly, you obviously have a GREAT Health Care Plan. I think you can Get 10 Treatments for just the cost of your Co-Pay… depending on what Country you are from. But while 10 Sessions might have a Great Impact on your Life at the Time… momentarily… after a while Old Therapy Wears Thin. So I always advise Everyone… who can post in more than just a semi-literate Tweet… to READ all of the Good Anger Management Books they can find. I could tell you my favorites, but I already wrote all that this morning… look at the Post by the New Member just ahead of you.

I hope I haven’t offended you. Please let me know if my advice suggested any further avenues for you. And Good Luck. Please keep us abreast of how things are going for you. (and PM me and tell me about your two cats)

Hi Leo,

You sent me a private message yesterday regarding my book, but I cannot reply to you with a private message, because I am a new member, and apparently haven't posted enough. So I decided to contact you this way instead))

The name of the Kindle book is Anger Management: The Only Practical Guide You'll Have to Read by Olga Senych

It's a short read full of practical tips on dealing with anger.

Hope you enjoy the book

Thanks,
Olga

Hi Olga,

I was once new here myself, and figured SOMETHING LIKE THAT happened.


Thank you for being thoughtful enough to make this Go Around -- it Worked!... I found it.

I'll go check out your Book right now...

Hi Olga,

Its me, Leo, again.... Oooops! I forgot that my home Wifi went on the blink.... the next time I go 'out', I'll find a Free Wifi somewhere and download your book.

Oh! Nobody has reviewed it yet. Good! that means that you didn't get some 'friend' to give you your first 5 Star. You know, I once got in trouble like that... a Fellow Forum Member at a Spiritual Forum wrote a book about Yoga, and another member had Edited it and asked me to Read it and Review it -- she wanted my 'honest opinion' and so I said, "Well, okay".
It turns out the Book wasn't Fish Nor Fowl -- it was too difficult to be an Intro Book, but all of the Serious Books on Yoga were infinitely better than this little cheesy book was. The book suffered from horrible production values and ugly photographs... the book was simply a 'vanity' book -- the author wanted to be an 'author', and the editor didn't know how to be a Production Editor. So I trashed the book -- not in emotional terms, just matter of factly dismissed the book as not just unnecessary for the Market, but dull, difficult and sparse on details besides. The Author took it like, well, like a Spiritual Person should. but the Editor, who I had been friendly enough with, on line of course, well, she went ballistic -- emotional and insulting.... I could not quite believe it. But I DO tell people that Spirituality is No Immunization from Anger -- some of the Angriest People I know are Spiritual. Indeed, I WAS Spiritual the whole time I had my 'Un-Repaired' Anger Problem.

anyway, the next time I go Out... I'll download your book. But, what if I took you up on your Free Offer, since I already paid for it. Is there another way I could get to the text of your book?

Leo Volont wrote:Hi Olga,

Its me, Leo, again.... Oooops! I forgot that my home Wifi went on the blink.... the next time I go 'out', I'll find a Free Wifi somewhere and download your book.

Oh! Nobody has reviewed it yet. Good! that means that you didn't get some 'friend' to give you your first 5 Star. You know, I once got in trouble like that... a Fellow Forum Member at a Spiritual Forum wrote a book about Yoga, and another member had Edited it and asked me to Read it and Review it -- she wanted my 'honest opinion' and so I said, "Well, okay".
It turns out the Book wasn't Fish Nor Fowl -- it was too difficult to be an Intro Book, but all of the Serious Books on Yoga were infinitely better than this little cheesy book was. The book suffered from horrible production values and ugly photographs... the book was simply a 'vanity' book -- the author wanted to be an 'author', and the editor didn't know how to be a Production Editor. So I trashed the book -- not in emotional terms, just matter of factly dismissed the book as not just unnecessary for the Market, but dull, difficult and sparse on details besides. The Author took it like, well, like a Spiritual Person should. but the Editor, who I had been friendly enough with, on line of course, well, she went ballistic -- emotional and insulting.... I could not quite believe it. But I DO tell people that Spirituality is No Immunization from Anger -- some of the Angriest People I know are Spiritual. Indeed, I WAS Spiritual the whole time I had my 'Un-Repaired' Anger Problem.

anyway, the next time I go Out... I'll download your book. But, what if I took you up on your Free Offer, since I already paid for it. Is there another way I could get to the text of your book?

Hi Leo,

Thank you for purchasing the book. This really means a lot, especially since we've just met here on this forum, and you don't know me at all.

And thank you for sharing the story about a fellow forum member's book. I definitely agree that spiritual people are not immune from anger.

Now I really hope that you will find the tips in my book helpful, because I don't want you to be in the same situation again I didn't go in depth in this book either, because I do not consider myself an expert on the subject. But I think that there are people out there who might be looking for just that - some simple tips that they can use in their day-to-day lives not to let their anger get the best out of them.

Regarding the text of the book: Absolutely, no problem! Just let me know what your e-mail address is, and what format you prefer to read the book in, and I will send it to you as soon as I can.

Thanks again, and have a great day,
Olga

osenych wrote:
Hi Leo,

Thank you for purchasing the book. This really means a lot, especially since we've just met here on this forum, and you don't know me at all.

And thank you for sharing the story about a fellow forum member's book. I definitely agree that spiritual people are not immune from anger.

Now I really hope that you will find the tips in my book helpful, because I don't want you to be in the same situation again I didn't go in depth in this book either, because I do not consider myself an expert on the subject. But I think that there are people out there who might be looking for just that - some simple tips that they can use in their day-to-day lives not to let their anger get the best out of them.

Regarding the text of the book: Absolutely, no problem! Just let me know what your e-mail address is, and what format you prefer to read the book in, and I will send it to you as soon as I can.

Thanks again, and have a great day,
Olga

Cool! I'm going to PM to send you my email.... and I think WORD format would be best, but I could do PDF...