Explosion at work yesterday

Hi all,

I'm not really sure how to phrase this post, so apologies if parts of it seem unclear.

I'll give you a bit of background. I work in a retail store, which is usually quite busy. I've been working there for about 1¾ years now. I'm not overly happy in the job, but I'm not unhappy in it either. Although not too often, on some days I get quite stressed out, but can usually hide it.

Anyway, at work yesterday, I got overwhelmed with stress and had an angry outburst on the shop floor. The morning was pretty stressful, and in the early afternoon about 10 minutes before I was due to go on my lunchbreak, an object fell off the counter at which point I snapped, and, possibly louder than I realised, shouted at the object. The entire store fell silent. A couple of minutes later the assistant manager took me out back to have a private talk with me. I explained myself and she said she'll let it go this time, but she doesn't want to see it happen again, which to me is understandable. To be honest I thought I was going to be disciplined more severely than that.

The thing is though, despite being forgiven by management, and despite none of my coworkers seeming to have taken much notice of it, I feel like I can't forgive myself for what I did. I'm normally able to cope with stress, and if I have to vent some rage, I do it quietly so as not to attract any attention. But I just feel like I completely lost it, and I'm annoyed that I lacked the willpower to contain myself. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday feeling pretty depressed about what I'd done, which obviously showed since my coworkers kept asking me what was wrong, although I refused to talk about it.

I'm feeling a bit better today, although I can't help but think back at what I did and feel guilty about it. Also, since the outburst, I feel like I can't really remember anything about that day other than the outburst itself and the temporary depression which followed it.

Although this is the first time it's happened at this magnitude in nearly two years, I feel like I have no self-control anymore. I'm finding that lately just the slightest things are making me angry, making me want to punish whatever it is that makes me angry. For example if something falls off a shelf I feel like I want to beat that object into a mangled heap.

I've taken a look at the Basic Human Needs page, but I can't really think of anything that I'm missing out on. Is this just a phase I'm going through or is it something I should get help on?