by Leo Volont » Sun Oct 16, 2016 12:25 pm
Hi Harlow (great name!)
Most people with ‘Anger Issues’ have what I guess we could call ‘moderate anger’, that is, they have just enough Angry Episodes a year to get them in trouble at Work or at Home. Much of this Moderate Anger can be traced to having been brought up in somewhat dysfunctional homes, where the adult Role Models were also angry enough to set bad examples. Then there are many Peer Groups among the young where a kind of primitive barbaric tone of threat and aggression seems to be the Standard of Behavior, and by adapting to such peer groups otherwise good kids can be mentally and emotionally conditioned so some very nasty behavioral and cognitive habits . But ALL THAT can be fixed, IF the person can be made to see the errors in the way he habitually evaluates social situations, and if he also is willing to submit to trading Old Dysfunctional Behavioral Habits for New and Improved typical ways of responding to Social Cues and Triggers. But, again, here we are talking about Moderate Anger.
You have Rage, and that is different. And what strikes me about your Rage is that it seems almost kind of Obsessive Compulsive in a sort of Paranoid way, in the sense that you dwell on and mull over each little Social Interaction most excessively, and then, well, for all the Thought and Analysis you put into each Extended Appraisal, you probably rarely find some Good Reason Not to get Angry, or some explanation that could help mitigate against the seriousness of whatever you might construe to be an Insult. You tend to always align your Behavior with your Worst Case Scenarios.
Now, yes, you might have what we could call an ‘Extreme’ Case of ‘Moderate Anger’, where your family and peer group was Way over the Top in influencing you Badly, But that is probably not the Case, is it? For instance, your Family knew you were different… that you were ‘Sensitive’. So I think you have a Neuro-Physical Chemical Imbalance that effects the way you See your World, Interpret Situations, and the Way you Respond to Social Cues – it is like you are running ‘off the rails’.
Also I think that it is significant that your Problem got significantly worse as you reached sexual maturity and approached adulthood. They used to call it ‘Adult Onset Schizophrenia’ … but I believe that ‘word’ has gone out of use, or applied much more narrowly then it was before. But my point is that with Maturity certain hormones and neuro-chemicals increase significantly from childhood levels, or there are ‘new’ chemicals that come into play, ANDIF they are Out of Balance, then Problems arise – such as yours.
You should read Potatank’s Post, “My Anger Then and Now”. He admits to having once been quite insanely Angry…and horribly Violent. It makes very interesting reading! But, finally, he ended up in just the right Doctor’s Office and he was prescribed a tiny little minimal dosage of some Anti-Psychotic Medicine, and, Voila! Over Night he was a completely New Guy… none of the Usual Stuff annoyed him in the least – he suddenly Saw the World as an Intelligent and Well Brought Up Person would see it. It was kind of a Medical Miracle, wouldn’t you say?
Well, yes, if you will allow me to explain a situation that I really don’t know much about, to give Potatank that drug, they had to diagnose him with Bipolar Disorder or something like that. But the way a Psychiatrist once explained it to me is that Nobody Really Knows what is in another person’s head, and so it is really Hard to Scientifically Diagnose anybody with a psychiatric disorder, SO, what they do is they take a Good Guess as to what might be wrong and they Prescribe the Drug that Fixes that Condition, and IF the Patient significantly improves then THAT verified the Diagnosis. What it comes down to is that Psychiatry is kind of the opposite of Physical Medicine where they diagnose an Illness first and then Treat it. The Psychiatrist Treats First and Diagnoses afterward – a Successful Treatment Outcome verifying what the Original Problem ‘necessarily must have been’… scientifically speaking.
Anyway, Harlow, tell me what you think?