Anger is an emotion to get you to "do" something. That is why depressed people are said to turn their anger inward (and don't think they get angry). If you feel someone is/has taken something from you, you figure out what you can DO to not have to feel that way.

Technically, if it is a physical something, you can knock them down and take it back (or hire someone to do that :-) but it is usually not something that concrete. Usually someone has said something that has taken our pride/humiliated us.

If you concentrate on yourself and what you are actually feeling (you aren't hurt if you don't feel you have a weakness in "that" area) and look honestly at "that" area, you can see how you are doing with that weakness. Are you working on whatever it is (I had a boss who publicly humiliated me because he could not "understand" me as I had trouble speaking) in therapy or on your own, know you have that weakness? Knowing you have a weakness in an area and are working on it can give you a certain amount of self esteem.

The other guy doesn't know (and obviously doesn't care), he's just doing a knee-jerk-what's-in-it-for-me reaction. The other person's words are probably not very specific (and you have the specifics), and a lot of the sting of his words comes from your own assumptions that he can see what is wrong with you and/or that your problems caused his outburst. Don't forget, someone else's words are about them, not about you! He doesn't know you like you know you. Applying someone else's "You idiot! Why did you do it that way?" to yourself, you know where you feel you are an idiot, he does not!

We also forget that most actions/activities can be done in multiple ways, we were just taught/brought up to do them a certain way and not everyone else was brought up that way! I remember still how I was literally "taught" to wash the dishes, in 7th grade home economics, as if you can only do dishes one "correct" way Remembering that when someone else gets angry at you or you are tempted to yell at someone else, can help defuse things a bit until you can sort them out. Think "dish washing" (or repeat it 10 times instead of just counting :-) and then see if you can discover the problem ("fix the problem, not the blame"). One thing I do constantly with my husband is remember that he was not fortunate enough to be born a girl so was not taught to pay attention to household details like I was! He knows how to wash dishes because he had a teen age job as a dish washer but that's it! He was oldest and can babysit okay too, I've give him that but, as the saying goes, he doesn't know which room of the house the kitchen is in and cannot look in a refrigerator and "find" anything without calling, "where's the. . .?" when it's staring him in the face. I feel sorry for guys sometimes.

Too, don't forget that a lot of what we get angry about with other people is our problem! That someone else does not do something, that is me and my problem if I'm the one that wants it done! I use to get upset at my husband for not taking the trash out as often as I'd like but if I want it taken out more often, there ain't nothing wrong with me, I can take it out! My husband does not own the trash :-) I can live with my husband in a nice house, nice money, good companionship, sweet loving, etc. . . and take the trash out or I can live alone, hand-to-mouth with money, lonely, and take the trash out. Gee, which one should I choose?