Thanks Sky!

And, Dr. Clay, I was thinking of you today and I hope you are feeling better these days. Are you still in treatment?

I believe aggression IS loss of control. Acting out anger is loss of control. Understanding the misperceptions that cause the anger is key, IMO.

I recently nearly lost a friend when I lashed out at them with words because I had unrealistic expectations. On another board, I posted to them and anticipated a reply. When that person's reply did not match my expectation, I was hurt and I lashed out. What's important for me to know is not how to avoid lashing out, but to understand a couple of things. One is that I do not control other people's thoughts or actions. (If I did, every relationship would be essentially, with myself and how dull that would be--no pleasant surprises and differences of ideas, etc.); my expectations don't dictate the other person's behavior. Also that I may hav expectations, but I may not demand that reality fit my expectations; and if I have trouble accepting that, then I need to give it some room, give myself room around my emotions about it. Also, just because my expectations were not met in the way I expected, doesn't mean that my need or desire wasn't met; in this case it was met, but met in the other person's own way and that *requires* me to give myself room around my emotions to have time to understand and accept and embrace that... a kind of looking at it from her point of view. And finally even though I might not have felt I was lashing out, the other person did percieve it that way and said so; at that point I can react and deny it or I can step back and again look at it from the other side and see how it IS lashing out. (I guess it depends on whether you're seeing the arrow coming at you or leaving you, huh?!)

Anyway, I think it is helpful to go deeper and understand what's underneath the anger. I doubt I would do again what I just did to this person; in fact it has me thinking more about my perceptions, my reactions, and if I think I've given myself enough room around my emotions. Nothing says we have to respond immediately. "Let me think about that" is a good defense against acting out anger/being agressive.