Sometimes growing up negative feelings do get more "attention" from others/parental units. I remember more times I was hit or frightened than I do when I was hugged or felt good/comfortable. My stepmother had a bit of a short fuse and I learned that response from her also. Hard to learn the balanced, take time/figure it out approach if it's not modelled by anyone in our life whom we respect. I was in therapy 20 years with the same good therapist and have a husband who also models it for me and I still struggle sometimes.

I use to read biographies sometimes. Mostly I've read young adult books, like Harry Potter, etc. that had teens growing up, having various problems so I could see how they dealt with them. Immersing myself in those helped me too as I could "feel" what they were feeling even if it took a lot of therapy to learn how to express it all right, to put everything together into a more balanced whole.