[sunrise]

Are anxiety and anger related? I have had so much anxiety lately. And been so angry. Are they the same? I don't even know what I'm feeling anymore. I am just on overload, really stressed out. I feel my anxiety shoot sky high at the littlest thing, can't sleep when this happens, just obsessing about it. Like today at work, a collaborator sent me an email bawling me out for picking up some materials from her office yesterday as she hadn't had a chance to look at them yet. Well, her boss had called me previously and asked me to pick them up so she wouldn't have to deliver them to me, so I did. I thought I was being helpful, then I get bawled out. This little incident made me so angry, I could feel my blood pressure rise in a flash. Normally, this sort of misunderstanding would not bother me at all. I would just realize it was miscommunication between this person and her boss and I was caught in the middle, no big deal. What is wrong with me? Why do I overreact like that and stress about these things and get angry? Am I anxious? Am I angry? Are they the same? I normally don't even get angry at things that would make the average person mad. I am uncontainable.

[jacq10]

(((((((((((((Sunrise))))))))))))
I think i actually posted a similar post to this not too long ago ... but yes, for me anyways, my anger or frustration is definitely related to anxiety. I think that both of those things are just so highly emotionally tolling, that when one gets activated, the other isn't too far behind.
I think that when you get angry or frustrated, you often don't know what to do with those feelings (or in my case i don't) and they just accumulate and it becomes so overwhelming that it turns into a state of anxiety because you're panicking over why you're feeling so intensely about whatever it is you're angry with. Am i making any sense? I hope so ...
My point though, is to not worry too much, and that you're not the only one who feels like this, and it doesn't make you uncontainable or anything of the sort.
Whenever i feel this coming on, i just try and focus on my breathing, and remind myself of where i'm at - emotionally. If i can try and stay in the present, and not let my anger/frustration accumulate, i can better control my anxiety, and sometimes even help get rid of the anger - key word, sometimes! lol

[AAAAA]

Sunrise,

When I first read your post, I was going to say that when I first started suffering from anxiety attacks I was also very angry all the time, but now, 16 odd years later that is not the case. I thought since I wasn't walking around pissed off at the world, that part of me at least was fixed.

Now that I've read your examples, I realized that I am exactly the same way. When an anxiety attack is coming on I start getting cranky, the bigger the attack the more livid I become.

Certain things that trigger the attacks, will also, even now, while I am safe in my own home, really really make me angry. As I read your post I'm saying "yes, yes, I know exactly what your saying!"

These incidents are things that would make anyone angry, but do they stay awake all night because it happened to pop in their head as they're falling asleep and get angry all over again?

I think you're on to something here. I am trying really hard to think of a time when I had an anxiety attack that did not result in a rage or when something that made me really angry did not result in an anxiety attack. I cannot think of a single time in 16 years when I had one without the other.