Ideas to cope with anger?

I want to learn how to better control my temper. I need to learn how to do this, to have a healthier relationship with my husband and to be a better mom to my future children! How do you all handle your temper when you get angry?

I also still struggle with anger and frustration ... One of the ways I try to handle it is to try to get the "extreme" thoughts set aside by trying to put whatever's setting me off into perspective.

Failing that, I like to do something physical to get it out of my system ... but in a way that doesn't hurt me or anybody else ... A couple of ways I've found this to be done is to hit tennis balls up against a wall, or to go to a driving range and buy the biggest bucket of balls and hit them instead. I envision the balls as being whoever or whatever I'm angry at, and I simply wallop the hell out of 'em.

Another outlet I've found usefull is those dadgum blow up punching clowns ... Buy two or three of those and set 'em up in various parts of the house. I will leave whatever situation I'm in that's pushing my buttons and go take it out on those guys, then once I've gotten it out of my system, I can rationally discuss whatever it was that sent me into orbit.

I hope that helps.

Sincerely,
BC

What hooks you in having your temper flare? Myself, someone taking advantage of me.
Someone taking advantage of people I care about. I've sorta learned that I don't have to take the responsibility of defending my friends...or to take things personally. But I still will find a way not to allow myself to be taken advantage of by being calmer and speaking forth-right about things in an emotionally controlled way.

I am driven into anger by losing control. Especially if I have lost control somehow of my husband. It sounds horrible, I know. I hate that I have to admit that. I feel like the only time that my anger is quenched is when I can somehow become secure again, usually by locking myself away in another room, sometimes by driving away in my car, but more often, saying the meanest things I can think of until my husband cries. Then I'll feel pity and calm down, and later deal with guilt and the damage I did to him and our relationship. I'm ready to get out of that cycle, and I'm trying lots of different things, but I want more opinions and perspectives! It's hard to know what to do when you're so overwhelmed with emotion.

I'm with you, i also want to learn how to control my temper, because when i get hurt or mad i say things that i don't mean! My son & husband get the short end of that fuse. & it bothers me, whether they earned it or not. I said to myself that i'd never speak a harsh tone/word to my child, that i'd handle it better than my parents did. For some reason i am doing the same and i DON'T want to anymore. I never want/wanted my son to feel the hurt i felt as a child. Even though i'm not half as bad as them i still do some stuff the same! I'm sick of it!!!! To top it off i think my son has adhd & it's hard not to get upset with someone who won't listen, or you have to repeat stuff a million times a day everyday. Please HELP Oh and sorry for getting in this conversation i didn't know where else to put this! And i hope you get what your looking for!!

I want to learn how to better control my temper

Hello! my friends

I,too, have real problems with anger. But mine just seems to blow up over stupid things into a full bout of uncontrollable rage. Am seeing someone about this soon so may get some answers. But at the moment, I always seem to be looking for confrontation of some sort.

Talking things out with my guy helps me control my anger. Little things easily irritate or offend me. If I let it build up inside meaning letting things slide with my partner, or with anybody else for example, I tend to keep it inside and it builds and builds until I finally lose it. When this happens, I tend to be irrational in my thoughts and actions. I become extremely mean like talking back or I end up harming myself or others. It gets to a point wherein I scream in frustration or when it's directed at a person, I fight for control so I don't end up hurting anyone.

I think the best way is to walk away from the situation when you feel like you're just about to lose it. Go back when you are in better control of your emotions. Like, I punch the wall wearing gloves when I'm upset. Screaming in private helps. Writing helps too. I know of someone who smashes up the dishes, it relieves her from anger.

Also try these things, see if they might work for you. http://socyberty.com/relationships/t...rolling-anger/

Has your husband talked with your therapist to understand how PTSD is effecting you?
I found that sometimes the anger comes out when we feel we are misunderstood and somehow expected to just get over it from others.

Are you seeing a therapist?

I know what you mean about the anger, it is a challenge to learn how to control it.
You have every right to be angry that something bad happened to you. But now you have to address it with a therapist and learn how to get past it. No, it is not easy and the most important part is to recognize all the things that may trigger your anger that you may not realize. That took me a while to figure out. There were behaviors that my husband presented that really triggered me and I was not really consciously aware of it. So it is important to really stop and think about what is triggering your anger to come out. Once you figure that out, then you can finally get a much better handle on it and even discuss it with your therapist and perhaps your therpist can help your husband learn to stop these behaviors and instead be more supportive. Also it is so important to make sure you have a place in your home that you can retreat to and it is known that you are not to be disturbed or invaded upon.

Thinking more about how I struggled was based on a sense of guilt that I just could not resume to being my old self and that it seemed my husband was waiting for that and I didn't feel I was truely ever going to be the same. Well, the truth is that no, we are not the same, can very sensitive to our personal boundaries more than ever. And that is where the husband needs to talk to the therapist so he can learn what that means. When that happens, there is a load taken off, because you have someone that is validating your struggle and you don't feel like you have to feel so presured anymore.

It really takes time and patience to identify these triggers. Once you do though, it is such a relief.

(((((Hugs))))
Open Eyes

Thanks. I have been in therapy for about 8 months, and this week for the first time my therapist asked for my husband to join me. I'm hoping that with his input I can kind of figure out what my triggers are, because while I try and try to figure out what to tell the hubby is causing this, I just haven't been able to figure it out. Even with the therapy. I've tried medication and have even taken hormone tests to see if maybe my hormones were out of wack. (Now they are, we just found out I'm pregnant!) Thank you for your advice.

Oh, well being pregnant will definitely effect how you feel. I hope you talk about whatever medication you are on and how that may effect the baby.

Keep going to therapy and working at it, it honestly took me a while to identify what it was that bothered me as I said.

Open Eyes

Thanks. I quit taking my medications the day we found out, after talking to my doctor. Still on kinda shaky ground.

I've been focusing on reminding myself to really stop and listen before responding. The more I've focused on this the more I'm able to see the bigger picture vs being set off by one thing.

Ive also begun to notice that it is my loss of contro as well. Once I'm able to identify it, I can better verbalized what I'm feeling.

I try not to focus on the tangible 'this has made me angry' but rather the it makes me angry because I've 'put in my effort here and now it's messed up' or a 'I'm angry because if you raise your voice to me, I will literally go into fight mode for real!'

I hope the point I feel I'm making came across.

(hug)

LylaJean....I sometimes act that way with my boyfriend. It usually comes when I feel frustrated by some of the things that are going on in his life that affect me in a negative way. I feel as if I'm always there for him (business problems, personal problems, etc.), but that I'm at the bottom of the list when it come to his priorities. This makes me feel insecure and it makes me doubt his feelings for me....Usually, I get angry and tell him off...but it doesn't stop there...I sometimes talk about breaking up and point out some of his failings (some of the problems are cause by his being too laid back and failing to take action soon enough) until he feels bad...he might even cry like your husband...then I feel horrible and all I want to do is comfort him. I guess, in a sick way, I feel as if he cries because he really does care...but this may be the only way that I ever know...since he doesn't always show it and he's not one to ever talk about his feelings. It's a bad cycle and I'd like to stop my side of it.

Penny, thanks for sharing those points. I'm going to keep it in mind that it's not what he does that makes me angry, as much as what I was already feeling about that issue.

What I'm really struggling with, anger wise, right now, is our money situation. I'm working fulltime, which was great for us because the extra income was going to help us really get ahead before the baby comes. But my hubby quit his job without talking to me about it on Monday. His reasoning was that he can keep his insurance if he gets transferred now, but he has to be available and not on a current assignment to be eligible for a transfer. He says if he would have waited, it would have been too close to the baby's arrival. But basically, it pisses me off. What a dumb, selfish move on his part. What if I'm too sick to work? What if he doesn't find a job in time and we keep going in debt? What if the next job he gets he hates too? He admits that it was stupid of him to do without talking to me about it and he's remorseful, but I really don't care. I'm so angry. I'm just carrying around this resentment, I even packed up all of my clothes and was going to take off but he talked me into staying. I feel like he can't take care of my baby and I. How am I supposed to trust him after that kind of a thing? He's been selfish in smaller ways before, but this was big for me. I know that if I stay in this marriage, which I plan to do, for life, I'm going to have to forgive him and learn to depend on him again. And I'm really struggling with that right now.

You need something to remind you when you get angrythat it's no big deal. Our mnds work so that emotion begins small, setting off a chain reaction that changes our thought patterns, physiology, and feelings into a full on emotion, but it can (and does) happen in reverse. Simply realizing that this isn't something to get angry over and that the emotion can stop now will begin the quick-yet-gradual end to the emotion.

The problem is that we tend to get caught up in our emotions and part of the whole, "change our thought patterns" thing includes ignoring strategies like these. In the end, though, coping strategies once you get angry all have relatively the same effectiveness. Once you realize that they should be used as you're experiencing the emotion...then you've done 90% of the job.

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?

I constantly argue with my partner we have been together for nearly 6 years, he has taken on my older two as his own as they have no contact with their biological father, I hate that we fight and sometimes think he would be better off without me and to let him go but then that is selfish as I do love him and it would crush the kids! I dont think we will last because of my insecurities but only time will tell, try buying a punchbag and or anger management

I think that's a big one. If you can do that, it will go a long way to help you.

I've been having trouble with that (explosive responses), but also, when I'm alone, my rage gets intense. I scream so much that my throat actually hurts, as it does today. In some cases, I will punch or kick stuff. There is damage in and around my property from my own fits of rage.

The intensity of my emotional response to things that are so unimportant really bothers me. Drinking makes me more prone to rage, because then it compounds everything, bringing the notion of "buzz-kill" into the equation. But I have these fits of rage when I'm completely sober too. In fact, it's completely unpredictable. I don't know that drinking makes me more prone to it. It's more like, if it happens while drinking, the results are just much worse.

Like I said, it happens most often when I'm alone. When other people are in the house, I am usually better about keeping things from going too far out of control. However, I still do or say inappropriate things in front of others when something triggers me.

This is probably the single biggest factor that triggers prolonged episodes of psychological distress in my life.