[Apanthropos]

The title of this post says it all. For the longest time my anger problems have been very hard and complicated when I try to explain it to some, especially the past T's I have seen.

But they don't understand. Ever. Let me go out on a rant and explain something to y'all who are reading this. EVERY time I have seen a therapist and said the words: "I can't control it, I can't walk away. It's not that simple, ever." They ALWAYS ALWAYS reply with disagreement, trying to tell me that I can control it. But they haven't been in my body, they have not felt the things I have felt, or done the things I wanted to do, and yet they are so quick to say that I can??? I swear, these sessions don't tell me jack squat. What I want to do is have CONTROL over the anger and extreme impulsiveness in the moment, and that feels virtually impossible when the therapists tell me what I'm feeling. Typically when I did see them, all they could suggest is to avoid the situation completely WHICH COMPLETELY DOESN'T HELP THE SITUATION. I can walk away all I want, but do you really think that doing THAT would possibly stop me from going out of control again? Of course it won't! I feel like I am out of options with controlling it, because I can't explain it in a proper way to them to get them to understand that how I feel in the moment, and how I feel after. Heck, even they couldn't even tell me what is even going on with me. I have discussed this A LOT with my father, and he agrees that what I am going through is not depression. In fact he has the same problem as well, as it is apparently genetic. I'm not asking to be cured 100% completely because I know it is not possible, but all I wanted was to understand why I feel the way I do and why I do the things I do.
Now that I got that out of the way, I will attempt to explain what happens during an outburst. If you have any ideas as to what the hell this is, please feel free to say so. I just want answers, not a magic pill or a flawless way to control it.

To start, I will say that my emotions are sort of dulled, except for my anger. It is not that I am 100% numb, however it is just that I cannot feel things as well as my anger. So I do feel happy, etc, but typically its emptiness. Now typically I am having an outburst because I want something. (For example, I'll use people being loud, such as my uncle who lives with us). He is VERY loud and he yells at his children who come over, and guess what? They're 5 and 7. So they're loud, he is loud, and it causes a conflict. It is honestly like a light switch. Once it turns on, my mind just races at breakneck speed, making me unable to be aware or think about anything else for except I want, and those thoughts will just race and race, bringing up more thoughts or ideas to achieve what I want. My adrenaline goes, and boom. I feel a strange heaviness and urge just to get what I want. All it takes is 2 LITERAL seconds to feel it and I find myself doing it, without thinking about the future, consequences, or anything else. I just, do it... After I have done what I wanted, I feel better and my mind just goes to a blank state. No nothing after the outburst except for some satisfaction. Now don't get me wrong. I do know between right and wrong, but just during the moment it is as if that conscience just gets thrown out the window.

I'm not freaked out by this, but I just want to be understood, and want to know to understand what is going on. This has sort of destroyed my social life. I just need some assurance that somebody, somewhere out there knows what I mean. Thank you for reading this if you have been able to go over the whole thing, and as I said before, I am open to suggestions to try and cope.

[Artchic528]

I know how you feel. I have a hard time controlling my anger. People say it's controllable, but they don't know how hard it is to reel in that anger once you've gone past the point of no return.

[Rinnegan]

I had a problem controlling my mouth, I would foul mouth or talk **** a lot on something that was extremely stupid or when someone says or does something dumb I would just cuss them out. I still do it but I stopped because I started to look at the faces of people around me when I did it and sometimes people would support it but a lot of times people would look at me with disgust. I didn't want to be a monster, I wanted to be a hero so that's what helped me with it. I didn't change entirely but we all try you know?

[Nimportequoi]

Have you looked into
-Intermittent Explosive Disorder
-Borderline Personality

Unfortunately you left behind a big mysterium of what exactly you do when angry so it's hard to imagine what exactly is causing you problems with your anger issues? Is it that you hurt other people or do you just yell at them or insult them, which causes you to regret afterward because it strains your relationships? Might sound hilarious/banal and off topic, but I was very aggressive until I got about eleven years old. So I have a vague idea of how you may feel. I think in some weird twisted way I profited from being a girl, because as a girl, it is seen even more socially inappropriate to be aggressive. That way, I was almost "forced" to direct my rage in another way. So today, I rather have symptoms of turning bad feelings/impulses inwards/against myself. I still have huge anger issues, but they aren't so easily visible on the outside. That's good because I am better able mold in to my social environment.

EVERY time I have seen a therapist and said the words: "I can't control it, I can't walk away. It's not that simple, ever." They ALWAYS ALWAYS reply with disagreement

I see what you are about. I think this is not just a thing about therapists, but about people in general. There are few persons who seem to get how sickening, outraging, disgustig and annoying it is, if everytime you tell them about a problem of yours, they start to relativize, deny or downplay the problem. I think that this kind of behavior is related to some kind of (maybe even unconscious?) aggression. People don't want to accept your problems, because that way they had to accept there is suffering in this world. Also it can be frustrating to realise someone has a problem you yourself can't understand at all.
Hm, anyway, I'd suggest you that next time a person plays down your anger problem, tell them exactly what you wrote in here. That it makes you angry, that they don't understand, that you feel they are unempathetic.
Hm, the last thing that comes to my mind, "numb" feelings" and "unpredictable" rages sounds to me like you are dissociating your feelings a lot. That would cause your inner "landscape" to be pretty unintegrated and therefore explain that you have at one time problems feeling emotion and another you are overwhelmed by them.
Hope some of this has been of benefit for you!

[Chimney]

Maybe this will help. It'll be a long one.

I'm 42 and am remembered by friends and family around the world for my temper and my outbursts. Many many times I felt absolutely justified by how I reacted to situations and people. Sometimes I felt uncomfortable in myself about my reaction.

The next part is two fold:

(1) In my very early 30s I finally finally agreed to finally go on the anti depressant aropax. I felt like I was giving in and admitting defeat. I can't explain why. :/ The difference for ME was noticeable within the week. I recognized situations several times a day that I would have been losing the plot about. ......and seeing (almost as though I was outside of my body. ....fly on the wall kind of thing.)...... seeing that the situation really wasn't that big a deal. It was really strange to be able to see my two completely different reactions to the same situation. I was witnessing my own overreaction to situations. So less reaction AND without feeling drowsy or doped in any way like I remembered my mum saying on valium years before. I was really worried about that as I respond ridiculously strongly to even the mildest of sedatives. Sadly the aropax gave me blinding light sensitivity so I stopped it. I've been on citalopram ever since and wouldn't be without it. If I forget my pills for 3 days or more. ..... It's ugly. I can feel the anger churning.

With the addition of hormones to control my ping ponging mood swings throughout a single day. ..... Most of the time I feel pretty in control.

BUT....

It still didn't take much to set me off. It was considerably less likely and would take something with a bit more substance to trigger me. ....but when it did. ...... It scared me and still scares me how quickly and explosively I go off. I would feel nothing except my boiling rage. I could think of nothing except for the venom that was pouring out of my mouth, and my strong arms pushing and shoving to whatever outcome I needed. ......except because my brain wasn't engaging. ....I actually had no idea what outcome I wanted. .....I was completely out of my own, or anyone else's control.

Does this sound familiar? Anyway. .....

(2) Aged 35 my mother died after a long battle with cervical cancer. Her husband of 25 years was a complete ####***. Our family felt that he had controlled my mum for the last 25 years, had destroyed our already small family, and isolated my mum from friends. The one person he could not chase away was her youngest daughter. The short of the long story here is that I completely lost it with him when he broke every word he had given regarding our participation on the day of the funeral. ....basically continued to control my mum even in death. ......and (at the cemetery) I lost it completely and totally. I physically launched myself at him and was lost. It was over 2 decades of hatred at the man the little girl in me felt had ripped my family apart. I hadn't realized until that moment how much I despised him, and to a degree had feared him because of his total emotional control over my mother. ....feared that he would someday manage to make mum stop seeing me for our girly, laughing catch ups. I don't usually allow myself to name a feeling as hatred, but at that moment I truly hated him. I wanted desperately to hurt him like he had hurt me. (Note - he had come into my life over a single weekend when I had just turned 12. That weekend ended with the police being called as my older sister and I were screaming and screaming as this mad man and my seemingly brainwashed mother were calling my sister, our family home, and everything in it possessed by the devil, and trying to physically, brutally physically rip me and my sister apart. The police made me stay with my mum in the house that night where I was forced to burn things and eventually was taken by them from the house, only to be taken from the ####***'s house a few days later by child services and the police after they axed down the door. Up until that weekend my mother had not displayed to us kids even the tiniest bit of interest in any church or faith. That weekend scared me more than I have ever been scared since. I suspect, and my therapists have agreed, the fact that I had absolutely no control of anything happening around me, that this event is at the very heart of how I react to situations where I feel out of control of a situation)

Sorry for the sidetrack. ...I thought it relevant to give a bit of history so it wouldn't seem like I'd just decided to attack someone just because he said "no".

I had even had the forethought to increase my citalopram dose while mum was in hospice. I knew that events would stretch my tolerance considerably and my doctor was fully supportive. It helped. ....but didn't prevent the eruption. My one and only regret was that I did this at a time and place that was completely disrespectful of other people saying their farewells to my mother. That was appalling. My mind wasn't there. I understand now how someone can lose their senses and commit senseless violent crimes. That is how gone I was. My husband pulled me off him and still I fought. I dislocated my own shoulder trying to hurt that man.

This is all relevant. So I hope you're still with me here.

While others were at the wake that evening, I was at the physio for my shoulder. I had completely soiled myself and my face, chest and arms were covered in gouges.

A few weeks later I was arrested for assault.

This was the best thing that ever happened to me. Yes, the best thing.

The judge recognized that there was an element of emotional and spiritual abuse behind the situation and court ordered me to attend a 16 week anger management course specifically designed for women who had lashed out with their anger. That course, 7 years ago, is what holds me together.

The course facilitators were sneaky. They started off reassuring us and we felt like we were definitely the victim (each one of us had physically lashed out and been arrested for hurting someone where there had been some degree of physical or emotional control). Then we started learning about the relationships between the the controller and the controllee (let's just make up words, eh )

Then the facilitators got really stuck in. Oh boy. It was ugly when I started seeing more of the "controllER" in me. Although I was at the course because of the situation between my mother's second husband and myself. .....I started noticing similarities in how my husband and I were with each other. It was an awful realisation that I was actually quite an unpleasant, manipulating , emotionally blackmailing little @@@@@ with my husband. Only 2 other women on the course were seeing something similar in themselves.

Next came the "you have to learn to control your emotions" sessions. What had been stamped in over and over up to this point is this. ....

"It is OK and important to feel the emotions we're feeling. Anger is an important emotion. How you EXPRESS that emotion needs to be controlled"

Like you, we all said that that was all very well to tell us that but how were we meant to do that? Look where it had got us?

There were a several weeks of different things we learnt and practiced. Just ONE stood out and has stayed with me ever since. I now do this every day without even realising. I'll tell you now what it was and maybe, just maybe it will help you. I hope you understand now why I've put down all the build up to this. The rest of my life before this course was me learning to "get by". What I learnt on the course was life changing. It taught me how to START learning to control how I express my emotions. Note that I didn't say "control my emotions". This is about RECOGNIZING what you're feeling and learning and PRACTICING how to reign in how you express the feeling. This is how they taught us. ......

Instead of rattling off how you feel on a scale of 1 to 10, they got us into groups and asked us to put WORDS to the feelings as we got more and more mad. We found this hard because each and every one of us, without exception, escalated so very very quickly so, that we would be off the charts within a few seconds. You mentioned the few seconds that it takes you. .....believe me when I say I understand.

Slowly surely we made lists of words. Descriptive words that captured 16 women's build up to our explosions. We were all different but our words were very similar.

So each group wrote out on the board our 10 words for how we "felt" when we were getting angry and when we blew and everything in the few seconds in between.

All these words were put on the board for everyone to see. There was lots of nodding heads.

Next we, as a class first of all, discussed what were the words on the board that would be the equivalent of 1, 2, .....5,6...9, 10...etc in the traditional scale of 1 to 10.

I swear it was like a light bulb going on inside me. I have never been able to think in terms of that 1 to 10 scale. We're so often asked what our pain is on a 1 to 10 scale. I don't think in numbers. I think in words. These wonderful teachers were giving me such a powerful tool. I was able to RECOGNISE what I was feeling......and be able to put a name to it.

The lesson continued. .... We were to put 10 words into our very own order. We were all individuals so our lists varied. I've lost the original but my list went something like this. ...

1) Frustrated
2) Niggly
3) Sarcastic & rolly eyed (eloquent eh?!)
4) Irritated
5) P###ed off
6) Mad
7) ???
8) Furious
9) Livid
10) Explosive

See, still I find it difficult to put words to the second half of my list. ....and I'll tell you why.

In our lesson we were taught that most of us would likely get to the equivalent of our number 4 or 5.....and then escalate so quickly that we had no time to catch ourselves as already we were out of control. So the lesson and the daily, weekly, monthly, rest of our life practice was to become AWARE of when we were feeling at the number 1, 2 and 3 stage. We were told these were the levels of feeling emotion that was still at a controllable stage. These were the stages to do whatever is relevant from the following:

Change the subject
Diffuse the situation
Walk away
Distract yourself with something like music

The idea being that by taking the emphasis away from the situation that is creating the build up of "insert one of your words", you are moving what you are feeling back DOWN the scale. .... so DEescalating instead of the reverse.

We were taught that once we reached the equivalent of our 4 or 5, we were at great risk of escalating too quickly to be able to RECOGNISE what we are feeling.

For every single one of us this was true. For me, I did realise that once I got to "irritated" it was almost gloves off time and anyone was fair game. If I got to "p###ed off", it was usually a given that my mouth would let fly, I'd be ready to shove anyone who came near me, and with slightly more provocation (in other words if the other party wouldn't back off and grovel an apology) I'd be at "explosive."

So we had the tool. We had our own words. We were to practice RECOGNIZING what we felt really early on. .....I mean really early on. So for me, I realized just how often in a single day I feel "frustrated". My number 1. My meds had at least helped ease the frequency with which I reacted to this "frustrated feeling" but it was rather eye opening to notice just how easily I became frustrated.

If I noticed myself get to my number 3, my "sarcastic and rolly eyed", I was to try and intervene on myself. I started practicing ways of changing the subject, backing down (Oh did that one sting! !!!!! I don't like that one at all), and if necessary..... walking away.....followed by extremely loud music. Walking away was completely foreign to me. It felt so unnatural. It felt like I was somehow letting myself down. I have become pretty good at walking away. I certainly find it easier than "backing down".

Over time, I am learning to find ways to prevent the frustration in the first place. I'm a work in progress but with an excellent therapist who is opening my eyes to my rather "living on my nerves" self and ways to soothe my overactive nervous system, I feel like I'm winning the war. It's been a long time.

So I come to the current end of my ongoing practice of LEARNING to control how I express my anger. It is absolutely ok to FEEL the strong emotion. We do need to learn how to moderate how we RELEASE the emotion. For me, my list of words, learning to recognize them as they came bubbling up inside me, practicing methods of personal intervention so I could diffuse myself, diffuse the ticking bomb that was so very close to the surface, and I suspect will always be, by recognizing when I was at my own personal 1, 2, 3, or 4, and doing something to intervene THEN. ....I have managed for 7 years to significantly limit my explosions. To be honest, thinking hard about it, I can only think of maybe 1 "explosion = 10" each year, if that. ..... although I still occasionally get to my number 6 or 7 but as that was an EXHAUSTINGLY regular, weekly if not daily occurrence, I am incredibly proud of how far I have come. .....and proud of how far I will get.

So, I really hope that this has been of help to you, and to others who find your post. I do apologise for its length. It is not to gain any sympathy or any kind of judgment. It was laid out so you can see the progression.

That just made me think of this last bit. ....
I truly believe that the practicing of RECOGNIZING what we are feeling, no matter how fleetingly, creates a muscle memory equivalent for recognizing that feeling again more easily. If I had continued to ALLOW myself free range in expressing my emotion, then I believe that same muscle memory equivalent was making it easier and easier to be like I was for so many years. I was exhausted. It was exhausting, and still is when I am unable to catch myself in time.

I wish you all the support and strength you will need. But it's worth it. You're worth it. X

[seesaw]

I don't have uncontrollable anger but I've had other uncontrollable urges in my life and I felt a lot like you, at first, that intervening an stopping them was impossible.

I know now that's not true. It just takes a lot of hard work, cbt, dbt, talk therapy, and really wanting to change your behavior so that you'll take that leap of faith and trust therapists and doctors.

I think Chimney's response is spot on. There was a moment of realization for her and we all have to have that before we really are able to change, imo.

I wish you the best of luck in your journey and hope these responses give you some insight.

Seesaw

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[Apanthropos]

Originally Posted by Nimportequoi

Have you looked into
-Intermittent Explosive Disorder
-Borderline Personality

Unfortunately you left behind a big mysterium of what exactly you do when angry so it's hard to imagine what exactly is causing you problems with your anger issues? Is it that you hurt other people or do you just yell at them or insult them, which causes you to regret afterward because it strains your relationships? Might sound hilarious/banal and off topic, but I was very aggressive until I got about eleven years old. So I have a vague idea of how you may feel. I think in some weird twisted way I profited from being a girl, because as a girl, it is seen even more socially inappropriate to be aggressive. That way, I was almost "forced" to direct my rage in another way. So today, I rather have symptoms of turning bad feelings/impulses inwards/against myself. I still have huge anger issues, but they aren't so easily visible on the outside. That's good because I am better able mold in to my social environment.

I see what you are about. I think this is not just a thing about therapists, but about people in general. There are few persons who seem to get how sickening, outraging, disgustig and annoying it is, if everytime you tell them about a problem of yours, they start to relativize, deny or downplay the problem. I think that this kind of behavior is related to some kind of (maybe even unconscious?) aggression. People don't want to accept your problems, because that way they had to accept there is suffering in this world. Also it can be frustrating to realise someone has a problem you yourself can't understand at all.
Hm, anyway, I'd suggest you that next time a person plays down your anger problem, tell them exactly what you wrote in here. That it makes you angry, that they don't understand, that you feel they are unempathetic.
Hm, the last thing that comes to my mind, "numb" feelings" and "unpredictable" rages sounds to me like you are dissociating your feelings a lot. That would cause your inner "landscape" to be pretty unintegrated and therefore explain that you have at one time problems feeling emotion and another you are overwhelmed by them.
Hope some of this has been of benefit for you!

I have looked into IED before. However I do not feel remorse or shame afterwards, and I will admit sometimes I expect people to react a certain way to my actions, which has done some harm emotionally and physically to them. I never looked into borderline before, so I will do some research on it. Thanks for givin me some info and ideas.