How do you fix boiling rage-anger that has been with you for years?

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3. Anger management and therapy so you can learn healthy ways to express your feelings without it hurting you or others.

4. Therapy is really the only way, it can help you figure out where the anger is coming from and give techniques to help with thought pattern control.

5. I grew up in a very angry household…. I don’t know if I had boiling rage the way some people do, but anger was definitely encouraged and the only way I learned to solve issues.

   So to unlearn, was a process

   1. Realize that you FULLY control how you act when you are angry. It is an abuser’s lie to think that rages are uncontrollable. If you get really angry and call someone a name, then you know at some point you gave yourself permission to call that person that name. If you rage and break something, same thing applies. I learned this idea from “Why Does He Do That?” by Lundy Bancroft. He breaks it down better than I can explain it.

   2. Using this realization, start fully controlling your actions when you are angry. You can’t control the emotion yet, but you can walk away or stop talking. If you slip up, try again. Eventually you will be in control of your actions when angry, through the practice. Don’t give yourself any excuses along the lines of “I lost control.” Instead, if you slip up, you have to face the truth and think “I chose to do that”

   3. At this point, your actions may be under control and that feels good. But you’ll still feel boiling rage and get triggered. Do you have to sit and wait it out every time? No. Emotions can also be controlled and managed in a way that they don’t overwhelm us. This is deeper work to learn how to do and it’s where therapy generally comes in I think. The very basic idea is that you have to build up a good sense of self and have higher goals/prioroties for your life other than the anger. For me, my abusive family made me angry so I had to learn how to build my life up past them. It diverts your attention and when faced with the next trigger, you will start to think “you know what, that other thing deserves my energy more. I won’t waste my time being angry and pay attention to you for longer than I need.” This is a good video to start with: https://youtu.be/87rssJ0tfxk and the book “The Anger Trap” by Dr Les Carter is also helpful.

6. Accepting the fact that my actions and reactions are completely under my control, and then deciding I don’t want to be that way. My parents both yelled a lot when I was growing up and it created a tense atmosphere in my home growing up as a child. When I was pregnant with my first, I knew I wanted to create a peaceful home for her. That’s when I decided I was just not going to yell. several years and a couple more kids later, I can count on one hand the number of times I have yelled at them out of anger.

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