What experience led you to discover a positive way to address and change your issues with anger?

8 comments

1. I’d watch my dad rage out and try to be more concious of when I was feeling angry to spare anyone else having to deal with it like I did. I thought about how he’d flip out over the smallest things, so it led to me never being able to talk to him about big things, and I’d want my kids to be able to come to me about anything.

2. When I got into a confrontation in front of my nephew. He thought it was funny and even would recreate the confrontation when wrestling, not understanding how bad the situation actually was. I woke up and realized that I want to set a good example for him. There had been other jolts to me, but this was the one that stuck, hopefully for good

3. Compartmentalization and rationalization. So instead of just being angry recognize I am angry at X, then in examine the situation, why am I angry, does being angry makes sense? Will it make a difference? What is something more productive I can do. Alternatively how can I use this pent up anger, for running or working out etc.

4. Back when I was a freshman in high school I lost my shit one day with a friend. It was a combination of issues that piled up on me, but my friend was teasing me that day and I snapped and physically attacked him. Luckily my classmates immediately pulled me off of him and told me to bring it down, so I stormed off. I also want to say how grateful I still am to my classmates for intervening and pulling me off.

   I was later recommended to take an evaluation and they recommended two weeks at Outpatient treatment for anger issues. That gave me the time to reflect on myself and I got my shit together. Seeing how fucked up other kids lives were made me appreciate what I had going on fwiw too. It’s been well over 10 years since then and I have never lost my temper ever since, even in the face of higher stress situations.

5. One night I was coming home from an audition when I got into a fight with a man on the street car who was harassing another woman. Background: I have a black belt in karate, and before I used to be very enthusiastic about martial arts and fighting. I have had to use my skills in the past in competitions, and in situations where I had to regain my balance, and twice when defending myself. But I never once was prepared for a real fight before this point. I got angry, I engaged in the fight, and landed three punches and a kick on the man before he was down and the bus opened up.

   My problem: it was way too easy from my perspective. I leveled him like it was nothing. That experience led me to discover just how much I had achieved in terms of skill, and how volatile I was with my aggression. I stopped seriously training then and there, and realized that my priorities lied elsewhere in my life.

6. Realizing how many of the ways that I’m expected to be, as a man, are just cruel.

   The idea that you should feel ashamed of yourself for not getting by on two hours of sleep, abandoning your family, and not giving a shit about other people is insane.

   Letting myself be a bit broken by all that stuff and not feeling ashamed of it creates much more room for patience and stability.

7. I just don’t get angry. And if I do i take a second to let it go.

8. I realized that sometimes people behaved differently around me to avoid a potential altercation; and it never really occured to me that I was having this impact on people I cared about.
   I didn’t want people to feel aversion in my presence.
   Had to have a reality check.
   Got some therapy, had to come to terms with a lot of issues, and ratify some bad ideologies I was holding up as part of my identity, took on some new philosophies regarding anger and emotion.