sometimes, there's this small tiny detail that keeps bugging you; something that keeps repeating ... and repeating ... and repeating ... and then, when you're sick of it, it happens again!
and you snap! and yell at someone who had nothing to do with it; or crash everything within reach; or say something that you know you'll regret three seconds later; or hit somebody you care about; or just have a nervous breakdown;
or, you wake up one morning and hit your small toe against the door, while you're still half-asleep; then, you drop your toothbrush and you lean down to look for it and when you get up you hit your head with the drawer door with a resounding crack; and as if that's not enough, you go to to the kitchen and drop an egg on the floor so now you have to clean up the mess; and when you're done with the cleaning and feel that nothing else could go wrong, you cut your finger;
and suddenly, you feel this huge amount of rage inside you and it's much more than you ever thought you could feel, and it's making your shake all-over, and your breathing is rash and you just know you're going to explode in the next two seconds.
you're usually not an angry person; so, what the hell is going on?
methinks it's a matter of how you react to it all:
in most cases, nobody teaches you how to do it. so, you copy it: if there ever was only one person that you ever saw get angry, then you'll probably do like that person did; if you had a predominant figure in your youth that was getting angry a lot, you'll probably act on your anger the same way he (or she) did; (gosh! i'm an amateur doctor in psychiatry; der Herr Doktor Freud would be so proud of me!).
so, what do you do?
you could try becoming this very strict person with rules for everything and redirecting your anger for something constructive ... right?
wrong! Hitler did that; and took a whole europe with him! (he was a very strict person: vegetarian, never drank alcool, never smoke and all that; maybe if he loosened up a bit, we'd be still talking about the possibility of a second world war instead of a third one; not to speak of the whole holocaust thing).
one could say ok, but that was Hitler, not the average me or you. i think he was the average me or you but with a serious anger management problem. ok, and racism; and a ridiculous moustache (but i'm disgressing).
hey, i know, there are all those mental tricks:
like counting down from ten to one reaaaaaaally slowly, in your mind. there's a good way of controlling your anger!
there is just one little, big, fat mother-of-a-problem with this: the first victim of any truly violent emotion is you mind; i mean here you are, looking for something to hurt (wether it's a person/pet/rubber ducky/whatever), and all-of-a-sudden, you'll say evrika! instead of wasting my energy with being angry, lets do something constructing in my life, maybe start counting, because it sounds like good, nice family fun!
how realistic is that? (one in ten? and whoever sais evrika anyway? and when they're angry?!)
so that's out!
you could say: hey, i'm not counting, but imagining myself in some place peacefull, where nothing of what's making you angry exists; you close your eyes, think of the blue sea, or the mountains or pink flamingo birds wearing green tutus and eating cold spagetti with meatballs while at the same time they try to ... well, never mind that one!
anyway, it's the same situation as before: it works perfectly, until you're too damn angry to start that imagining/visualizing sh..stuff again.
and guess what?
you snap!
yes, again!
and to add insult to injury, if you really tried controling your anger, you feel you failed entirely (so, now you're a failure also; and guess who's going to get angry over it? the government? didn't think so.);
you feel you fail in controling anger because you actually do fail. for the simple reason that you cannot control anger. not really.
here, let me expand on that:
anger is energy; and energy is (if nothing else, then) something flowing; as in not staying still;
the moment you try keeping it still, it's just a matter of it amassing past your ability of control; suddenly you've become a time-bomb ( u! u! now i'll appear in CIA archives forwriting BOMB on the net :) ); and there are whole books, and video tapes, and CDs on how to pretend anger is not there;
this doesn't mean that you cannot control anger (yes, i know, i know, i'm contradicting my highly esteemed self); confused?
i think you are able to control it most of the time. but it's a loosing battle.
right about this place on the webpage, 90% of the people getting to this point will probably ask: so, do you have a damn conclusion to all this damn-long rant?
not really. well ... maybe :) it's just my little advice on how to deal with anger, added to all the other pieces of advice on how to deal with anger. no, really!.
methinks that the only way to deal with anger is to not have it in the first place! so, instead of going with the how to deal with anger thingy, get with the why does anger appear in the first place?
and i'll write about that in a future post since this is long enough allready :))
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