Hi I find myself increasingly unable to control my anger in a way I think is acceptable now by many standards I have a pretty good hold of it? I don't yell at people, I don't get physically violent, I don't send hateful messages, so I'm aware that it's probably not really as much of a problem as I currently perceive it as but I have this habit of getting hung up on tiny things and mulling them over until I'm blood-boilingly FURIOUS and EVERYTHING makes me even more mad, and it's messing with me. I'd like it to stop. (when I do get angry, that anger is expressed in silence and avoidance and 1 word replies, frequently coupled with a refusal to say why I'm angry/that I AM angry, so I imahine it absolutely sucks to be at the receiving end of even if I'm not throwing cutlery OR knives) the common pattern, as far as I've been able to identify it, is this: I get a bit annoyed at something (or realise that a certain thing annoys me) For some reason I'm unable to express this annoyance (it's a super petty thing and I don't trust them well enough to show it bothered me, I'm at work and have to be professional, they're a complete stranger and itd be so unnecessary to ruin their day over a minor annoyance...) If I can disconnect from the situation after that first blip of anger things are generally fine. If it's towards a stranger it's ALWAYS fine. Never builds to Bad Point when it's 1 isolated encounter. If it's towards and acquantaince and it happens again, I sometimes indulge it bc then it's mostly just funny? my friends and I joke that I have an arch nemesis in each new class bc I'll basically always find someone to fixate on. (I don't seek it out. But I do let it happen. Since I don't show when I'm mad, am still perfectly capable of being cordial towards them during the few hours a week that we do meet, and so on, it's mostly just super funny to come home and be like GUYS YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT STUPID SHIT GERTRUDE SAID TODAY) if it's towards a friend (which it rarely is! but it is now!!!) or someone I do meet frequently it just keeps BUILDING, especially if I can't remove myself from the situation for long enough to work through it. I've had dnd sessions spent trying not to start yelling at my DM, whole days at work where I've said maybe 30 words total to the person I'm in pairs with ALL day, and it sucks? I know how to manage the anger when I'm AWAY from the source of it but when it's RIGHT THERE I don't know what to do. I try to direct us towards work that'll let me put on a podcast and just go through the motions and that works sometimes but every time the anger comes back it's worse and I HATE it. i don't want to feel this way about a friend. ((in the past the most frequently reoccurring target of my mostly undeserved intense anger has been my younger sibling - we've resolved that through honest talking a few times and that's been great, but it requires me being in balance enough to be able to Resolve Things. when I can't do that I've just hid in my room and that's worked bc then I can avoid the annoyance until it chills tf out.)) i guess what I'm asking is where in the process do I need to cut it short and what can i do to do that? when I'm already AT boiling blood anger, how do I fix it? IS the joking arch nemesis thing actually harmless or am i just enabling myself to hold grudges like a fucker??? (bc ive been thinking of that as a safe release of anger. I don't want to be angry at people I care about. It sucks.)
Spoiler: specific right now situation I work doing cleaning and maintenance stuff and I work with a friend I don't see much anymore except now during summer where I will be spending 8 hours straight 5 days a week for 3 months with them. They're nice! They're a lovely person! They don't deserve me being angry with them! but I'm basically the one deciding Everything rn and that's not my job we have the EXACT SAME JOB, but I'm the one keeping track of what people have told us to do and where to go and what we've already done and when break is over and all that stuff and it's EXHAUSTING but I can't be angry that it's like that bc it's my fault that it's like that! they've always been the more passive one in our relationship and here at work and half the time when I'm like "ok your turn what are we doing" and they suggest smth I'll remember something about that task they didn't and end up taking charge ANYWAYS and it isn't on purpose and I've apologised but it means I'm reinforcing the structure and I've accepted that but it's SUPER ANNOYING to be the driving force all the time i can handle the managing and directing but I can't do that And be the person to decide ok thats enough lunch break time to get back to work Every Time if i don't say break is over break is never over and then that has been annoying me for several days now and I just keep realising hey, they haven't kept track of this thing i asked for help with, or hey, while I ran around trying to get hold of the person we have to talk to before doing the thing they did Nothing, just sat on their phone, and then I just get angrier and angrier and I'm SO angry at EVERYTHING they say or do or don't say or don't do now and the anger isn't FAIR and i want to be FAIR and i can't be angry with them bc they're a friend and they've been having a really tough time recently and Depression and i have to be able to keep working with them until end of August! eughhhhhh baby tiny things but like right now writing this? lunch break was over 20 minutes ago theyre right here they have a phone too they know how times work they haven't even ASKED if maybe we should get moving and I'm so angry about it I don't care to even look at them and that is DEFJNITELY NOT A PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE AND IDK WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Hey, so, promise this is relevant, are you AFAB or female-identified? I'm hearing a lot of assumptions in your posts that are commonly associated with female socialization. For instance, the assumption that you need to manage and minimize your anger is underlying a lot of what's going on here. It sounds like you know that trying to minimize or avoid the anger is making it worse at this point, but you still are (understandably!) trying not to feel the way you feel. I also want to question this assumption: What if the anger was fair? I mean, I agree, not proportionate, but, what if anger is the appropriate response to the situation you find yourself in? I guess what I want to suggest is trying radical acceptance of your anger. Saying, "Okay, yes, I am angry about this thing, and that feeling of anger is valid." Expressing it might be a problem, but the anger itself is a valid way to feel. Will be more articulate later, have to go to class now, but, final thought: you're being really hard on yourself about this. I don't think you need to be.
yeah like, anger isn't evil. feeling frustrated isn't inherently wrong (though it's unpleasant) and you haven't done anything bad yet (snapped at this person, etc.) you haven't been unfair. honestly, the specific situation you mentioned would drive me crazy, i think it would most people. it's really annoying to have to be the one who's always directing and it's especially annoying to have to regulate someone else's behavior when they should probably being doing that themselves. emotions don't just come up for no reason, usually. you're not mad at this person out of nowhere, you don't hate them. they're doing something specific that pisses you off. it pisses you off because it's making it harder for you to do your work. i think that's entirely fair actually. i think that maybe your fear of your anger is stopping you from resolving this conflict. your anger is sort of telling you 'hey this isn't right' and because you don't like being angry you're responding like 'my anger needs to go away, so it must be wrong and this situation must be okay'. but it's not actually okay and it's just making you more irritated. emotions do this frustrating thing where they don't go away when you ignore them. so instead of ignoring your anger and trying to just leave the situation as it is, maybe you could try thinking something like 'okay, this situation is making me angry. what can i do, or what could i change about this that would make me feel less angry?' then you can try to do the thing that makes the situation better. i think instead of avoiding your coworker you need to talk this out with them. if you're worried about getting frustrated with them while you have the conversation, you could try having it over text or email (if that's available to you). it's probably a good idea to think about what you really want them to change and have specific requests for them/solutions about what they could do differently. i have a sort of format for making requests that i learned in dbt, I could link to it if you like
I am, yes and with the slight distance of not being immediately in the situation, I can see how that might play a fairly significant part here But I would still prefer not to be angry like this. I can do frustration, I can do sensible anger, I can't do blinding hot rage at super tiny annoyances because that's scary! It's so scary! I hate to have this level of upset directed at someone I both care about and am physically around/actually capable of hurting physically or emotionally because I keep being horrifyingly aware of how extremely easy it would be to properly lash out and I don't want to be in that mindspace at all, nevermind being in it for extended periods of time. I have hurt people before from exploding at them (have hurt this specific person from exploding at them), although it's been several years and I wasn't as aware of the process then given that I was about 15 at the time, but. I don't want that to be me. I don't want to be this angry at things. I don't want any of my anger to ever feel out of control. (I don't want to never feel angry, anger absolutely has a purpose sometimes, but I want my anger to feel justified or at least worthwhile.) Then I would still not want it to be as much as it is or as intense as it is I would like less urgency to my anger i don't know if it's the appropriate response. maybe it is. but even if it is i want less. ugh I don't know how to describe it. The thing when you're already kinda testy and lowkey mad about something and then someone looks at you wrong and you're suddenly ready to murder them? Those spikes of super intense anger are bad but I have because it's still so obvious when I'm mad. I get quiet and I talk less (sometimes stop talking entirely) and don't joke around or smile as much or at all and I don't look at the people I'm mad at (cause their face pisses me off) and I'm passive aggressive and cold My mom does very similar things when she's angry (only she does build up to shouting and then it's over and I can never get past the shouting because I just cry) and it's super tense and awful everytime. When you know someone's mad but you don't know why and you don't know at whom and you can't tell if it's going to result in an explosion or in nothing at all i hate it when other people do that. i'm not going to accept it in myself but this is probably right I think although I have a really hard time even thinking like that ( or at all) once I'm mad enough. Things were kind of just a jumble. I did end up talking to them eventually, after some time spent trying to figure out what part of everything I was angry at was actually sensible things that could be changed and what was just splash damage, and we're better now (did both apologise for unexplained attitude & try to say hey maybe we could work on this thing. but it's hard to say that when things are tiny and have been treated like they're huge. proportions are hard.) that would be really helpful, if it's not too much trouble
