Count to ten, then swear (how to angry)

A thread on the topic of anger management, healthy expressions of anger, and for that matter assertiveness and aggression too.

Anger is an important emotion. It helps you recognize when your boundaries are being violated. But anger doesn't belong in the driver's seat - it is a shitty, shitty driver!

Notable topics include:

• How to handle your anger
• How to handle other people being angry
• How to express anger in a healthy way
• How to be assertive, especially when emotions are running high
• How to manage aggression (yours or others)
• um, other stuff too i'm sure...

yeah

 

Whoops I think Thread Is A Clone

 

https://kintsugi.seebs.net/threads/the-rage-thread-about-anger.4673

Darn clones!

 

you motherfuckers

this is why we need to plan shit

BUT PLANNING IS FOR CHUMPS AND PEOPLE WHO PLAY BLUE IN MAGIC

 

I've definitely gotten into fights here or been unduly snappy with people. I do try not to get in people's faces though? I dislike that sort of interpersonal conflict a lot. And it's a thing that really gets my nerves on edge and makes me cry and the like. I think it has to do with the fact that much of my life involved and involves family getting into hideous fucking arguments with each other that get very personal very fast.

And I try not to frame it as me being attacked personally, yes. Even if I do feel that I am. I feel that way a lot of the time really because of my paranoia issues so I tend to view my feelings of being attacked as just my being crazy again. Which it very often is. Sometimes it's not! But most of the time it is. On terms of principles though yes I definitely have those and ones I really hate seeing violated. Things like lying, historical revisionism, and dehumaniztion get me grumpy as fuck.

 

And yeah I prefer to scream into the void instead of get into fights? Partly because fights weird me out terribly a lot of the time and partly because I want to actually be productive if I'm responding to something that pisses me off. And while fighting can be productive I prefer to have a more...measured and calm approach to those sorts of disagreements? Especially since I'm aware that I can get very sanctimonious and judgmental.

 

That and aggression and accusation often gets people's backs up. Then everyone gets all stubborn and bitches about it with friends on the side and nothing productive gets done.

 

FUCK BLUE MAGIC

See, that looks like a really good way to do it. Recognizing that your feelings are valid, but that it doesn't automatically mean they're an accurate reflection of what's happening around you. That's something I've spent a long time teaching myself. "I feel like X is happening. I don't think X is really happening, but I feel like it is, and I need to something to help that feeling." That is good stuff!

 

*camps out in thread*

people being aggressive/conflict of any kind pretty consistently causes instapanic but i'd like it not to? it's super inconvenient. i need to work on that. also, getting better at healthy expressions of anger is a goal, rn it's very much "suppress everything until the only option is a screaming fit" which is super not ideal

 

GWB is the only real way to go let's be real here.

Anyway...Yeah. My feelings and perception of reality not being accurate has been a problem since I was like 11. Buddhism I feel really helped with figuring some of this out? Like, yeah, I guess I don't want its end goal but the concept of Vipalassa/Maya? That shit's legit. The concept being that there is basically a sheet over your eyes, clouding your vision of reality. You think it's real. Especially because you feel it is. But it's not. It's just a magician's gambit and reality is so far from your grasp. It's what paranoia, OCD and the like are like I feel. They're distortions on actual reality that we really struggle to pull apart.

 

It has taken me a long time and I am still working on that. Expressing it healthily. I do find that more non-serious joking expressions of it help though. Like my ridiculously aggressive bitching about the evils of OoT or something. On the one hand I do get to be actively grumpy about something and open about it, but on the other hand it's just so fucking stupid that it doesn't ping my "oh no i am being a bad wrong person who will END THE WORLD" response? At least not as hard.

 

yeah... I often see folks here who have I guess paranoid leanings or just like too much experience being persecuted or indirectly accused of shit - anyway, folks who have reasons to interpret things as personal attacks that don't read that way to me, standing outside of their personal history and illnesses. And sometimes this gets explosive real fast. (when multiple people with similar issues collide, it's a disaster!) The best scenarios I've seen are when the people being jumped at are able to state super clearly what they were intending to communicate (which only sometimes works) or else shut down the confrontation by pointing out that the person is experiencing their pattern (which unfortunately can't prevent them from running through their painful emotional cycle, but can at least reduce the splash effect).

In college I learned a lot about Maya and some similar concepts in Gnosticism. I was also reading a bunch of Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K Dick (and also Phil Hine and Frank Herbert to boot), so the idea of reality tunnels and having to seperate perception from intellection (oh yeah, and i was learning the difference between epistemology and ontology, yay for liberal arts education!), so that helped me a lot in dealing with Various Things.

My anger is still.... idunno, it's present. It's better than it ever has been, but when i get into a depressive cycle the anger and undirected hate is part of my cycle, and sometimes it feels so awful to be so angry. It's bad enough that the one time I wrote a suicide letter (in anticipation, i never actually got as far as an attempt), the fact of feeling that anger was the heart of the message. I just felt like I couldn't live with that feeling continuing to haunt me.

 

the only guy i know who plays blue is the only person I know who actually plans shit, the rest of us just run around like chickens with our heads cut off and cry.

I'm really freaked out by anger, not even just when it's directed at me. I do LITERALLY hide under tables in response, and all of this is made worse by the fact that I am really paranoid that people are always mad at me...
plus, I have some pretty nasty mood swings personally, which ALSO freak me out. and since I try not to express them, because FEELINGS BAD, I take the brunt of it and it wraps around to being angry at myself, and then I cry.

 

Oh gods yes. Some sorts of anger just...Really hurt and don't feel pleasant at all? Like the worst sorts for me feeling wise are the overwhelming paranoid hate spirals. Where I just kind of want to snap at everyone. And sometimes I do. Which then leads to a selfhate and guilt spiral which makes the anger even worse and it just isn't...good. It's like I am so full of so much rampant feeling that I can't think or really move or act. I repeat things a lot and pull at my hair or break things and can't walk. It's awful.

Other times though it feels very pleasant. Like when I am pissed at OoT for existing and not having aged well. Or my RIGHTEOUS RAGE. I need to be careful with that though because it isn't always warranted nor is it always useful. I got to keep it in check and always look under the sheet. Or at least try to. Sometimes it is very hard.

Other times still it's very useful because it gives me the energy to actually act? I get overwhelmed by fear a lot, but anger can sometimes be the valorizing force that gets me moving when I really need to be. Yes, I'm scared of the people attacking my little brother but more than that I am fucking pissed off at them. Pissed off enough to get him safe and out of there.

 

the problem right now is that I don't have anyone to express fun anger to irl? so like, when I wanna rant about like, bad female character design or how much I hate twilight, I can't, because the person I'm closest to both emotionally and as in convienent location sense is heavy on the FEELINGS BAD DO NOT EVER BE ANGRY
and I know he can't help it, but like. dude.

 

and so even fun anger gets turned around on me, cause OH NO, I HAVE UPSET THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD

 

i'm kinda weird about anger. like, i definitely get angry sometimes but it doesn't happen often and is pretty strong most of the time when it is. i tend to feel sadness, anxiety and frustration most of the time, negative emotions-wise.

 

BE AN OCEAN

 

...
wat