How long does your anger last?

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What day is this again?

^
Tuesday 12th November 2024.

I understand where you are coming from. I use my anger as fuel for my creativity side when I can. Some of my best ideas were born from my anger at something, but they can be malicious if I am not careful. There is a difference between anger and rage (directed at someone in particular). I am much more destructive with my ideas under rage conditions. Prolonged bullying puts me into the rage stage, as I had that for most of my youth. I still feel anger decades after certain events have long passed. I can forgive, but it is hard to forget.

Yes. I read that anger, or aggression at least, is psychologically necessary for solving problems. So aggression isn't always the monster it's cracked up to be. I've experienced trying to record a good vocal track, repeatedly failing, and then getting a bit angry, trying again, and getting it right. Something about getting mad enables us to cut through the crap and get the job done.

I think even rage can be a good thing sometimes. If you're being attacked, going ballistic can scare the attackers off. It may be folly to punch above your weight of course, but even there it's surprising how humans can sometimes be shocked into backing off rather than risk continuing into an unfamiliar situation. But the approach can backfire horribly of course.

For me, anger has always been destructive and painful. It has caused me to lash out at people and ruin interpersonal relationships and even jobs, a long time ago. I've never had a positive outcome from anger.

Yeah, I get the full set of lessons around anger and emotions in general. Forcedly. In different degrees, in different states.


It's one thing when it's at a moment or over a circumstance..

A situation, a problem, and then work with a solution or as a response or a warning.
Or something that had or hadn't happened and channeled it into something else.

Like I myself knew how and when anger is an appropriate response.


... It's another when it doesn't even reflect the present, or based on misperception and slights of immaturity from the ego, never went away since childhood and refused to leave past mid 20s.

No suppressions of expressions, no masking, no holding back -- none of that stupid pseudo-stoic repression crap.

Just sheer dysregulation of unprocessed emotions. No flee or fawn, just fight.

Not enough space for almost everything but emotionality.
All because emotions has no concept of time -- all because it happened in a less developed stage of my life and it got stuck there.

Yes, I needed therapy.
No, I solved it myself. It just took almost 25+ years to figure. Again, it is quite a contrast...

I experience anger as distress - it disrupts my concentration, sleep, motivation to eat and routines; it drains my energy.
Forbidden as a child to ever express anger, I internalised it to stay safe. Usually the disruption to my nomal mood an function lasts between 1-3 days.

Maybe the other thing with me is that the notion of offense-and-forgiveness doesn't quite seem to square with me. I think it's often a case of my inability to let anything go - a strong trait in me that's not just about bearing grievances, it's also about feeling that I need to rectify any imperfection that I see, to find anything I've misplaced, however trivial.

Derren Brown the illusionist once mysteriously said that he was an atheist and that he'd never forgiven anybody in his life. I don't know this for sure, but I suspect he may have been hinting that the concept of sin and forgiveness is more of an artificial, dodgy construct than a real description of human psychology and emotion, it may be a confused map of reality. So maybe we shouldn't feel ashamed if our anger lasts a long time. Having said that, if you're going to get your own back on somebody, it's not likely to do much good if it's so long after the offense that the culprit can't remember what they did to anger you. If there is a purpose to anger, it's probably about an attempt to condition the culprit a la Pavlov, to show them and perhaps to show others that actions have consequences. Certainly if a criminal act is serious enough, the law doesn't let it go while the offender lives.

Depends but it can last hours.

Exactly! I am the same way as you are. But honestly...Is it even a good thing? Sometimes I wish I could hold grudges for a long than few hours, cause I know few people who would deserve it, but I am unable to.

Two things- my anger is quick but leaves just as fast. I also don’t understand those people that hold onto it or ‘grudges’ or those that don’t accept apologies. Also, people that bring those things into other items- I don’t get it. This has nothing to do with ‘that’ - it’s two totally separate things so why is this thing getting affected by ‘that’? I do find I am easily affected by things, especially being forgotten (happens a lot), cut off or being called a liar. I’ve only had a few meltdowns- those have lasted a long time, but other emotions are pretty fleeting.
Has anyone felt emotions of others, like it’s almost a physical thing?

There are things I come across, usually something that someone said, even just online, that hits me the wrong way and that I find hard to shake. I'm not sure if it's anger exactly, but it's this kind of simmering unease. The only way I know to deal with it is to try to avoid the stressor, but sometimes I'm unable to.

I think it’s different. That happens to me too, but I think it comes from some form of not understanding or hyperfocus. Maybe even frustration like when you’re doing something and people keep knocking into your chair or the table. Or when it’s something out of your control even if you know it should be a certain way but can’t do anything about it. Is this what you also mean?

I can get angry at awkward situations as well as at awkward people. When I'm angry at a situation, it doesn't usually last long unless I start to think there was a human agency behind it. So maybe there's something special about people that can motivate me to bear a grievance in a way that mere situations can't. A teapot that dribbles and makes a mess while trying to pour from it only makes me angry with it for a few seconds, but my resentment towards the clowns who designed and sold the teapot lasts rather longer. I usually get over it, but it takes longer, and the people involved may be labelled as suspects forever. I suppose that's akin to the saying "I forgive, but I won't forget."

It depends...

Was the thing making me angry something I could or could not control? If a person made me angry, was it obvious they did it intentionally or were they completely oblivious to the fact they were irritating me?

Depends on these factors mostly, however if it was intentional or something that seriously bothered me, I'll probably dwell on it for the next 5 years, occasionally thinking about it and fuming...el oh el

I suspect that control has a lot to do with it. If it's a person, one option is to try to teach them they can't mess with you. If they're rather untouchable, the sense of frustration at having no viable plan for doing that might cause brooding. But somehow if it's an object, I think most people would either give up expecting any better from it or redouble their logical thinking in the hope of finding some workaround, or just replace the object with one that does what's required of it. I suppose objects traditionally have always been too simple to be taught better behaviour. When I was very young I remember not knowing the difference, and at one point I bit a metal toy car because it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. Not surprisingly, it didn't work, and I learned a lesson.