So Angry it Hurts

Post Reply New Topic

Hi, I've always had a problem with severe anger. I don't have anger problems, as I don't often experience it. I believe this is due to Asperger's, and alexithymia. Occasionally however I suddenly fill up with what I can only describe as irritation and anger, at things not working correctly or things being confusing. The number one cause is objects, inanimate objects, opposing me. Now what I'm about to say is idiotic, but I Have to say it, because whenever this happens this is what I experience: The objects conspire against me. My computer begins to fail because it wants to see me angry. My doors and windows seal shut because they want me to suffer. I blow up in extreme anger at their condescending and purposeful evil, and my chest hurts, my legs hurt, I run out of breath, I get tunnel vision. It's horrible and agonizing, and it's one of the most painful sensations I could ever describe. I just end up screaming at everything and everyone, in indescribable amounts of pain which derives from anger. I just can't handle it. I don't know what to do anymore. Mind you this isn't that common, maybe once or twice a month. Thanks for any responses. I know how demented this sounds but I really need help.

Hi, I don't have Asperger's with Alexithymia but since it seems like nobody has responded to your post yet (& not mine either) I'll try my best to give an answer as much as I can. Okay so from what I just now researched people with Alexithymia & Asperger's syndrome show a very poor response to psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Alexithymic patients need a more cognitive behavioural therapy like patients with Asperger's syndrome. Patients with Alecithymia can be described as being "antianalytic". The same could be said of people with Asperger's syndrome. Formal psychoanalyitc psychotherapy is an impediment with patients with Alexithymia & Asperger's syndrome. Ego psychological approaches which is similar to cognitive behavioural therapy might be helpful. These work better with patients who have problems working with feelings & phantasies. It is important that psychiatrists making a diagnosis of Alexithymia consider Asperger's syndrome in the differential diagnosis. This is just something I just now looked, & I hope this helps.

I don't have any useful advice to offer, but your description sounded very like Captain Ahab's self-description in Moby-Dick. Sometimes reading about similar reactions in others can be helpful.

The first mate, Starbuck, is shocked at Ahab's personal hatred for this specific whale. Starbuck is a whale hunter, but the whale to him is just an animal acting on instinct -- the whale will fight you, but that's just because it's an animal, it's not evil. Revenge is to be directed at (human) evil, not at a dumb animal acing on instinct, he thinks. But Ahab thinks it's only a dumb animal on the surface, and that there is a layer of universal evil underneath that is conspiring against him.

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."

"Hark ye yet again ... All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event ... some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the moldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."

From time to time I have lurked on these forums, but until now I have never felt compelled to post. I know exactly what the OP is talking about or at least I think I do.

I also experience intense anger when things don't happen as they are supposed to.

I struggle to accomplish simple tasks so, to compensate, I plan everything out in advance. My plans are inflexible, I can't help it, I simply can't adjust on the fly. So whenever I encounter any unforeseen difficulty, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, its a disaster. All of a sudden my plan is worthless and I am stuck, lost. Somehow, it seems personal, as if I have been targeted by someone or something. The reaction is instantaneous and the rage wells up within me.

I think I sometimes used to feel pain when I was younger, but now the reaction is different. My hands tighten into fists and I growl, snarl or yell. I have the urge to smash stuff and throw things, flip tables over, but I usually manage to restrain myself quickly and rarely do anything worse than slam my hand against a wall or take out my rage on a safe target such as an empty cardboard box.

When the OP says that the objects conspire against him I know what he means. I am not superstitious and I do not believe in fate, yet it seems that part of me does. “Events have conspired against me” used to be a favorite thing to say to myself because it so perfectly captured the way I felt. I considered myself rational and yet I believed strongly that there was no point in trying to make progress because “something” would inevitably happen to sabotage or undermine me. The weather was out to ruin my day, appliances and electronic devices were biding their time, waiting for the worst possible moment to malfunction or break and if there was dog s**t on the sidewalk it was because someone left it there hoping I would step in it. It was a conspiracy against me in which everyone and every thing in the world was complicit.

This feeling of being targeted, of being a victim of a conspiracy is less intense than it was, but it is still present. The rage is as strong as it ever was.

Part of the reason that that I feel compelled to write this response, is that I experienced this phenomenon yesterday.

I had been reading for a few hours and planned to read for an hour more when the words became blurry. No matter how hard I strained, my eyes refused to focus. Immediately I was overcome with rage. The simple fact that I had set aside the time for reading and was now physically incapable of reading felt like injustice, like sabotage. Instinct told me to throw my chair, slam my fists on the table and throw my books across the room. Thankfully I remained mostly in control and did none of these things. Then I became anxious for my eyes, it occurred to me that I might be going blind and in that same moment I felt that my eyes might be going blind on purpose, to spite me. Eventually I calmed down and accepted that it was merely a bad case of eye strain, but I still felt bitter at having to rest my eyes instead of continuing to read.


EDIT: According to my profile I am almost 2,000 years old.

oops