Setting boundaries without blowing up

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I am dealing with anger and I have been in counseling. I am also learning to find my hot buttons and learn how to find better ways of dealings with those hot buttons. Finally, I am also learning how to set up boundaries with people before they can touch my buttons.


I.E- I will be on the phone attempting to have a nice conversation with someone but they start using micro aggressions if they feel bad about themselves and make me feel bad. I then try to have a nice conversation and then once I get off, the micro aggression gets to me and then I loose it. I do this by sometimes calling them back to yell, while I mostly send e-mails indicating that I am really mad.

A very important thing to master in life is to learn how to choose your battles. Or to learn how to even decide if there actually is one.

This might entail...
1. Asking yourself "does it really matter?" and thinking analytically to determine if it really does. For example, three different people canceled appointments on me three days in a row this week. Did it really matter? They were not to address time sensitive issues. I didn't forgo making another appointment to schedule these ones, and I had other things I could occupy myself with in lieu of the appointment. In addition, new dates were set for the rescheduled appointments. Thus, my conclusion is, no, it did not matter. It was just somewhat annoying.

2. Try to give people the benefit of the doubt that they didn't mean to upset you with their subtleties.
NTs can have social mis-communications to. They are frequently very bad at hiding negative feelings, and may respond in a negative manner to someone even if the negative feelings aren't intended to be directed at that person. Just like those on the spectrum, they may also unintentionally hurt your feelings by being honest.

3. Accept the fact that you aren't perfect and some issues people have with you are valid.
NTs usually don't just come out and state the problem they have with you. They will usually just try to imply it with slight hints. You might not be able to help getting upset when you detect this but in some cases you just need to accept that they are right or you did cross a boundary, and deal with you anger in private rather then letting them know how upset they made you. Keep number 2 in mind during this.

I remember one time I got so mad at Canadian Tire because it took almost half an hour for anyone to help me or come down from the office to help me (a manager in the section she was supposed to be managing)

So she finally comes down and I take my glasses off and break them in front of her. I said "It took you half an hour to get down here after I called you three or four times from the customer service desk." She told me to leave the store because she feared for her life.

I don't know what the hell was going on then.

I know someone who lost their cool by spitting at public transit attendant after the gate closed on my associate by accident. This was for the person making my associate mad by accusing her of not watching where they were going. They then blew up at the attendant and told them to shut up. They then responded back with, "You shut up," which caused the spitting.