I can't control my anger - please help

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I get very upset/angry, very fast.

I cannot control it. Am I therefore a bad person?

Last edited by Cornflake on 19 Jul 2021, 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.: Changed title to be different to your other thread

It may not be impossible to improve your anger management skills. You could consider maybe therapy for it, or maybe do some online research of ways to manage anger in a better way if therapy isn't your kind of thing.

I don't think it has to mean your a bad person though, everyone has flaws they should improve on.

I hope this doesn't sound trite, but I think it's true. My therapist used to say that depression is anger turned inward, and anger is depression directed outward. Usually when I was angry about something I could trace it back and realise that I was actually sad / depressed about something in my own life or my own character. It was always easier to fix myself than it was to think about the outside world making me angry.

Just food for thought.

There are many ways to deal with anger whether through journalling, writing a book, talk therapy, psychotherapy, yoga, meditation, or even good old fashioned learning. People say we are most offended by things we don't understand, so education on the topics that bother you might also be able to help.

Well, actually I'm sorry I let my anger rage on this forum and talked about book burnings and stuff like that.

I don't think I have a depression though, as I can easily laugh at jokes.

I don't know what's wrong.

Do not surpress anger as surpressing it can cause worse issues, but rather channel it in non destructive ways. A punch bag can be useful! Or something to focus on so one can then calm down.

Being angry does not mean one is bad. It just means one has a build up of expression waiting to burst out! It means you have signs of life!

I used to cycle to and from work and the build up of anger would mean I was cycling home overtaking cars and they were going 30mph.... By the time I got home an hour later I was fine as all the pressure within me had released. Cycling is good for that. Do not do it while driving a car though.

Depression isn't simply sadness and a lack of being happy. It's an emptiness. We had a thread about it a few months ago where people gave their personal experiences with depression. I'll see if I can find it and link it.

I have a quick temper too. When I was a kid I would break things and cry. I remember feeling frustrated more than anything. As an adult I used to throw things, but one day I broke a mug and a shard bounced back and almost hit me in the eye. I've never thrown anything again. That really scared me.

As an adult I think I get angry when I'm frustrated. Dealing with people is so hard and I get upset at how I can't just be normal and form relationships. I have conversations out loud when I'm alone where I snap at people. But I am restrained enough not to do it to their face.

I read your post and I sensed frustration in it. I have written angry posts on here too, but my failing seems to be biting sarcasm. I try and not write anything as a knee jerk reaction, but go away and do something else and come back later when I am calm. That works for me. I can maybe think of a way to phrase what I meant in a more constructive way. Or sometimes I realise why someone said what they said.

Knowing you have a problem is the first step to getting better at dealing with it. Good on you for recognising it and not making excuses.

We all make mistakes and think / write impulsively, from time to time. Don't beat yourself up about it.

It's normal to be frustrated by war, violence, and division in societies. I'm sure you could take that frustration and channel it into something good that feels productive for you, or for the community where you live. No one thought that you hated individuals or groups of people. We just didn't like the idea of retaliating against books.

I don't want to start up the other topic again because it's locked, but please believe it's OK to make mistakes. Learning from mistakes is the most important skill for all people, and it seems you're eager to learn about anger management. Maybe have a look at youtube tutorials about anger management or stress. There's a lot out there that you can access for free, from home.

Good luck.

I have anger issues as well. I've gone off on many occasions on this site.

The fact that you acknowledge there's a problem is a positive step. I think you'll be alright.

Talking about burning books isn't the problem.

Talking about wanting people to suffer and die is another thing, though.

Such statements - if poorly worded and spoken in some settings - could get you into legal trouble.

I suggest you consider seeing a psychologist about your problems with anger, especially if you have the same problems in other aspects of your life, and not just here on WP.

I've seen not only psychologists but also psychiatrists. None of them have helped me though.

I'm aware that in my thread about the "down with christianity"/angry at God-thread in the Politics subforum, that I said if my thread was locked/deleted it would be evidence of WP being ruled by religious extremists.

However I've now asked the admin of WP myself to have that thread deleted. I'm writing this to make sure everyone understands that in case of deletion of that thread, this is my own request.

Thinkinginpictures. I respect you. I hope I have not upset you too much in the past.

I understand your frustrations.

Do you know that I spend hours replying to threads and never post them because I am wound up when I go to post, and then have to re-write them so many times... And maybe that will work for you? Write a post out to express your frustrations and anger and do not click the send.
Then re-write it when you have calmed down and able to reflect a bit before one posts it. (If I offend in what I write or have written in the past I hope you don't take it to heart).
I can actually get the same as I need to express myself to get it out, but what I express may hurt others if they have different views, so I have to re write a lot of things and many things I do not post at all.

I can see your frustrations with the church. Something I do want to say is God is not like that. People are like that. We all say things we shouldn't have said and do things we should not have done. Often we don't even realize we have hurt others. Do you know what God says? Forgive.

You do question one of the many big questions in life. Why is there so much hurt and suffering and natural disasters? The answer to that will take a long time to write, but in its shortest form is that satan tries his best to mess everything up that God has made.

But for us as people. I think if we can concentrate on things which we love and blinker out the horrible things outside of us that we can't change or do anything about, then we will mentally be in a better place to tackle life. To cope I have to avoid looking at the news as it is so negative. Good things happen but rarely does the news report them, so we need to protect ourselves mentally from the negatives. It is good to avoid the TV news for a bit.
Do you know in the past my Mum and I have had times without electricity (Or partial electricity) or the internet so we have been isolated, and yet they were refreshing times? Yes tough times, especially when we have been without transport as well, but mentally we were better through it. It was a refreshing break.
And when we managed to get things restored we found that we had not missed much in life. Nothing had changed. Not one bit of news that we had missed had any real bearing on our life that we needed to know.
It is one reason why when my mobile phone provider decided not to co-operate, that I decided to give up using mobile phones, and I am enjoying the peace of not being a slave to the phone. (While I rarely ever had phone calls it was the needing to have the phone with me incase I "Might" have a call that I found liberation from).

I think it is good to plan days when we are away from all communication devices and we just enjoy the real world out there. Maybe one day a week...

About 25 years ago I bought a car that had a tow hitch. I then bought a cheap caravan (Trailer that one can live in) and I drove for a few hours north until I was tired and found a camp site. I discovered a new area I called "My second home". I was lonely so I used to take my youngest brother up wirh me for a few days of holiday once or twice a year. No mobile phones for us in those days. No TV. Just the caravan and us and the local scenery. All I did was to use the campsite payphone once a day to phone home to say I was ok and all was ok. Now on that campsite wealthy people would come with big 4x4 to tow their new looking caravans (Why they needed a 4x4 is puzzling as most larger cars would cope with their caravans with ease). They had TV's in the caravans. They set up awnings and they would have the same in their caravans as they had at home. They hardly explored the area! It really puzzled me why they went on holiday as they could not get away from their TV's and other luxuries... I would drive home destressed and recharged while they were hardly destressed at all! It made me think just how much stress comes from these modern luxuries we have adorned ourselves with.

Anyway. I am on a tread drift now. Was just a few thoughts.

My daughter get's really angry about some minor thing but then 5 minutes later is as sweet as a button, I always think she's a much better human being than me.

I have the same issue, anger is one of my main way of expressing myself, which people tend to take personally, understandably.
From what I've seen, autistic people seem to either experience much more anger than the average person, or none at all. I believe it might be our way of protecting ourselves, or talk about something that's important to us and wanting to be heard, or it might just be that we experience some emotions so strongly that they appear as anger.

You are not a bad person for having troubles controlling your anger, but you might benefit from seeing a professional to learn techniques to keep it under control if you feel like it might improve your quality of life.

Sometimes I feel like the frustration comes from constantly being misunderstood. We don't think like other people and we don't present ideas in the same way.

Maybe we try to earnestly to get what we mean across to the point where it becomes overly dramatic and overly emotional just to get people to actually listen to what we are saying.

That's how I feel anyway.

Yep....it is sort of like a Catch-22 to be "different" to other people.

I can relate, Hurtloam.