Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello,
I wonder if anyone can help or experiences a similar thing. I want to try and find a way to manage my internal anger response to a particular situation as the feeling of it in my body is so utterly horrible and I am very sure that it is extremely unhealthy and has a negative impact on me physically as well as emotionally.
The thing that triggers this response in me more than anything is traffic, specifically traffic that I perceive to be driving too fast, dangerously and inconsiderately when I am in a vulnerable situation. I live in a village which has a long straight road going through it, and the only way to go anywhere and to get away from this road is to first have to navigate this road. The speed limit within the village is supposed to be 30 mph but because it is a long straight and fairly wide road, many people ignore this. In my opinion 30 mph is anyway too fast when in close proximity to pedestrians. Outside of the village there is a national speed limit and people go as fast as they can, which is often not appropriate or safe for the road conditions. Many of the drivers do not slow down, move over, dip their headlights, make any reasonable adjustments or take any of the precautions that you would expect them to when they see a pedestrian.
When I am on this road, or on the pavement in the village, and a car drives towards me and past me, too close, without suitable acknowledgment and at excessive speed, it makes me feel extremely unsafe and the anger response it triggers in me is unbearable. Nothing else makes me feel so angry. I want to shout and scream and hurl objects at the car, it is literally pure fury that courses through me. I do not shout and scream and wave my arms and hurl objects at the cars, I can restrain myself, but the feeling in my body is horrible. It is unbearable. I can feel my heart pounding, the blood coursing through my veins and the pressure mounting inside. It gives me an instant headache and I feel as though my head is going to explode. This feeling does not go away after the car has passed, it continues to build for some time afterward and then can take half and hour or even more to subside. Then it leaves me feeling unpleasant for the rest of the day.
I am beginning to feel that the damage occurring to my body due to my anger response negates the benefits of trying to go for a walk. Just to get out of the house I will already have gone through an extreme amount of anxiety, then the anger added on top of this, when encountering such cars, is just too much. So then I will just turn around and go home before the walk has even begun or avoid leaving the house at all. This is not an acceptable solution. There is a possibility to drive somewhere nearby, within 10 or 15 minutes, that is somewhere where I could walk free of cars, but I have a huge amount of anxiety regarding driving (because of all the dangerous drivers and narrow twisty roads in my area). Also, using petrol is expensive and not environmentally friendly so I would feel guilty,
So, I have been trying to do the only thing that I think is possible: I cannot control the way other people drive, I can only try to control my response to it. I have tried praying when cars go past! I have tried thinking nice kind thoughts about the drivers as they pass, wishing them well in their life! I have tried trying to understand them from their perspective and trying to understand their lack of awareness. I have tried breathing deeply and telling myself that it is okay.... But none of these things have worked and, conversely, I just seem to be getting angrier and angrier every time it happens.
To anyone who reads this, even if you cannot relate to the traffic situation, are there other circumstances in which something triggers anger in you like this? Can you relate to the horrible sensation in your body that takes so long to recover from? And, most importantly, have you found any helpful ways to manage this so as not to put yourself under so much stress and therefore make the situation tolerable? Short of moving, which is not a real option, or never leaving the house, I do not know what to do.
There's two aspects to this that I see. 1. Managing the anger and 2 . Managing the situation.
With me sometimes the anger can be quelled by mental gymnastics, but sometimes it cannot it flashes into being like a burning matchead and it is COMING OUT.
What is Anger?
Some say it is an exaggerated "fight or flight response" and essentially a fear reaction. Caused perhaps by fear of failure or impatience. (Impatience seems to be a sort of insecurity thing, where yo are ultimately afraid that i"f it doesn't get done NOW, it wont get done at all". So yes, there are techniques that will alllow you to shorten your anger response, but they take time to learn, discipline to apply, and sometimes anger is righteous to the situation or can be used as a tool to focus your energy where it needs to be. I use my reserves of anger in certain situations as a tool to obtain specific results, when a calm and pleasant demeanour would be useless and I've practiced switching it on and off quickly. It's a bit like peeing as a man, stopping mid stream is difficult without practiciing...
SO given that it is an issue that you have to work on for a few years, lets look at the situations that cause you anger? Can you for example change a situation that normally angers you, into a situation that does not?
Take walking about in the street where you live:
You point out the incompatibility of wheels and legs very very well indeed. It bothers me so much that I'm seriously trying to figure out a technology that will get the bloody cars off the ground altogether.. But absent that, we and all the birds and creeping animals and deer etc. have to live with the beastly things, or better yet AVOID THEM.
So to reduce your personal opportunities for anger can you find a walk that keeps you away from the traffic? Of course it won't be the most direct route to the shop etc, but that matters less than yo'd think, if the walk is enjoyable and you avoid the anger then it's a big win for your endocrine system.
Managing a difficult situation sucessfully to get yourself a good outcome, if you can keep doing it, seems to overall reduce one's propensity to anger.
Any of that helpful?
FWIW speaking as a "demon driver" myself, I've come to really dislike country roads. If you go too slow you get some "local" stuck up your exhaust pipe, yet not knowing the roads, means you simply cannot drive as fast as they can, and it hard to let em past, so it easy to end up driving too fast. Then there are the creatures that try to cross the road... It's horrible and stressful driving in the rural areas. There's a village I used to drive through really regularly and I can see that it would be a BEAUTIFUL place to live if it didn't have a road running right through the heart of it. For myself, I tend to respect those speed indicating signs that tell you how fast you are going whilst they remind you of the posted speed limit. I tend to think that since they aren't self financing like a speed camera, that someone must really want me to do THAT SPEED here for a good reason, so I tend to comply or at the very least drive to the highest standard of safety that I can manage.
Thank you for your input.
I cannot avoid this road, or the others around, as in between are fields in which I am as a mere mortal am not allowed to walk! So I am going to have to set about working on somehow retraining my endocrine and adrenal system, no matter how many years it takes, otherwise I fear it will do me lasting damage.
I have been reading a little about the endocrine system and fear response and it seems that it kicks in even BEFORE the conscious mind has time to process what is going on. This would explain why I have been unsuccessful at trying to THINK differently about it, my body is reacting before my thoughts. I am going to try and learn more about this so at least I will have a better understanding of what is happening.
Yes, driving on country roads can be stressful, especially with the impatient 'locals' that decide to drive up your exhaust pipe! Well it is these 'locals' that terrorise me on the roads, whether on foot or in my own car. Now I ignore them when they are behind me and refuse to be intimidated. I remind myself that around any corner there could be a cyclist, a pedestrian, a tractor pulling out of a field gate, someone on horseback, a pheasant or a deer on the road, or a flock or sheep or herd of cows, a combine harvester that takes up the entire road flying toward us, or another 'local' travelling on the wrong side of the road! There often are! If I can let them by, I do, otherwise I stick to driving at a speed I know to be safe and appropriate regardless of their impatience!
I have actually considered the possibility that one day in the not so far away future cars may be airborne. This may well offer a little more safety for my legs, as you say, but really the idea is otherwise quite horrifying to me! At least now there is the potential to get away from roads and therefore also get away from cars and also, even better, from other people.... but imagine if cars were not confined to roads and could go anywhere?! There would be no escape, and if they were anything like as noisy as planes and drones etc, there would be no peace! The only way that this technology could be acceptable would be if a) The cars, despite being airborne, were still confined to follow the routes of existing roads and b) They were designed to be silent.
I'd look for a way to use the fields if they are suitable for the purpose. Autism or not, there is a saying that has served me very well. "If you don't ask, you won't get". Most landowners unlike the stereotypes are aware of their priviledge and often more than willing to share aspects of it, if you ask them.
I occasionally have to ask ask landowners for permission to fly my drones, and they never say no...
Your flying car was promised in "interavia" magazine in the 1950's which listed a host of companies working on the technology and promising results, which suddenly stopped being talked about.
When the technology eventually escapes the censor, it will directly utilise the inner nuclear forces, by rearranging them into a different configuration that the one usually imposed by what is called "the force of gravity". The resultant propulsion system is indeed silent I am told, and you will be pleased to know that the only POSSIIBLE WAY we can hive "flying cars" is if each journey is managed by a computer network.
There's no point in rolling out a genuinely reliable flying car technology (that as far as I can comprehend will require very minimal "maintenance") only to leave it under human control!
Even pilots occasionally fail to miss the ground, your average human given 3 dimensions to navigate in, will soon get him or herself into great trouble, or collide with someone else, and that is even before we get to the "hold my beer and watch this" crowd.
I do keep having day dreams about asking the local farmers for permission to walk on some of their land, but I don't think the one around here would find the idea very palatable. I actually write letters to them in my head quite often though! You are right, it is better to ask and for them to say no than never to ask and never to find out if they might have said yes. Whenever one of them drives past me I smile and wave furiously to show that I am friendly and respectful... Sometimes they wave back now, reluctantly perhaps. I have a little joke with myself that if they should ever find me one day trespassing on their land (I wouldn't dare, it is just a dream), then they will be so accustomed to waving at me, that I will just smile and wave and they will forget that I shouldn't be there and just wave back!
Regarding the flying cars, well if the technology is like you say, then in that case it might be satisfactory! It would be nice to have freedom at ground level, no more engine noise would be bliss, and it would be wonderful if less mammals were hit by cars. I suppose they would still pose a threat to birds though. What about litter? Maybe the windows should be non-opening so people cannot throw their empty take away packaging, drinks cans and Costa cups etc out of the window to blight the country side as they do now?