Published on 12, July, 2020
I probably wouldn't say I ever had "anger issues" but I could scream the house down as a child if I wanted to.
However, since I was 18 (now 26) it has definitely gotten worse. I'm more sensitive, I bottle things up and, perhaps even worse, I often invent scenarios so I have something to be angry about.
I am absolutely prone to exaggeration and making things up. E.g. today I wanted to just go out in the afternoon, as I wound up quite bored and with very little to do. I have my own car. I could have just gone for a drive but I knew it'd lead to a back and forth with my dad for ages explaining where I'm going and how long it'll take, and I've got it in my head (and I may even be right) that my parents won't be happy until I'm just not leaving the house on my own at all. Even though I have many times.
I want to practice singing in the house (not too loudly) but I'm afraid cos I'm convinced they'll tell me to shut up. Even though everyone else is able to speak as loudly as they want, my brother plays his guitar without getting shouted at to stop, my sister sneezes really loudly.
I'm having therapy and my dad said that he and my mum know me more than a therapist would and I interpreted that as them telling me to stop therapy. Which really angered me.
I get probed occasionally when I'm on the phone to someone, or when I used to go out and meet friends. They'd demand every detail. I don't have any friends currently and this makes me not want any for the rest of my life.
I don't know how much of this is in my head. I know I can't assert myself but it's also very very easy for this to bother me. It feels really unfair and it doesn't get any easier.
I didn't want to start a new thread so I thought I'd add to this.
I feel suffocated every time something happens which brings out those strong feelings, and I can't express it hence the anger. I have realised though that it could be a very small comment that does it too.
Is it just because I haven't found an outlet to express it? I have begun talking to my therapist about it but I've only begun.
The truth is it feels more natural and normal for me to be angry than happy. I almost enjoy it. I don't let myself be happy cos I know it'll be over before long.
HMO said:The truth is it feels more natural and normal for me to be angry than happy. I almost enjoy it.
That is probably because you can connect to the emotion so it makes you feel authentic.
Emotional regulation takes a lot of time and practice to build but it is worth it.
An example was that I was watching the Barbie film last night and there was one scene that was quite emotional scene at the end which I was able to connect to and it led to me quietly crying over it (not sobbing, just a few tears rolling down).
Until last year I would never have been able to connect to my emotions as well and experience the range that exist in life is such a way. Yes it was unmanly but it felt real (even though it was about a plastic doll and a ghost, but that is not the point LOL) and gives me a feeling of being more complete - more human and dare I say it, a bit more normal.
Now that shameful secret is out, I'll go back to my seat in the corner and stay quiet while I feel judged...
I can sometimes make a few tears come out if I watch a clip of the Golden Buzzer moments on Britain's Got Talent (to use one example) but I'm never full on sobbing.
I can't make myself cry. It feels like it's just easier for me to find reasons to be negative and angry, not realising that I'm probably making life harder for myself.
A lot of the typical advice you might get ("just calm down", "count to ten in your head" or whatever) would probably make things worse for me.
It's forever a confusing one for me.
I appreciate that, thank you. I guess it does often feel like I'm making no progress.
HMO said:I can't really picture a happy life at the moment, it feels like there's so much I've got to work through that it'll become overwhelming quite quickly.
I get this. Work on it at your own pace and within your boundaries. A big part of the happy life will depend on you being comfortable with yourself and you are working on this. Trust the process is my recommendation.
If / when you want to talk I'm here. DM me if you aren't comfortable having the chat on the discussion boards.
I would be the first to admit that I've been awful at accessing support. I'm embarrassed and I feel like I'm being difficult whenever I ask for something.
I can't really picture a happy life at the moment, it feels like there's so much I've got to work through that it'll become overwhelming quite quickly.
Think of it like trying to learn a foreign language from a book on your own - you can only get so far that way and it takes someone to teach you pronounciation, slang, everyday phrases etc.
It is one of those subjects that takes handholding to do well.
Even the books I can find on the subject are mostly aimed at therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists which indicates it isn't a DIY subject.
I often feel like I need to push myself to have a meltdown or something and maybe then I'll begin to process things. It feels hopeless most of the time.
HMO said:It doesn't matter how much I imagine something horrible happening, it doesn't do it either
Be patient with ourself. It takes time to unlearn a lifetime of blocking something. Keep going with the therapy, do any practice you get and try to resist the temptation to block something when you start to feel it - well other than anger.
It can hurt but that is important as it is one emotion to embrace as well.
The closest I've come to crying in recent times is during a therapy session, and even then it's just that feeling that I might burst out crying but then I just don't. And it's when I talk about something that's particularly difficult or sad.
It doesn't matter how much I imagine something horrible happening, it doesn't do it either.
Emotional regulation is something I've struggled with cos I've tended to not really understand my own emotions. Life still controls me, and I care too much about what other people think.
Right now I'm in that stage where, when I feel angry, I want to blow up at someone or physically hurt them. I'm aware that's not a good way to live but I'm also aware that I don't really have a way of processing things. I can distract myself from the thing that makes me angry for a short while but that's it. It's still there.
HMO said:I can't make myself cry.
Same here. It is when you feel the emotion they are conveying in the scene and it hits a sensitive spot in your psyche that it can be powerful.
I have a sensitive spot around parents / mentors dying that can make these scenes powerful for me, but not in every case. It will depend on the skill of the director and quality of acting / production.
Knowing I can feel that and believing in my capacity for emotional connection makes me feel like a better person. One more able to understand the world from an NTs perspective as well as my ND one.
Before it was largely numbness and I'm still learning to manage the occasional spikes in emotion that I feel now - not like anger used to be (and explosive and uncontrollable force) - and it gives me more control over the old enemies of fear and anger than I once had.