I'm About to Explode

[Joe]

Have you ever had this feeling inside you that couldn't control? It's weird, I'm not sure exactly where it's coming from but I've noticed that inside I'm on the verge of exploding, I am tense and it's like anger is building.

 

I've noticed I've become more of ass to those I know, even those I work with. I have gone off on my closest friends, and even those who mean the world to me. Just the other day I went off on two of my coworkers yelling at them in rage.

 

I came home and realized what I had done. I went to my car grabbing one of the coworker's jacket that was left and literally threw it at them and stormed out in anger slamming the door.

 

I came home, that night I laid in bed wondering what had happen. That isn't me. I'm not an angry person; I never use to show anger. I never use to yell at anyone for any reason what so ever. In fact, I was always quiet and went with the flow.

 

Over the last couple of days I just feel as if I'm ready to explode. What's wrong with me? I'm not sure if it just may be that I had a stressful week or what. But I must get this "anger" feeling out of me so I don't go off on anyone else. I don't wanna be like that.

[Tony T]

Repressed anger is the worst kind. People who are always nice and even-tempered often hold in a lot of hositility. It can only be held in or suppressed, for so long before it must come out in fits of irrational rage. That's why so often really "nice" people end up taking a machine gun to work and wiping out the whole place. They are usually described as having always been "quiet and to themselves." That's because they kept their anger all bottled up inside of them...and Lord knows what they were pissed off about.

 

It is far better for you to express your anger in an appropriate manner and you feel it rather than saving it up in your internal "bank" and "cashing it in" all at once by snapping at everybody you deal with.

 

Get some good books on anger management and you'll learn excellent techniques for deal with anger.

 

Another reason for your behavior is called "displacement of agression." When you're suppressed or real anger is against one thing or one person but it would be wrong or extremely inappropriate to show anger against that thing or person, we displace our anger by placing it against innocent people.

 

For instance, spousal abuse is very often a person's way of displacing anger against a boss at a job that is sorely needed. By abusing the people at home and showing anger and hostility, the anger is displaced in a way that spares losing a job when getting angry with the boss could put one's job in jeopardy.

 

Osama bin Laden is a good example of a guy who has no idea who he's mad at. He doesn't like the American way of life, but American has never done anything to him...up until now. So he trains terrorists to do his bidding and randomly displace his agression (probably against his own parents) by striking innocent targets like the World Trade Center. If you watch him on TV, he always appears calm and you would think he's a really decent guy. Same goes for Saddam Hussein, always smiling, but always reading to kill.

 

There's really no reason to ever get angry about anything. People get angry because they don't get their way about things...just like little babies. Well, we aren't entitled to get our way all the time. The rational emotion is to feel disappointment or frustration.

 

People learn to work themselves up in an inappropriate way usually from parents, who never learned the rational way to deal with their anger and used the old "fly off the handle" approach their parents showed them.

 

The world is really goofy.

[Tony T]

If you want to feel a whole lot better, go out to a very remote area where nobody's around. Systematically, in your imagination, put every person you were ever angry at in the passenger seat of your car...a parent...a sibling...a boss...a teacher...a schoolmate...a playmate...a girlfriend or boyfriend...whoever.

 

Yell at them, curse at them if you want, and take a few swipes at them if you must. Scream at them at the top of your lungs and make sure you tell them everything you want to tell them...what they did to you, how they hurt you, and then tell them where to go. Once you've gotten all your anger out towards them, make them get out of the car right then and tell them to find their own ride home. Then take on the next one.

 

You may not be emotionally able to do more than a few but you'll feel loads better and your general behavior will improve dramatically. Repeat this until you've told everyone off who has ever harmed or mistreated you in any way.

 

This strategy is particularly effective when the person or people you are angry with elderly parents or persons who have died. Don't feel guilty about harboring anger against persons who are no longer here. If they pissed you off really bad at some point, being dead doesn't get them off the hook. It's got nothing to do with disrespect against them, it's got to do with how they angered you, harmed you, treated you unkindly while they were alive. Tell them off just the same.

 

This will help get out all the repressed anger that has festered in you.

 

Lots of times, when you confront parents about how they treated you as children they will feel very guilty and/or say they "did the best they could at the time." I hate to hear that crap. Use the above strategy to tell them off. When you're cooled down, you can tell them in person in a kind way...but usually they will be in heavy denial. Best thing is just to forgive them for being so stupid for hurting you and let it go.

 

Studies have shown repressed anger is responsible for a large number of heart attacks as well as high blood pressure, artery disease, and all kinds of other ailments. If you don't believe me, read the bottom of this page: http://www.kidseq.com/anger-effects.html

 

The best thing, as I said, is not to get angry in the first place. Find more appropriate ways of reacting when life doesn't happen to your specifications.