Instant rage and anger

[Guest_94646063]

Hey all, 

I suffered a workplace assualt and psychological injury 6 years ago. As a result I have been diagnosed with Adjustment disorder and PTSD. I have fortnightly therapy and a psychiatrist. I have worked with cognitive behaviour therapy and talk therapy.

I have struggled to find medication that works for me personally and I feel rather alone and at dispare.

Late last year I had a attack where I got verbally aggressive and lost control since I have had several other but smaller. Recently I had another where I was extremely ashamed of my behaviour, I was uncontrollable It scared me terribly and my teenage daughter, who unfortunately seemed to be my trigger lately. I feel terrible and ashamed to admit that. Her lack of remorse, eye rolling and laughing when I'm angry makes my blood boil. I've now realised that this feeling is anger and rage at a really disproportionate level.

I'm scared of my self, I'm scared I'm destroying my family, I feel extremely alone tired and sore and worst of all ashame. My behaviour needs to stop and I really need to take back control to be the mum and wife I want to be. Can anyone tell me anything they have done to control this instant aggressive uncontrollable rage episode before they begin. Thanks in advance 

[Croix]

Dear New Member~

I'd like to welcome you here to the support forum. I can sympathize with bouts of not being in control, though mine were constant anger, not bursts of outrage and trying to control everything. I have PTSD, depression and anxiety following traumatic events .

For a long time therapy similar to yours and various medications did not assist as I had hoped. I think the two go together becuse when I did find the medication that suited me the therapy became more effective too - so discuss with your psychiatrists some of the newer medications that are now available. 

Trying to control anger is hard, and I guess the best I can offer is to plan for these outbursts in advance and practice responses that you can employ when the anger is starting.  Smiling Mind exercises or physically removing yourself from the spot have both helped me.

If you have a practiced pathway to go down when rage starts to build it can be a substitute and effective coping technique.

Triggers are of course to be avoided, which is not really going to be possible with your daughter. Perhaps having an adult conversation with her and trying to get her to understand what you are going though, and how you felt when assaulted may help. Saying you are ashamed might help too.

If you can get her to the stage of helping you and offering support, rather than being at a distance and rolling her eyes, then that can go a long way for both of you

I'd emphasize the importance of the correct medication, when I started mine it was considered unusual, though is accepted now.

If you would like to talk further that would be great

Croix

[therising]

A very warm welcome to you 🤗

I think sometimes it can be about recognising an enraging level of _____, on top of an enraging level of ____, _____ and _____ and perhaps ______. For example, we could be experiencing an enraging level of a lack of support at work, on top of an enraging level of lack of support at home and an enraging level of a lack of emotional self understanding and perhaps lack of direction. All it may take after that is a triggering eye roll from someone who we wish would support us through what feels so overwhelming. It's that proverbial straw. I've found sometimes it can involve unpacking all that rage and making greater sense of it. With anger or rage being such telling emotions, I think it can come down to managing to better understand exactly what such emotions can be trying to tell us. 

One of my strategies for making greater sense of my anger or rage is a little questionable but I've found it works for me. If I imagine I have a seriously intolerant cow in me, that can resemble a bit of a ranting maniac at times😁, I'll ask it 'What's all this anger and intolerance about?'. Such an invitation typically triggers a whole list of things I've been trying to tolerate: 'What the hell are you doing putting up with all that sh** at work? Are you insane?! Those arrogant closed minded so and so's have zero idea of the pressure you're under yet you still accept the added pressure without question. You need to seriously question them. And how many years do you plan on tolerating your husband's closed minded behaviour? While you've worked so hard on opening your mind over the years, he still enjoys his comfort zone by not having to face the responsibilities you have to take on because he just won't? What about all those closed minded people who give you an absolute poop load of grief over your ways of thinking, the same people who flat out refuse to think outside the square in ways that can possibly serve you' and on and on it goes. For god's sake, stand up for yourself girl. Stop letting people walk all over you!!!'. So, that part of me brings to light what I'm not always entirely conscious of. Without anything to reign it in, it has free reign to vent openly. I've found developing my inner sage has been a must, while waking up to a whole stack of things I've been tolerating over the years. That part of me may sound like 'If you say that out loud you'll definitely lose your job. Calm down and consider how you're going to express yourself'. Not sure whether there's that part of you that may tend to chime in on occasion with something along the lines of 'BREATHE! You need to breathe'. Another way of putting that is 'First vent through your breath before you vent through your words'. Or maybe what comes to mind is 'You need to leave (the room) or this is going to go badly'. Nothing wrong with walking out of a situation, as long as we come to address it in some way. If the intolerant upstanding part of me had its way it would have me take to many relationship bridges with a high powered flame thrower. If there was nothing to reign it in, I'd end up burning them all to the ground in a flash. 

I've found the process of waking up to a lot of triggering stuff is not easy, far from it at times. It definitely pays to have strategies in place as we're waking up or becoming conscious of exactly what triggers us or enrages us and why. Btw, my daughter and I can relate to how incredibly triggering it is to have someone laugh at our great pain/upset. We managed to make sense of it as being 'Your pain/upset is laughable to me'. When all we want sometimes is to have someone feel our overwhelming pain and upset, their lack of connection/support can feel enraging if not depressing.