How has anger affected your life?

a hole in the wall

A hole in a door.

My father was a rageholic. Watching his fits in public gave me a permanent horror of public scenes.

Seeing him verbally browbeat hapless hotel clerks over reservations error or waters or waitresses over minor problems changed my feelings of respect for him into contempt.

Suffering with my siblings as the sometime targets of his rages in what amounted to emotional abuse filled me with fear and anger at my helplessness.

It’s helped me to realize that life is so much nicer without it (anger). It’s also something I’ve always found to be counter-productive which has taught me to deal well with mine and avoid inciting it in any way I can.

I got a divorce because of it.

Once my good friend did somthing inexplicably mean/embarassing and I hit him for a while. It didn’t really hurt him because I am too weak but I tried to. I later felt horrible and ended up crying and miserable and feeling that I was awful and shouldn’t be his friend anymore. He forgave me (probably because I was all weepy and pathetic) but I decided to quit running around punching people who would never hit me back.

I am known to have a very long fuse, but I finally get to the tipping point…ka BOOM!

I’ve had more episodes over the years than I care to remember and am completely ashamed by it.

I have it (mostly) under control these days, having learned to deal with stress more effectively and see the signs as they appear.

It scares me to death because my grandfather and mother had similar issues but neither admitted the problem. One ended up murdered and the other alone.

I am attempting to avoid either of those fates.

My son’s anger has almost destroyed our house and has gotten him in major trouble at school.

I used to get angrier more often but as I have been exposed to my son I have been able to stop it before it takes over.

My anger has calcified due to fear and past abuse by my caretaker. I have struggled to accept it and own it as an adult so that I can work through it and release it and be myself instead of an emotional appendage to a woman to whom I’ve not spoken in 8 years. Her angry, critical voice has been around for too long, and yet, I am not at the point where I can say, “I will not let you take up any more space in my head!” without feeling guilty and afraid of the void in me that would be letting her and her anger go. You know how when you’re 3 and your parents are all you’ve got? Yeah, I’m still there. Except I’m no longer 3.

I’m looking into primal scream.

If anything I haven’t had enough anger. I’m too easy going for my own good.

Repressed anger caused me a whole lot of grief, for many years. When I finally acknowledged it and allowed it to see the light of day, it caused a whole different kind of trouble for several more years. Once I did something about it, I felt guilty for a couple more years. Finally, I’m at the point where it doesn’t really trouble me any longer.

Abuse from my mother. Aka,
Scars that will last a life time.

Anger has affected my life by scaring me. Isn’t that what it’s for?

@daloon – You always ask the most interesting questions that keep me thinking for hours, but i never know how to answer them concisely. The experiences that shaped who I am? That could take hours and days to write out.

To boil it down, anger has:
-Taught me how to recognize and expand my personal limits
-Taught me how to recognize and be considerate of, or work around, other people’s limits

Hole in 3 walls, 4 doors as a teen, now on medication doing fine.

For whatever reason, I haven’t had to deal with many angry people in my life, and I’m not much inclined toward anger myself. As everyone else has commented, it can be a terribly destructive force; but I wanted to mention that there are ways it can be put to positive use.

My religious tradition uses the term “angry determination” to describe a mindset that can be useful when one has to find an extra measure of psychic energy to accomplish a very difficult task. It involves focusing all the attention on the task, and then guarding that focus angrily from self-imposed impediments. In other words, whatever internal resistance or distractions arise that would act as obstacles to the work are angrily batted away. This can lead to an extremely potent state of focus.

Iconographically, this angry determination is represented as Fudo, a ferocious figure holding a sword and surrounded by flames. What makes this anger productive rather than destructive is that isn’t directed at anyone, not even oneself, but at one’s self-imposed barriers to progress.

Angry determination has given me many a useful boost when I’ve seen my habitual indolence start to drag me down.

I lost my job due to anger, I told my boss I’ll throw her out of a window. Took anger management and medication now I am fine.

I blame most of the really stupid things that I have said upon my anger.

@Harp – Fudo looks really ferocious. But, am I imagining it, or is he winking?

@Harp – Wow. I would like to develop such a discipline.

My son is bi-polar and it went undiagnosed for years. He used to have rages that could only be compared to the way I would invision demon posession. Medication has helped, but I still fear that things could go south. I guess that anger and rage have made me fearful, not for my own safety, but for the safety of the rager. My sons father had the same issues and took his own life. It is so dificult when you see a wonderful, charming, lovable person turn into something so frightening. It makes me sad.

@Judi – I ended up discovering I was bi-polar at 38. That is what brought on the medication. I wish you and your son well.

@Judi – My son, too, is bipolar, and I agree whole-heartedly with the description of it being demonic possession. Even he regrets the destruction after the fact (at least sometimes). And I worry about his safety when he leaves the house, even though medication, when he is willing to take it, does indeed help. Death by cop is far too easy especially when you weigh 200 pounds and are strong and aggressive.

Unfortunately, he likes the adrenalin rush he gets from anger so it is really hard to get him to want to control it.

@Darwin;
It’s nice to know I’m not alone. I’m sorry that your son is not afraid of his rage. That’s what keeps my son taking his meds.

One of the guys in my group has a totally changed attitude, he says, as a result of being bipolar. There are times when he’s in danger, that he loses his fear of dying (partly because he wants to die), and that gives him a pretty big advantage. He’s been able to beat people who were larger and more numerous than he is. Anger is his friend, I think. A kind of mania that is strengthened by depression, curiously enough.

I’ve used my anger as a tool to not abuse my body or let other people do that either. This is part of everything I do from what I eat and drink to the people I choose to associate with, everything. Angry is a source of energy for me I can put to doing constructive things.

Stress and bottling up stuff that should be shared with someone you can trust. I’m dyslexic and find I view lots of things differently from other people. Anger often arises from the frustration that comes from not being able to organise well and being too broad in my thinking so not being very good at decision making.

@Step2hen Welcome to Fluther!