The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Anger helps straighten out a problem like a fan helps straighten out a pile of papers. --Susan Marcotte
Some of us have temper tantrums. Like black clouds, we threaten an outburst at any moment. Other people learn to check us out for storm warnings. They want time to clear out or at least to put on a protective covering. We've caught them by surprise before, and they didn't like it. Now they've learned to watch out - to stay on their toes when we're around. Intimidating people, making them glad when we're not around so they can relax, is a poor way to relate to others.
And what do the outbursts do for us? Is there a cheap sense of power or control for a few minutes? Are we advertising to the world that we're short on coping skills? Or do we tell ourselves that letting off steam is necessary once in a while, conveniently forgetting the steam blasting in other people's faces?
No tirade ever solved a problem. Anger is not a strategy. We don't have the right to rain on other people's parades. Our program can teach us better ways to deal with our anger - with honesty and fairness to ourselves and others.
Today, I ask my Higher Power for a peaceful and honest heart.
I remember vividly a time when I admitted I was frightened of my temper. I remember vividly the period of my life when I used my anger as a bludgeon to manipulate and frighten those I was frightened of. I remember vividly the period of my life where I was described and looked at as a bully, and people felt as if the sentence of "...just don't make her mad..." was the best way to characterize me. Today, I think the best way people describe me is different, and I'm greatful for that. When people see me angry, they know I am deeply hurt, upset, and usually feeling betrayed OR frightened, but not often both. This has been the result of long time step work with a sponsor. People who have seen me angry--and people who have seen me completely, down right outraged and livid--have often said that the person I was ("...just don't make her mad...") is not the person that I am. I have been summized as a person who deals a whole lot better ("a much more controlled Mt Vesuvius" a friend said, smiling mischeviously). I think many of us felt anger, at some level, and expressed it in different ways. SOme of us, like me, screamed and cursed it out. Some of us cried it out. Some of us stuffed it waaaayyyy down, and didn't realized it was anger. Some of us refused to acknowledge our anger, and kept up the pattern until it was almost, or was too late--as in, we hurt someone deeply loved, lost a job, or found ourselves in deep. How do you look at your anger today? How do you feel about your anger, now that you're in program?
wow, tiger, awesome post, you might consider writing some books...(maybe you already do?!) This is a HUGE issue for me on both ends: how do I deal with own anger and how do I deal with the anger of others.
As many of us have discussed here and in our F3F groups, the homes we were raised in were zones of zero feelings and zero talking UNLESS you were the alcoholic in the home in which case you did ALL the feeling and ALL the talking and the rest (like me) were only allowed to listen and react. For me, anyway, this is the way I got to be how I am today. I listen/receive/take in EVERYTHING (including all the garbage the people around me spew out) and react to EVERYTHING (instead of acting/initiating/doing what is best for me and what I want to do). this is the formula for invisibility which is what I desperately needed in my situation growing up- it was the coping that helped me to survive- stuff it, blend in, roll with it, pretend it dosent bother me, yes I am an ingrateful inconsiderate girl, etc. The trinity of shame blame and manipulation as I read from you in an earlier post. My anger was irrelevant, BAD, inappropriate, intolerable and if you would have asked me a few years ago about it, I would have told you I was never angry a day in my life. And I wasnt because it was being stuffed down so hard and deep that it was completely hidden in the dark.
I married the angriest man I could possibly locate on the face of the earth. Why is this? I believe its because I need to face this issue head on and finally deal with it. I believe that my AH and I were brought together through HP's like a hand in a glove of issues and behavioral stuff as teachers for each other. My husband talks and feels like you would not believe. He is the most fluent talker and feeler I could have managed to find. I, on the other hand am completely handicapped in talking and feeling...
So, I am struggling with how to "do" this. First, I found my anger. Oh boy, did I. It arrived in the form of a screeching murderous banshee who thought that the best way to deal with my life problems was to kill my AH and spend the rest of my life in an orange jump suit in prison. She came up from the depths and I faced a woman I had no idea existed in me- all those years of stuffing it down hard and not taking care of myself at all. All the years of trying to people please and earn love from whomever I could. I bowed to everyone in every way. Oh the stories I could go into...but I won't. You all know what I mean.
Now, I am in the 2 year process of actually getting aquainted with my whole self- the one who acknowledges anger, feels it and is learning how to express it. Its really hard and it hurts a lot. Its like learning to walk. At 45. Thanks for your post, its really helped me today to see how far I have come and that there is hope for my future.
I have been in the program for 11 months (wife is qualifier, and still active), and other than one instance in the past year which was when I allowed myself to be pulled into an angry verbal exchange with her, I have kept any display of anger at bay. Kept it buried I guess - anger that has built up over the years of living with an active A. But now it's starting to seep out and is getting more difficult to control - almost unbearable at times. And I'm very afraid that I'm going to explode and verbally rip her to shreds. And I know from the program that that would be one of the worst things I could do for me, for her, for my son.
Question then becomes how to I vent that anger, get rid of it in non-destructive ways. I exercise a lot and that is a big stress reliever, though it doesn't really help release anger per se. I have a punching bag like the boxers use and hey, that helps some. I also have tried what I guess is called "journaling" - i.e. writing down the things I would say if I did "let her have it" and that sort of helps. Also I sometimes just vent it out (scream it out) when no one else is home, and that also seems to help a bit.
I'd be very curious to hear from some of the others on this forum what techniques they have found useful in venting anger without hurting those around us.
I dealt with anger outbusts a lot when I first came in these doors.. I am glad to say after 4 years I am finally doing better... and most of the time the anger shows it's head is when I am extremely stressed in multiple directions.. but even that is getting less and less...
This post is really sticking with me so I may respond to it over several days- this means its a really good post for me so thanks again for it.
I am learning about the 3 A's: Awareness, Acceptance and Act/Action when it comes to change. I am working on changing how I "do" anger so I have needed to become super aware of when I am angry and just stop and see it, identify it, get the feel for it.
I was angry because I needed to return to where I have been living, away from my family and husband (most of the A's in my life) and its hard to fly away from all the people that matter to me and not hang out with them, spend time with them, etc. phone calls, email, etc. just arent the same. Anyway, I was just angry about the situation- there was nothing I could do about it because I need to do this right now- I am almost finished with grad school and then I can move anywhere on the planet I choose to. But it still makes me angry. Who do I get angry at? myself, first, because I chose to go to school in a distant place. but mostly its just unfocussed anger.
then I accept that this is temporary and necessary in order to create a new life for myself. I gotta stick to my guns even though i want to quit and just be with my loved ones again. I am aligning it a bit to being in the military assigned somewhere far away.
I act: I return, hold my head up and do the best I can. I know the months will pass quickly and I will achieve a dream I have had my entire life and that will have a huge impact on me in so many good ways. I just need to "buck up little soldier" and keep putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.
I am able to distill anger into discipline and use it to get what I want.
What an EXCELLENT topic. I'm going through a particularly difficult time right now and all of the anger that I have so carefully "stuffed down" over my life is starting to bubble up. (Jeez - it's about time at 45!). So I let my dad (not an A, but still a piece of work) have it this afternoon. Angry? Yes - but did I express it correctly? Well......we hung up on each other. How's that? Probably not so good. Also had a brief exchange of heated words with a co-worker. (Which later I apologized for.) There's an intense amount of frustration I'm feeling right now (mostly related to the A in my life) - and there's a real helplessness with it. I don't like that feeling AT ALL - and it's waaaay out of my "comfort zone". I will stay reading this post. I'm learning a lot about ways to deal with and diffuse this anger. I'm striving for that serenity that I know al-anon brings.
I used to pride myself on never being angry. I was always smiling and laughing. Unbeknownst to me, years of living with a violent alcoholic father and sick mother, I buried that anger deep inside. I buried it so far that it caused me bouts of self-hatred and depression. I went to a F2F meeting one night and the woman who was speaking kept talking about how much pain she had deep down inside. She just kept repeating and repeating how much pain she had deep down inside. It felt like a volcano erupting inside of me. It took everything in me not to drop to the floor sobbing. I kept crying and crying at all the pain I felt. She tapped into the pain I had buried and buried. I was angry and fuming before that meeting about how my boss was treating me. It wasn't until she spoke of the pain that I could really feel how painful it was to me.
