[longlegzs80]

I never used to be so nasty and angry, but I am fed up with life. I dated a losser for 2 years that I helped with financially both him and the business. I have a mom I live with that doesn't seem to really want me around, she never says anything, but she is always asking me where am I going today etc.

All I want is to shut everyone out of my life and live in my own little cubicle. I am so depressed and angry at everything going on in my life. When I get angry at my ex boyfriend who is also my partner for business, I get to the point where I am screaming at him, he don't listen, he is just a piece of sh*t.

I know I need help, I need to go to a thearapist, but in the mean time as I scrape together some money, what books does anyone recommend to controlling anger and sadness etc.

I'm looking for ideas to help mellow me out for some time.

[amaysngrace]

don't wanna piss you off but.....why don't you do a search for anger problems on google or something? easily accessible and cheap too!!

[Curmudgeon]

You may want to rethink anger. It's only a reaction to fear and is an unpleasant and unnecessary waste of perfectly good emotional energy that's better spent on more pleasant things.

When you let a useless person make you angry, all you're doing is permitting them a power and influence over you they don't deserve. Why do you let them determine your moods and reactions?

[lindya]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

You may want to rethink anger. It's only a reaction to fear and is an unpleasant and unnecessary waste of perfectly good emotional energy that's better spent on more pleasant things.

I can appreciate the thinking behind that, but telling an angry person not to be angry often just encourages them to feel ashamed of the anger....leading them to hide it or refuse to acknowledge it, rather than confront both the feeling and the situation that's causing it.

To the OP ...anger is a way of alerting us to the fact that something's wrong in our lives. The anger might be misplaced, or it might be "inappropriately" set off by a seemingly innocuous event that triggered off thoughts of deeper issues. Denying anger (eg because you feel ashamed or embarrassed about feeling it) doesn't make it go away. It just makes you less conscious of it, and therefore less able to nip things in the bud at an early stage. Far better to be aware of it when it's mild - thus addressing the situation that brought it about in a calm manner - than to keep suppressing and ignoring it until you explode in a bout of irrational rage.

You might want to look at "The Dance of Anger" by Harriet Lerner.

[Curmudgeon]

It's not a matter of denying it. Emotions are neither right nor wrong, nor are they anything to be ashamed of. They simply are. However, they can be controlled and/or redirected. It simply takes a bit of practice and a different approach.

Here's an example. The mere sound of the ex's voice used to raise the hairs on the back of my neck and the anger was instantaneous. One day I simnply decided to take away her power and control over my emotions. I did it by redirecting the anger into mirth and relief. Everytime she pulled one of her stunts or blew up at me I'd smile because she'd given me yet another reason to be overjoyed I was no longer married to her.

[lindya]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

It's not a matter of denying it. Emotions are neither right nor wrong, nor are they anything to be ashamed of. They simply are. However, they can be controlled and/or redirected. It simply takes a bit of practice and a different approach.

Here's an example. The mere sound of the ex's voice used to raise the hairs on the back of my neck and the anger was instantaneous. One day I simnply decided to take away her power and control over my emotions. I did it by redirecting the anger into mirth and relief. Everytime she pulled one of her stunts or blew up at me I'd smile because she'd given me yet another reason to be overjoyed I was no longer married to her.

If you know exactly what the reason for the anger is, and have learned to identify it at an early stage then that's fine. The difficulty for women is that we're given messages throughout life that anger is ugly and unfeminine, and should therefore be suppressed at all costs. The upshot is that it often leaks out in various destructive ways.

Eating disorders, Pre-menstrual outbursts (which have a bizarre sort of social acceptability because whilst annoying, they're seen as being "typically" female, hormonal and irrational), guilt, depression, nagging, passive aggression. It sounds, from the little you've said about your ex, as if she was someone who never learned to understand and thereby manage her own anger.

I mentioned the "Dance of Anger" book, because it's aimed at helping women to understand their anger and identify it in the early stages. I agree that the re-channelling is a hugely important part of anger management, but it can be a big mistake to "get rid of" angry feelings before we've had a chance to pay proper attention to the clues and warning messages they're trying to give us...whether those are about other people, unhealthy situations or simply things we need to change about ourselves and our patterns of thinking.

If we don't "get" our own anger, we can often blame others rather unfairly for bringing it about instead of examining the ways that we, and our failure to resolve earlier conflicts, are responsible for them.