Anger Management Institute Blog

Answer:
Dear Shattered,
Thank you for posting your question. It’s obvious that you are hurting very badly inside. That your emotional distress has caused you to take out your anger, rage, grief, helplessness, hopelessness, resentment, hurt, inner pain and unfulfilled needs on yourself. Someone else suffering with similar issues wrote: “i self injure because i have so much pain and anger built up inside and i don’t have or know any other way of letting it out.”

These acts of self-punishment are not working. You are continuing the acts of the perpetrators in your life by becoming one – only towards yourself. You do have a great need for counseling in order to explore how to grieve the past abuse and how to stop abusing yourself.

You can no longer bury these wounds. Unexpressed grief will come out in unhealthy and destructive ways. When anger is not expressed assertively – it turns into depression or aggression. My opinion is that your anger has turned into both. And when depression is not treated – it increases. It does not go away.
We are made with a grief mechanism. As humans we need to feel the pain inside – the anger, sadness, disappointment, loneliness, etc. It is healthy to feel the emotions and then, express these to others. We need to be heard and validated.

You also need to work through the victim syndrome that has occurred. When one is abused – the psyche is affected and one feels like she/he has no control.
When you feel like a victim -you will try to gain control – even when your behavior is not healthy or effective.
As you can see… there are many issues to work through. I would challenge your statement : “I don’t think I am far-gone enough to see one (counselor)”. This sounds like denial and minimization of your issues. How much further will you journey into depression and self-mutilation before you get help?
You need intervention now. There are community mental health services available which provide a sliding scale for counseling. Take advantage of it. Also, many health care plans include mental health coverage for counseling. I suspect that you will need to consider medication for your depression. See your family doctor for an evaluation. Many times churches have counseling centers or the pastor will meet and pray with you. Consider all the resources available including books, articles, etc. See this site for advice and answers to various issues. Consider ordering What’s Good About Anger?. You need to discover how to rebuild your self worth. Read the book: The Search for Significance by Robert McGee. See this site for Self-Injury resources. God bless you as decide to make changes in your life and get the help you need to recover from your abusive past and present.

~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection and National Certified Counselor. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection, National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations.

“Dear Lynette, Today I taught the third (and supposedly last) lesson in our ABF. It was a huge success!! The participation was amazing and we had great discussions. Therefore we will have to tack on at least one more session to get through to the cognitive distortions. All the books are sold, and I will need to pick up a couple more some time in the near future for some ‘late comers’ that didn’t get a copy. God helped me out in amazing ways, I have never taught a large group of people before :). Thanks for asking how it went, and also thank you for the leader’s guide. We may form a small support group for a couple of folks that are scoring a little high on their anger tests… so it might come in handy! God bless, and thanks again for your kind support,” B. Medinah, IL

If you are a pastor, teacher, counselor or aspire to be a facilitator of anger management groups or teach classes. Consider the training we offer!

~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection, National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations.

Answer:
You need to have a plan to prevent your anger from escalating. Once anger is triggered – your flght/flight response is triggered and this happens within 1-3 seconds. Thus, you don’t have much of a chance to stop a harmful reaction and with your background – you may lash out and hurt the one you love.

Take a Time-Out: A time-out will help you cool down and think through the situation and challenge any cognitive distortions you may be dealing with. I recommend that you take a time-out when you and your fiancee begin to have a disagreement. It sounds like neither of you has skills to talk through conflict in a healthy way. When either of you notices tension or conflict in the relationship – hurt or misunderstanding …call a time-out for at least 30 minutes.

Ask: what am I angry or frustrated about? What is the issue? What do I need or want to happen? How can I communicate my need with compassion? How does my request benefit the relationship and meet my fiancee’s needs? Then, come back ready to listen as well as communicate your needs respectfully.

Anger Management training/counseling: You need to work on managing your anger. In the book: What’s Good About Anger? we discuss how to turn anger into faith, assertiveness, problem-solving and forgiveness. We recommend logging anger and identifying triggers (stress, physiological, emotional, cognitive) so you can prevent anger escalation early-on.
If you do counsel with a professional – ask if they specialize and have been trained in anger management. Many counselors are not trained in helping people learn to defuse anger. See www.aacc.net for a directory of counselors. We have found many people are helped by our distance-learning Anger Management Courses.
Hope this helps you! God bless!
~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection, National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations.

What are the spiritual causes? Maybe it’s sin, pride or lack of faith. Could it be that the reasons for anger include 1-3 plus sin, pride and unbelief?

I think that the core issue is unbelief. Whatever shakes our world and relationships, upsets our apple cart or blocks our goals triggers a crisis of faith. Do we believe that God can handle this issue or crisis or not? We desperately try to intervene with our human resources, judgment, etc. and get more frustrated because we fail.

~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection, National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations.

Everyone else seems to be able to just…..get over it. To work it out with themselves and they’re fine and dandy the net time you see them. I seem to just fester in it – i can’t channel it anywhere, I can’t untangle it, and i can’t get rid of it. What else can I do? What if the net person is someone that actually matters? my boyfriend, or my mum, or some little kid?

Answer: Dear Friend, Why not get some anger management counseling since you seem to fly off the handle so quickly? You need to explore what is happening… what the triggers are and how to apply some coping skills.

See www.aacc.net or www.amhca.org for a directory of counselors. Consider purchasing the book: What’s Good About Anger? which teaches how to turn anger into faith, assertiveness, problem-solving and forgiveness.

Early Intervention: One of the best techniques for defusing anger is taking a time-out. You need to control anger early. Taking a time-out when you feel your neck getting tense or your stomach tightening up will give you an opportunity to think about what the issue is and what possible steps to take. The What’s Good About Anger? book includes chapters on taking a time-out and exploring and challenging Cognitive Distoritions.
I wonder what you are telling yourself when you get angry? Maybe you are dealing with some catastrophic thinking, personalizing and mind-reading which all contribute to anger’s escalation.

I, also, think this guy needs to learn anger management skills. It could be that you need to end this relationship because it just won’t work. If you grow and learn to manage your anger – he may not. If he has outbursts of rage – he could be a threatening person to be around especially since he’s so much bigger than you. Why not grow in your relationship with God so He can guide you in your relationships and give you power for change. Read about How to Know God Personally.

~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection, National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations.

Begin your day with the Lord in devotions and prayer and studying the Word of God. Surrender your life to God.
Surrendering to the God is the key throughout the day in prayer and memorizing scripture to renew your mind and prepare against this enemy of anger and rage. The Holy Spirit will give you power to demonstrate gentleness, self-control, love and peace – the opposite reaction to anger and rage. Keeping in touch with God will help you react in humility to events and people who trigger your anger. You will also have faith that God will protect you and provide for your needs and not respond so angrily when people threaten your needs, rights or relationships. If you would like to know more about how to have a personal relationship with God, then read the article I have written on faith. Faith is the key to keeping your anger under God’s control and responding righteously. The Lord gets angry (as we read in many scriptures) but it is always righteous.

Anger can be managed and expressed in healthy ways when God has control of your life.
You need to get to the root of the problem you are having with your temper. It may be partly physiological (talk with your doctor about the need for medication), emotional, psychological and maybe due to crises, stress or previous loss or trauma. There are many causes and a counselor can help you explore these causes and better ways to cope with your thoughts, symptoms and feelings.

Take a step now towards professional mental health counseling/treatment and towards God. Commit to making at least 3 or 4 of changes in your life as suggested above and Order the What’s Good About Anger? online, home-study anger management courses, book and certificates.
~ © copyright 2005 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC. Lynette is a Marriage and Family Counselor with CounselCare Connection, National Certified Counselor, Anger Management Specialist-IV and Diplomate with the National Anger Management Association. She is the co-author of What’s Good About Anger? and a speaker for community, women’s and church organizations.