Where does anger go to?

[toadasoda]

Sounds silly I know, but seriously, where does it go? I hear words like releasing it or processing but what does that mean? How do you go from a state of extreme anger to calm?

For context, I would say I'm not a fiercy or volatile person, if anything I would say I am slow to anger and come across as a patient person. But when I do get angry it feels like too much. I don't tend to lash out or shout or do anything I just remove myself from the situation if I can and practice deep breathing, usually counting to 16. It helps but sometimes it can take hours or even days for the feeling to go away.

Anger for me is much like feeling of stress but when it takes over. I believe I am in a constant state of stress, it feels like a nasty poison or cancer growing deep inside my middle, I visualise it like a black circle that can get smaller or larger but never goes away. It sounds dramatic, but thats what it feels like to me, I guess I dont know what it feels like to everyone else. I have tried by cannot get rid of it so try to keep it at bay and needless to say the times its smaller the less chance of the anger exploding.

There are certain things in my life that cause incredible stress that I cannot change and god knows I've tried. I'm all too familiar with the idea that you cannot change anyone else only how you react to them. So i've been working on trying to reduce stress in other ways so I don't feel so overwhelmed and angry. I try to get organised earlier, practice mindful breathing in advance of a potentially stressful situation etc. What works for me short term and has been detrimental long term, is that I eat my feelings. I graze throughout the day when i get a stressy panicky feeling, and when I get really angry (only 1 or 2 times a month) I binge eat and it works for me. As a result I am fat and exhausted and losing confidence. I really want to tackle my weight but after months of trying and keeping a food / emotions diary I see the weight is just a symptom and I need to find a way to release anger and stress.

So 2 questions for you:
How do you cause anger to abate when it does arrive?
How do you manage your day to day stress?

All thoughts welcome!

Hopeful bump!

I think it changes state like water to steam and becomes acceptance or sadness. That’s how I find it anyway.

If I am really angry I need to do something physical like kick a pillow, throw a pillow on the floor or something similar. It’s like release valve for the steam that has built up inside me.

Anger management is a massive area. From what you have said you have plenty of stressors in your life but that you largely function by suppressing how you feel. This will make you ill in the long run.

It is true about releasing anger. I see emotions as energy rippling through our bodies. Releasing can be allowing yourself to fully feel rather than numbing yourself. Releasing can be writing about before, during and after an angry episode. It may mean exploring with a councillor. I'm always a bit skeptical about hitting something or going for a hard run as they can also be forms of not facing up to the emotion (but better than suppression).

When I've explored my anger in the ways above, very very often there is deep sadness hidden below. Somehow it is easier to feel the anger than the sadness.

To relate to your message, I became extremely angry when the kids were little. Every whimper or complaint or cry or tantrum. I couldn't cope at times actually. I also couldn't remove the children from my life and they weren't going to change cos they were just kids. Like you I couldn't change the circumstances so I changed me. Facing my anger meant facing up to my feelings about my relationship with my mother, my upbringing, also facing up to the current relationship and support I was getting from DH. It was life changing. Today, I get angry like anyone. But I can relativise. I can react appropriately to it. Some anger is good and serves a purpose. For me, expression can be having a little cry privately, or having a rant to DH, sometimes it means sitting down to really write deeply about what is bothering me. The important thing is the anger never hangs around like it did, asking to be noticed and asking to be answered.

Your anger isn't going anywhere. You're trying to stuff it down inside you, which is utterly harmful to you and means that you eventually could get to the point where you're too scared to do anything for fear of how it's going to erupt.

Best thing we've done for stress, frustration, anger, fear and feeling trapped is regular exercise - especially resistance training. It tells your body that you've escaped the situation, it makes you simultaneously focus and zone out, you can do a heavier session or a faster one if you're feeling more riled or in need of activity and it gives you some periods of absolutely amazing peace or bouncy happiness from the endorphins (most often when we go there feeling crappy and not really wanting to - 'I'll do ten minutes and if I'm not feeling it, I'll go home. I'll do another ten minutes. I'll just finish this...oh, that was a really good session'). Other times it's swimming, often it's the stretching or bodyweight exercises at the end. And then you go home wanting something nice to eat, not cram down another packet of biscuits that make you feel sick after the initial sugar comfort.

No, I didn't want it to be right, either - but exercise is absolutely brilliant for mental wellbeing.

Thanks all, I definitely am pushing it down. I feel someday I might implode however that happens! I feel like I'm always tired, head achy, knot in my stomach, aching jaw from clenching etc.

It's a bit catch 22 at the moment re exercise as I have gained weight rapidly and find everything harder and have more aches and pains especially afterwards. Anyone who has weight fluctuations will know there is that upper limit where it all hurts! So I need to start small. I'm going to join yoga too as I'm worried about my mobility, getting in and out of a chair is getting tricky.

I wish I could yell at someone or something. Or slap someone

I have a cupboard under my stairs that I want to pad and soundproof so I can go in there and scream and punch things as and when required.

Instead of which I say things like "it all worked out in the end". "every cloud" "we are fine" "it could have been worse" "others have it worse" "that was a long time ago now" and pretend that I'm not hyper vigilant and I don't have flashbacks.

I think I am a squished of feelings too.

I once did a stress management course many moons ago, my memory is a bit fuzzy but I think anger is literally cortisol in your blood. There are proven things you can do to drastically reduce it in the moment. Deep breathing in and out ten times has been proven to reduce cortisol levels and I've used that in the past when I want to deck someone at work! Exercise was also mentioned as a great way to get rid of it. The problem with cortisol is that is sticks around in the body after its made. There's not many processes that get rid of it quickly and if it stays in the body it promotes inflammation all over and reduces immunity. So not only do you end up feeling angry or stressed, you also feel achey and sore and have terrible sleep and catch every cold going. It's a rotten cycle and its important to try and break it.

Some anger is justifiable and right, squashing it all down is really bad for you. Talking it out with a friend or counsellor will help, along with deep breathing and exercise.

I very much empathise with you on the eating front. I binge terribly as a way to cope and I've had specialist help for it but nothing quite clicks in my brain. The therapist kept trying to get to the root cause of why I binged and I honestly didn't know. It's a behaviour that apparently started as a child before I could even remember - my mother said I would sneak into the kitchen and binge when I was so small I needed a chair to reach the counter. Given that I have no memory of when it started and I have always been this way it's very difficult for talking therapy to help me because I can't get to the root of something I don't recall.

Just to add that age can be a factor for women. Peri / menopause can cause anxiety and/or anger for many women. I'm not sure if that's a proven hormonal thing or if its just that life tends to get shitty around mid life for many of us (pressures of work, looking after elderly parents, children leaving for uni etc). It's occured to me that I may be entering the first stages of perimenopause and that perhaps is why I've felt such a massive increase in emotional waves lately. Perhaps if I choose HRT in the future it may be of some benefit to my mental health but I'm not at that stage yet.

Eating - yes. I use food as a tool to help my mood. This means I am fat and sweaty and frustrated and ashamed, which doesn't much help my mood.

I'v been to eating services, they want to know about trigger foods and tell me about portion sizes but I'm not eating because of a disorder or ignorance about good nutrition. I'm eating to smother feelings. They had nothing to offer me for that.

I’m getting more alternative as I get older. Go for a run, put some essential oils on, yoga. And trying to rise above it.

I wish I could yell at someone or something. Or slap someone

Two words for you.

Kickboxing Training.

You beat the shit out of a bag or pads and I'm willing to bet you will feel sore but fantastic.

So I need to start small.

Google exercise on YouTube. There are beginner ones, sitting down ones, non-jumping ones. If you put 10 or 15 mins as well you can find short ones.

It's a good way to get started.

Be warned - some things called 'beginner' don't understand how truly unfit some of us are. Don't worry about this, either do the exercises for shorter times and/or take longer breaks to recover.

It's not an answer that would suit everyone, but I'm in a 12 step programme so would do a step 10 inventory, which is basically taking stock of anything that has disturbed me emotionally. Anger, resentment etc. The idea is to achieve (or at least aim for) emotional sobriety.

What happens with autistic/ND people? From my knowledge of autistic friends/friends of DC etc., it seems to me that their processing of emotion is often a bit non-standard/back to front, and ‘talking things through’ tended to make no sense to a lot of even the ‘high functioning’ ones. This means that such problems as OCD or eating/alcohol abuse are resistant to the usual ‘talking therapies’.

Surely the question should be "where does anger come from?" usually from things not going your way...............open questions!

And how deep do you go to answer the questions?

I try to just sit with my anger, acknowledge it and try to.understand exactly why I'm angry.

9 times out of 10, I find my anger is rooted in hurt. But I have to get over, or maybe I mean under, that anger, to find the hurt underneath the anger.

Sometimes, this means I have to take myself away from a situation, to give me time to work through these feelings and get down to the actual root. Sometimes this is seen as me giving the silent treatment. It isnt. It's just giving me time to work through the anger in order to see the cause of the anger.

Hopefully my nearest and dearest now understand (I've tried to explain this process I seem to need to go through) .

I don't get angry very often, in fact I cannot recall the last time I did. But when I do, I've learned that reacting to the immediate feeling (anger) helps no one, because the underlying feeling is hurt, and it's that I need to articulate.

Mine goes in on itself and comes out as teeth clenching in my sleep, neck ache from tensing my shoulders, crying and ruminating thoughts. It never seems to come out as aggression although I wish it would because it would be much better to be able to release it by punching pillows or smashing a cup (preferably at certain people)
I went through a particularly bad year last year, where my husbands family did a few things that were unforgivable directed towards me.
I have never received an apology despite it being quite awful what they did , and they carry on like butter wouldnt melt.
I am angry deep inside, and it's stored in my muscles and bones. That's the only way I can describe it.
I'm starting a degree in October and making some life changes, and I hoping all these things will help me to release the stored up anger and stress.

I internalise my anger and withdraw. Strenuous hot yoga definitely helps to release some of it. I’m not a talker.

My mother is the extreme opposite and externalises it with explosive fits of screaming at us (adults and grandkids). I’d have thought in her 70s, she’d be able to calm the fuck down. No sign of remorse, and she’ll carry on as if nothing has happened. It’s almost like she regresses to becoming a toddler again, and genuinely cannot control it. It’s sad to see her get in this state as she approaches the end of her life.

I have tried to come to terms with it, but the latest round has made me realise how ill and anxious it still makes me feel in my mid-40s.

We sound similar @Youdontsay87 . I open and close my jaw really slowly and it provokes a yawn and that releases the jaw tension a bit.

@Magnoliainbloom I live with two fiery shouty people who cause me huge stress, mostly arguing with each other. They literally pass their negative emotions onto me. 30 mins later they are having a chat and I want to curl up on the floor and disappear. Then I'm told I'm being silly for over reacting.

Some really helpful info here thanks.

Mine does not go. I use its force for good, is the only way I can describe it. I like to say it keeps me warm.

So if I feel it inside me I - run, exercise, or work REALLY hard at something. I find it’s a motivator in these instances.

if it’s that awful unjust, old trauma anger, where I hate on myself, if I’m crying etc, I have a bath and feel like I become the water and I wash it away.

Both are withdrawal. The key for me is that the exercise doesn’t get it out, as such. It changes it from anger to a driving force. Takes away any negativity.

I need to get back into it because I've let it stagnate but honestly the best anger release I have is swimming.

I have a waterproof swimming mp3 player, I go when it's quiet, crank up the volume and just swim up and down until I feel calm. I'm not a great swimmer it's breaststroke with head up all the way, but the rhythmic up and down, up and down with no talking and no one talking at me, no internet or news to scroll, works for me.