Anger is an emotion. It stems from issues in your past that are both unresolved and unforgiven! These feelings are buried deep down inside you and cause you emotional and physical harm.
Anger comes from a past environment of confusion, chaos and lack of communication between family members. If you have seen your parents become angry, on a regular basis, you will perceive this behaviour as normal and are more likely to adopt the same method of inter-action yourself.
Anger is a habit that is rooted in our sub-conscious mind. It is a formed pattern of behaviour that is firmly established. A pattern of behaviour/ habit can be changed. Anger is based in your own fear and insecurities and a belief that you are, or have been wronged.
Anger (healthy)
It is important to understand that there is a positive side to anger. Healthy anger is part of the basic belief system that stems from a ‘high frustration tolerance level’. Anger used in its positive sense provides us with the drive to attempt and accomplish difficult tasks we perceive as threatening or unattainable/out of our reach. It motivates us to push ourselves that extra mile in order to achieve the unachievable! Positive anger is an essential element in our lives. Without it we are lethargic, hopeless, unmotivated and negative. Positive anger gives us the energy to tackle situations/obstacles/opportunities that are challenging. It allows us to expand our boundaries and take risks.
Healthy anger stems from a set of healthy beliefs:
Is part of the belief system that stems from a ‘low frustration tolerance level’. Therefore, when faced with any situation that you are unable to understand or deal with, you resort to anger. When you resort to anger you are actively engaging in threatening and/or frightening people in order to push them away, and not engage in the conversation or set of circumstances that presents intself. You do this because you are unable to participate in healthy discussions that you cannot control.
Unhealthy anger stems from a set of unhealthy beliefs:
A need to control Rejection Lethargy
A dislike of criticism Failure Hopelessness
Resentment Intimacy Unmotivated
Jealousy Incompetence Unintuitive
Envy Inadequacy Unperceptive
Fear Lack of education
10 Steps on how we use unhealthy anger
• To get our own way
• To sabotage ourselves and others
• To frighten someone into submission
• To control people, situations and outcomes
• To shift blame from ourselves
• To show disrespect
• To criticise
• To intimidate
• To victimise
• To bully
Step 1: To get our own way:
This is wanting and having total control. Putting yourself first at any price! Being selfish! This individual is frightened of what would happen if he/she didn’t have total control. They are scared that, if they are not in control of all situations and people nearest to them, their circumstances/life could change dramatically and they would be left ‘high and dry.’ They have no basic self-respect or like themselves and believe they are not liked or respected by others and, therefore, they have a desperate need to stay in control in order to keep and preserve what they have. They feel they are failures!
They manipulate those people closest to them by any method that works for them by, i.e.,
• Menacing behaviour
• Coaxing and cajoling
• Luring you into a false sense of security
• Sulking
• Aggression
• Attacking
• Bribery
• Threatening
• Walking out (as if never to return – you wish!) – he/she will be back!
• Violence (as in slamming doors, stamping around the house)
• Body language (large and looming over you)
• Accusing
• Blaming
• Physical Violence (when this occurs, or if there is a strong probability of this happening in your relationship – GET OUT!)
In my opinion, this type of person is only respected by people who know them on a superficial level. This controlling type can be friendly, talkative and interesting in professional and social situations. It is only when someone oversteps the self-imposed boundaries of the controller, that outsiders will spot that the person is intolerant, aggressive, rude and threatening.
Example: Some years ago I saw a patient who told me that his wife had forbidden him to visit his longstanding friend (he had been friends with this person for 20 years). The reason his wife had, initially, given was that she did not, personally, know his friend and had never been invited to visit him. She was angry and felt excluded from the relationship and, worse, accused him of having a homosexual relationship with his friend. She was very angry and aggressive whilst discussing this issue, which caused a major disruption in the household. Whilst my patient could accept the point his wife made regarding feeling excluded from the long-standing friendship, he could not, and would not, accept the accusation that he was conducting a homosexual affair with his friend. However, he discussed this issue with his friend and, despite the inexcusable remarks, an invitation was extended to her to ‘call in any time’ for a chat. This offer was unacceptable to my patient’s wife who felt that she was being fobbed off as no definite invitation date had been extended. My patient continued to see his friend (once/twice a week) popping in for a coffee and a chat. It was a ridiculous situation and he felt guilty doing something without his wife’s knowledge. However, he felt he needed to make a stand on this issue. On one occasion when he was visiting his friend, there was a knock at the door and his wife appeared on the doorstep. My patient’s friend invited her in to his home for a coffee but she refused and was very hostile, angry and rude. She had called in to the friend’s house on the pretence to tell her partner that she was going somewhere and would not return for a couple of hours. What she was actually doing was making her presence felt in the most threatening and intimidating manner. She left her husband in no doubt of the confrontation that was to follow later. She was, in other words, menacing him!
My patient was totally embarrassed and fearful of the outcome! He had experienced this behaviour many times, by his wife, and had always made excuses for her and accommodated her outbursts. He loved his wife and wanted a successful marriage but he also wanted to ‘hang out’ with his friend and be able to ‘shoot the breeze,’ occasionally, as they had done prior to his marriage. It wasn’t as if he went out for a drink with his friend and met other people he had previously known! This situation totally disabled him, describing his reaction to the event as feeling ‘weak in the knees,’ having a dry mouth and unable to have a clear, logical thought in his head. He couldn’t stay at the friend’s house after this incident had occurred and left immediately following his wife in an attempt to offset the inevitable major argument that was to follow. This act of scurrying after his partner only added fuel to his partner’s fire as the wife then knew that her behaviour had achieved its required result. To get her own way!
Negative Options on how to deal with someone always ‘getting their own way.’
• Do anything you want behind your partner’s back!
• Try and coax, cajole and beg your partner to agreeing with you.
• Tell the truth at all times (in the full knowledge that the outcome will be anger), and put up with the consequences
• Enter into lengthy discussions about the innocence of your intentions (usually to no avail)
• Give him/her support at any price
• Love him/her more, and dance to their tune, to show and prove you could never, or would not want to be, without them
• Give in and submit all the time
• Give up on having a life of your own
• Fight ‘fire with fire’ and retaliate with anger
OR
Positive options on how to deal with someone always ‘getting their own way.
• Be still – do not react – let them ‘run out of steam.’
• Do not be provoked, whatever they say
• Stay in control of YOU
• Devise a plan of action (the outcome you want to achieve)
• Stay focused on what you want
• Say nothing, other than giving answers such as, “I am not responding to you because I don’t know the answer yet, and can’t give you the answer you want at this time.”
• Continue (quietly and unobtrusively) to follow your own plan and do your own thing (this will give you confidence and raise your self-esteem)
• Encourage open and honest discussions during quiet, peaceful, relaxing times
• When there is an easy flow of conversation, taking place between you, assess whether it might be an appropriate time to air an issue causing you concern, i.e. “when we argue I feel unable to respond to you because you shout and frighten me with your presence.” This admission, gently said and repeated over many months, might eventually sink in and he/she might decide to start listening and stop shouting.
• Decide to change yourself (taking small steps and making small changes at first). This will provoke him to responding to you in a different way. If this is done slowly there will be a positive result as shown in my book, a 10 step-guide called, ‘My Way’ (how to live within a difficult relationship). This guide is an empowering strategy for change in relationships.
• Decide to leave him/her
Excerpt
Step 5: To shift blame from yourself:
The angry person is rarely wrong! You dare not offer them options or ideas to suggestions they makes. If you do they usually, reject them.
They are cunning and manipulative and get their own way by brow-beating their nearest and dearest. When suggestions are repeated to someone regularly, however bizarre the suggestions are, on a logical level, eventually you will begin to believe them! So, if you are told often enough that you are wrong and stupid, you will start to believe it and will stop making suggestions in the future for fear of looking stupid! When someone becomes angry they always blame the other person involved for pushing them to become angry! How many times have I heard patients tell me that their partner says, “it’s your fault I am like this,” “you push me to the extreme and ask for all you get!” Another repeating pattern of an angry person is to deny that they have said something that clearly they did! Have you witnessed this conversation? “ I didn’t say that,” you reply, “you did,” and repeat in detail not only the conversation that took place, but where you both were, the time and date and what you were wearing at the time! Hot denial, follows hot denial, eventually culminating in another outburst of anger. It is the angry persons way of stopping you in your tracks. They will not accept responsibility or accountability for their statements, actions or reactions, unless, of course, it suits them to do so.
Examples:
• A patient who visited me at the Health Centre, confided that they were even afraid to suggest a place to visit for a holiday. In the full knowledge that if the holiday destination was disappointing, they would be blamed and punished for the duration of their stay. They wouldn’t give an opinion on what or where they would like to go on an evening out because they knew that if the evening turned out to be bad in any way they would be blamed. The same pattern would occur if they wanted to watch a television programme that turned out to be uninteresting to their partner. They would be blamed for making the wrong selection! They succumbed to agreeing with the partner’s plans regarding any socialising, television programmes and future holidays – in order for peace to reign in the partnership.
• The same patient told me that during an argument their partner (who I am going to name John) would voice their opinions vociferously on a particular point and hammer the point home to them. My patient (who I am going to name Janet) dared not argue with John at that time, so would just agree for ‘peace at any price.’ The following day, or, even, some hours later, when John had calmed down, he would completely deny that the conversation had taken place and that particular opinion had been voiced. John was either in total denial that he had made the statement, or felt foolish that he had caused such a severe argument to occur on an issue that was, not only inconsequential, but total rubbish. John was always blameless and was cunning in shifting the blame of the argument to Janet. Janet’s self-belief was low and, as a result of this, she was totally convinced that John was always right! This continued behaviour, on the part of John, led Janet into thinking and, temporarily, believing that she was losing her mind. Janet ended up not knowing if, when John said something, he actually meant it! Janet was totally confused.
• A very tearful lady confided that she had felt forced to ask her daughter (16 years of age) to leave the family home due to an ultimatum issued by her husband! The 16 year old had deliberately driven her mum’s car, as a learner driver, and crashed it! The damage had been repaired and paid for by the young girl but the incident caused a furious reaction from her step-father. There was no discussion – I am told there never was – just a statement from him, prior to him storming off in his car, saying “that girl had better not be here when I return!” My patient was frightened, scared, devastated, she didn’t know what to do or where to turn! She eventually decided to confide in the mum of her daughter’s best friend who, kindly, came to the rescue and offered to have the daughter live with them. When my patient’s husband returned to the home, later that evening, he was very angry with his wife and blamed her for making the arrangements for the young girl to be re-housed elsewhere. He then proceeded to demand the return of 16 year as soon as possible.
Negative responses on how to deal with someone who shifts blame:
• Agree with them that you are to blame and accept it.
• Apologise, grovel, saying you are sorry repeatedly until you are forgiven.
• Enter into lengthy, reasonable explanations as to why you are not to blame (this is usually a waste of time as they don’t listen)
Positive responses on how to deal with someone who shifts blame
Stand up for yourself. (This needn’t be done aggressively).
Continue to stand up for yourself on each occasion that arguments occur (again do this non-aggressively). The saying ‘gently, gently, catchy monkey,’ springs to mind.
Decide on a course of action that you feel is fair and acceptable to both of you
Remind yourself that you are dealing with a naughty child (there is a child in all of us and when the child misbehaves this knowledge, when brought to the fore-front of your mind, will sometimes help with the way you re-act to situations)
Reject the blame – emotionally – blame is a burden and is negative energy
Know you are right (does it matter what they believe?)
It is not your responsibility to explain, at length, every issue that is discussed – don’t do this - as this response repeated, on a regular basis, will drain and deflate you. It also absolves the other person of responsibility and accountability
Not agree that you are to blame – not accept it emotionally – and carry on regardless
Not re-act to any verbal attack
Divert the attack by introducing a different issue/topic (a temporary solution to an onslaught).
Be as manipulative and cunning as them and, whilst acknowledging their opinion, not openly agree with them, but remove yourself from the situation and tell them that you need time to think things through.
Professional Reviews
A wonderful book
Are you tiptoeing through your life as if you are treading on egg shells?
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