Anger Management For Dummies. W. Doyle Gentry

– scratch a Golden Doodle’s tummy and he’ll instantly begin shaking his hind leg. All Golden Doodles do it, and they don’t have a choice in the matter.

      

The miraculous thing about being human is that you’re not ruled by instinct. Not only do you have choices about how you respond to the world around you (for example, when someone mistreats you), but even before that, you also have a choice about how you perceive or think about that person’s actions.

      Do you think she did that on purpose? Was it an accident, or did he do it deliberately? Is the mistreatment specifically directed at you alone? Do you view this as a catastrophe – a life-altering event? Is this something that you think shouldn’t have happened? These questions are all ones your mind considers, albeit unconsciously, before you have a chance to react – or, better yet, respond to provocation. Consider the following:

      You might say that Mike is a born pessimist, but actually that’s not true. Human beings aren’t born with attitudes – those attitudes come from life experience. What is true is that Mike is the product of an alcoholic home, where things could be going well one minute and fall into complete chaos the next. He found out as a child not to expect the good times to last and that he and the rest of his family were always just one beer away from a family crisis.

      So for all his adult life, Mike has expected that most things will eventually turn out badly, given enough time. No matter how loving his wife is or how cooperative his children are, in the back of his mind he harbors this expectation that any minute things will change for the worse – and he’s ready to react in anger when that moment comes. Why will he get angry? It’s Mike’s way of defending himself against chaos, a way of feeling in control – unlike when he was a child hiding under the bed while his alcoholic father ranted and raved well into the night.

      Mike is unaware of how his early childhood influenced his view of the world. Like most children of alcoholics, he figures that because he survived those unpleasant years (physically at least), he’s okay. He also has no clue why he loses his temper so easily.

      

Many people with anger problems have troubled childhoods. Their anger during childhood usually made sense at the time as a way of coping with the difficulties they faced. However, they bring their anger into the present when it usually doesn’t work very well. You can acquire new, more effective ways of coping, but it takes patience and work.

      Dispelling Common Anger Myths

      Before you can manage your own anger, you need to be aware of what anger is and isn’t. Unfortunately, myths about anger abound. Here are some of the myths we want to dispel right from the get-go:

      ✔ If you don’t express anger, you just might explode. The truth is, the more often you express anger, the more likely you will feel angry in the future. On the other hand, appropriately, carefully expressed anger can help you. So keep reading!

      ✔ Males are angrier than females. If by angrier you mean how often people experience anger, it’s simply not true that men are angrier than women. Surveys show that women get mad about as frequently as men. Men and women may express anger a little differently, but research has been inconsistent on that issue.

      ✔ Anger is bad. Anger serves a variety of positive purposes when it comes to coping with stress. When controlled, it can energize you, improve your communication with other people, and defend you against fear and insecurity.

      ✔ Anger is good. When it leads to domestic violence, property damage, sexual abuse, drug addiction, ulcers, and self-mutilation, anger is definitely not good.

      ✔ Anger is only a problem when you openly express it. Many angry people either suppress their anger (“I don’t want to talk about it!”) or repress their anger (“I’m not angry at all – really!”). People who express their anger are the squeaky wheels who get everyone’s attention; people who repress or suppress their anger need anger management just as much (see Chapter 3 for more information about the costs of anger).

      ✔ The older you get, the more irritable you are. It’s the other way around – as people age, they report fewer negative emotions and greater emotional control. People – like wine and cheese – do tend to improve with age.

      ✔ Anger is all in the mind. When you get mad, that emotion instantly manifests itself in muscles throughout your entire body, the hairs on the back of your neck, your blood pressure, your blood sugar levels, your heart rate, your respiration rate, your gut, even your finger temperature (it warms up!) – long before you’re fully aware of what’s happening.

      ✔ Anger is all about getting even. The most common motive behind anger has been shown to be a desire to assert authority or independence, or to improve one’s image – not necessarily to cause harm. Revenge is a secondary motive. A third motive involves letting off steam over accumulated frustrations – again with no apparent intent to harm anyone else.

      ✔ If you don’t express anger, you’ll be seen as weak. Not so. In fact, a calm, measured, assertive response (see Chapter 8 for more information about assertiveness) not only works better but also is quite powerful.

      ✔ People with anger problems have low self-esteem. In fact, sometimes they do. However, a much more common companion of anger is excessively inflated self-esteem (see Chapter 7 for more information about the role of self-esteem and anger).

      ✔ Only certain types of people have a problem with anger. You can easily find angry truck drivers, college professors, physicians, grandmothers, lawyers, policemen, career criminals, poor people, millionaires, children, the elderly, and people of various ethnicities, nationalities, and religions. Anger is a universal emotion.

      ✔ Anger results from human conflict. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. People get angry by being exposed to foul odors, negotiating traffic jams, aches and pains, computer problems, and hot temperatures – none of which involve (or can be blamed on) the direct, intentional actions of others.

      Understanding the Role of Emotions in Your Life

      Emotion can be thought of as a compound word. The e stands for “energy” and the motion means exactly what it says – “movement.” Emotions move you to act in ways that defend you from threat, lead to social attachments and procreation, cause you to engage in pleasurable pursuits, encourage you to reattach after some type of meaningful loss, and push you to explore your environment. Without emotion, life would stand still.

      

Emotions are, by their very nature, meant to be brief, transient experiences. Typically, they come and go throughout the day – moving you in various directions, as evidenced by changes in your behavior. Not acting on an emotion like anger is unnatural and, in some instances, can be unhealthy. Emotions reflect changes in physiology – elevations in blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar, and muscle tension – that are usually harmless because they’re short-lived (that is, if you express them in a reasonable way). Emotions that aren’t expressed remain trapped within your body, causing a sustained state of physiological tension – and that can be deadly.

      Suggesting that anger is either expressed or unexpressed is actually untrue. All anger is expressed – the question is how. You probably think that you’re expressing your anger when you do so in a way that other people can see, hear, or feel. Otherwise, you figure, you’re not expressing it. But the reality is that all anger is expressed – some of it in ways that aren’t observable right away. For example, you may not look or sound angry, but your anger may be expressing itself in your cardiovascular system (through high blood pressure or migraine headaches), your gastrointestinal system (through