Adult ADHD and anger issues

[John]

Well LCDC it sounds like your on the right track. It is a s - l - o - w process. It's kinda like trying to turn a huge ship around, a not so instantaneous process.

[lcdc1]

john said:

Well LCDC it sounds like your on the right track. It is a s - l - o - w process. It's kinda like trying to turn a huge ship around, a not so instantaneous process.

Yeah that is what I said to him the other day, he said we are making progress, but when he showed me how much by an inch between his finger and thumb I was like what? Can't we take a bigger chunk then that out? IT IS WIERD, cause he said it kinda how you spelled it - SSSSLLLLLOOOOWWWWWWWWW!

I would like an instant fix, although I have learned there is no such thing! I thought medication was the instant fix, NOOOO, it just slows me down enough to work on the other stuff!

Anger apparently is a trained thought that we who have issues with it have taught our minds and bodies to react to in a certain way instead of shining things on.

I was just hoping someone had some great insight into stopping it?

[John]

lcdc1 said:

I was just hoping someone had some great insight into stopping it?

I have the opposite of outwardly expressing my anger, it's called depression. Yes that's what being unable to express anger whether in a healthy way or unhealthy way is, anger turned inwards.
I've been doing CBT for about 3.5 yrs now but it took 2 ~ 2 1/2 years before I was able to feel comfortable to calmly and hopefully somewhat rationally express my feelings and thoughts without feeling I didn't have the right to do that.
Paula [my therapist] says I've come a LONG way and I feel I have to. The way we act, think and respond is a Very complex Rubik's Cube of emotions, learned responses and many other unknown variables.
People who are going thru therapy, who are willing to go thru the painfull process of stripping away there various layers of armor of self protection I feel are very Brave. Who would willing to ask someone else to help them to become a whole and healthy person my laying bare their worst fears, by stripping away all that they thought they were and all that they thought they ever could be. Yes it is a painfull process but the alternative is even worse.
To remain a prisoner of the bars you created around yourself. You thought they would protect you and maybe at one time or during a period in your life they did but now it is the prison that you can't see and can not escape from.
I'm slowly learning to dismantle the bars of self-protection that kept me a prisoner for so long. Sometimes I embrace the process with open arms but many times I have to 'self-talk' myself into it. The 'comfortable' me says 'Hey this is going to be painfull and I don't know if I want to expend all this emotional energy going thru this process or not''. The part of me that is experiencing the pain says, ''Hey buddy hold on here, who are you to tell me to just sit back down in that 'comfortable chair of ignoring the problem till it goes away'. The cost is high but the 'Doing Nothing' cost is the highest of all.

WoW, thanks LCDC for letting me have this time to give myself a PeP~Talk . . .

[lcdc1]

yes, that is fine that you gave yourself a pep talk and it really is helpful to hear for me, I always feel like I am alone in this battle of self improvement and have to remember that maybe I am lucky to have the means to deal with it, others do not have insurance or people that care. I was mad (huhm) at people recently that told me about my behavior at first, but they were persistent and stuck by me and encouraged me to go see this physc and I guess I have to give myself a little credit in being willing to share some of the issues I had and never talked to anyone about before, I hide some of the challenges and was ashamed of myself and my behavior and shame leads to more self destruction, so yeah it is so complex and when you are the one in the middle of it, it seems more impossible to figure out!

It is funny that you talk about depression and that it is partly a problem of being unsure how to express feelings, anger can be the same thing - apparently that is part of my issue, not recognizing what feelings mean and why they ALL turn into anger!

Cool, thanks! And you know it is easier to talk about these things on a forum and not really face to face sometimes and I hope others can learn from this as well, the bottom line is there is always hope for getting better and being able to live a life that is stress free.

[charliegirl]

I must be more like John and turn my anger into depression because I fight depression all the time. Its rare for me to not be on an antidepressant and when I'm not taking one, I'm a basket case.

I thought I handled it quite well until he mentioned the anger-depression link. I've heard it before and never really thought it applied to me but there is a lot of things going on that I have no control over right now and I am majorly depressed, more than normal "holiday depression".

For the life of me I can't self talk myself into being able to figure out what to do or how to handle the things I'm dealing with.

[lcdc1]

sounds like you are feeling ovewhelmed a bit there, you could call your doc or therapist about it, if you cannot work it out and it lasts too long, that is a sign that you might want to see a professional to help you sort it out and feel like you can get control over it! sometimes people try to fight this stuff too long and it becomes chronic or clinical and is harder to deal with later.

You can also do physical damage to your body as I have learned recently, you don't only feel this stuff in your mind but it affects your body in other ways like heart, liver, muscles, lowers your immune system and all that stuff.

Hope you feel better soon and make a plan to deal with it.

[lcdc1]

I found out that anger can also come from have unrealistic expectations of other people that cannot, or will not get met. It can also come from fear! Yup, fear of failure, fear of lose of control over a situation, fear of the other person disrepecting you or hurting you, and most of the time anger clouds the original issue.

So, don't talk to kids when you are angry, don't negotiate when angry, do take a break and try to address the origianl issue when not irrate and out of control!

If you deal with stuff in an angry way all the time, it then becomes only about that and not solving the original problem!

[John]

:)LCDC ~ DW has that ''UnRealIstic Expectations''thingy, it took me a Long, Long time to figure out that many of her ''Outbursts/AngerBursts'' are, I believe Panic Attacks. Now when she has them, I don't Freak-Out like I would before. I try to calmly talk her down and discuss with her what is on her mind.
She still has this 'disconnect' about many mundane things in life and has this 'Once Upon a Time'' view of the future.

Now, Just Repeat After Me: The only person you can change is yourself - The only person you can change is yourself - the only person you can change is yourself . . . .

[lcdc1]

OK Dr. John (jk) I am trying to do that!! That is partly why I see a physc. Well maybe the real reason is that I could not send all the other people that I interact with to the physc! hahahha!

It seems basic to write about it or discuss it, but it is not that easy to break through years of this and the unknown. I personally think part of my issue is not having a correct read on some stuff for so long, it is like a defense mechanism and it is not being able to get my mind to explain how I feel or put it in words so it comes out in Anger sometimes!

[jill]

I come late but this is my husband too and it is driving me nuts now. On many things he would start to yell and say he is not yelling but is and I get so embarrassed for I feel the neighbors can hear. I am trying to get him into therapy for it so far hitting a brick wall.