Positive Anger Outlets?

[MelissaK9174]

I've had anger issues for a very long time. I'm positive it's a result of my own abuse. My best friend growing up has had to pull me away from many situations that were on the verge of becoming physical. I tried to beat a couple guys with a bat who ganged up on and attacked my brother, I hit a teacher in high school (on accident, I was trying to hit someone else. Though I blacked out and don't remember it. I was just told this happened). At some point, I started feeling bad about the anger being so uncontrolled and started trying to direct it at specific targets (for the most part). I began bullying the bullies. I think this developed because my mom would beat up on my dad too. It would upset me to see her hurting him so I would jump into the fight to divert her attention from him onto me and I would take the beating. In my mind, it was easier for me to take the beating than to have to watch my dad take it because it hurt me worse emotionally to see him being abused.

I still have a problem with this. I feel justified doing it because I'm defending someone weaker who is being terrorized by someone stronger and I know I'm strong enough to take them on and I feel an emotional release when I win. Just to clarify, I don't mean physical fighting anymore (though I could be lured into that if the circumstances were right). I mean verbal stuff like on facebook and such. My friends will also contribute to this because if they find themselves in a situation, they will call me. I will either go onto facebook and attack the person causing them problems or (if it's something my friend is gonna have to deal with on the phone themselves and I can't go handle it directly for them) then I will tell my friend what to say and how to verbally beat the other person into submission. I guess I try to make myself a type of Robin Hood of the emotional smack down so I can justify doing it. I convince myself that these people deserve it for trying to bully others and so I'm doing a public service.

This is a problem. I know I need anger management and I'm pretty sure it's something my new therapist will suggest as well. So I realize that by bullying a bully that it's continuing a cycle. That person is made to feel worse and it probably reinforces their own need to bully someone. I've just been doing this for so long that I don't know if I could keep from attacking someone who I feel deserves it. I don't go out looking for a fight. I try to be reasonable and diffuse more situations now than I used to. In fact, as I've gotten older, I really do try to give a person more of a chance to back out of being a complete ass....but I feel like if someone asks for it, then I'm happy to oblige.

I'm guessing if I had more positive anger outlets that I would feel less of a need to do this maybe. I dunno. Just wondering how y'all have handled anger issues?

 

[rdw]

Along with this being an anger issue it is also a boundary issue. You are not responsible for your friends problems or battles - they are. You can and should ask yourself is this my problem or not my problem. We can each only look after ourselves.

 

[MelissaK9174]

I hadn't considered that. I definitely have boundary issues too. My sister has brought that up repeatedly and I've been trying to work on that by myself for a while now. I feel like the people I care about are merely an extension of myself. I think that the anger issue probably supercedes it though in this particular circumstance because I use my friends/family as an opportunity to release my anger onto these people that I feel like are abusing them...and my friends and family do use it to their advantage also.

So maybe if the anger was completely under control then maybe it would fix some of the boundary issues? I'm not sure.

 

[rdw]

But your friends and family are not an extension of you. It is up to them to take care of their business - it sounds like they are adults and fully capable of handling their respective lives. Have you found that you have been taken advantage of by your willingness to do battle for others?

 

[MelissaK9174]

The two who do it the most are my sister and my best friend of 22 yrs, who is more like a sister to me than a friend. So I would jump in and defend them regardless of them having to ask me. It would be automatic on my part. Other friends ask in more subtle ways..they will bring it up and tell me to go have a look at what's going on but they know how I do. They know I will jump in and help them out. I don't think it's that I feel taken advantage of. I'm glad for the opportunity to have the release.

I have the local news channels on my facebook and I guess I will go there intentionally looking for a fight sometimes. So I guess the initial statement I made about not seeking out fights wasn't completely accurate. But it will be on a topic that I feel strongly about and such. I live in the deep south and am very liberal minded politically. So it's not hard to involve myself in a fight concerning issues where I feel people are being treated unfairly.

I think the deepest issue for me is the need to release the anger ya know? For years I've tried to find ways that felt more appropriate in doing it so that I wouldn't feel like a bad person for unleashing all the anger out on someone. So I've found ways that felt ok for me to get it out. I know it's really dysfunctional but it made sense to me when I started doing it and now I guess it's just a strongly ingrained habit even though I know it's F'ed up.

 

[rdw]

What if you journalled your anger in an effort to deal with it in a more productive manner? This may also help you to find out what is behind all of that emotion. What do you think would happen if you let your sister and friends fight their own battles? It must be exhausting to have to look after all of them

 

[MelissaK9174]

I hadn't thought of doing that. Maybe that would work. It's not something I've tried to put down on paper as far as it relating to me. I've always went by the seat of my pants and just let it out when the opportunity presented itself.

I've never felt exhausted defending them. In fact, I will get an adrenalin rush from it. Most people don't get into as much junk as I used to get into regularly. I think that's why I will go to the news boards because they don't need me enough.

I was slow to respond because I fell asleep. I had a dream about zombies. I think maybe because I kinda feel like I feed on people by doing this. That's not good.

 

[MelissaK9174]

Oh, forgot to add...if I allowed them to fight their own battles.... My best friend is bipolar but she's always more down than anything. So it will throw her into an extremely depressed state if someone attacks her and she handles it alone because she just don't know how to handle it. My sister is used to me protecting her. She's had a lifetime of it. So I worry that she would feel bullied or taken advantage of by others, which would make me feel guilty because I know I have the power to stop it.