new to net community

[apple]

hi

i found the site by searching for help on anger after my brother told me i had an anger problem, its been very hard reading, ive gone from feeling overwhelmed to i cant breath, as ive read the articles, to been in tears at how big a mountain it seems but ive bought a notebook , joined here, looked up some local contacts, very limited income means will have to save before i can afford an anger managemnet course, but maybe this is a start, i know i have made life very difficult for people around me, and with every rage .. i throw cuddly toys.. as if that makde it ok.. how we can fool ourselves u think what its soft it wont hurt them !! not realising its the emotional hurt . u die inside , and get so dissapointed in yourself and frustrated.. and u wonder the if person u just hurt with words or toys!! will it ever be repaired.. anyhow .. i have an anger problem..

[Catmom]

Thanks for your honesty, Apple. I am sure you will get some good replies to your post after Monday when the very active forum administrators usually post.

They usually have some good, informed input & I believe they all have PhD's.

Catmom

[Mark]

You're shocked now becuase you're just realizing that you have a problem (or just realizing that it is a real or serious problem that you can't assign to someone else. Maybe you're also feeling embarrassed or ashamed that you didn't know about the problem before, while other people around you did. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by such a realization and to want to hide for a while. You may also be feeling overwhelmed becuase the problem seems to be big and has no ready handle with which you can grasp it. Like moving a mountain, it seems to be an insurmountable task.

But, mountains can be moved, and so can anger problems. You work on big tasks like moving moutains and getting your anger under control by breaking them down into smaller tasks that need to be accomplished on the way towards your larger task, and then working on each smaller project until it is done. It takes a while; you have to have patience, but it works if you stick with it. You reward yourself along the way as you knock down small goals along the way to your ultimate goal. This process is talked about in some detail in our Psychological Self Tools self-help book, which you may want to look at.

The first thing to do is to calm down. So give yourself some time to calm down. It's much easier to figure out what needs to happen when you are feeling a little less raw.

The next thing to do is probably to get a book on anger management - a workbook of some sort. This will be relatively inexpensive and will also help you to understand the nature of the problem better and give you some ideas for things that will help you. Having some direction is important in the begining, and if you can't immediately afford a class to gain the perspective of professional help, a workbook is the next best thing.

Think about what it is you want to accomplish. It's best to put your goals into concrete terms. Rather than saying, "I want to have my anger under control", which is hard to know if you've accomplished say instead, "I want to find an anger group and attend until the program is done". That is much easier to measure. Getting anger under control involves growing self-awareness and making choices in the moment that are sometimes difficult. You may want to start a journal about your anger goal in which you write down some of the thoughs you've had about being angry, or some of your angry thoughts every night. This may help you become more self-aware. You may want to find a workbook in a book store. You may want to write about your angry feelings in online forums like this one so as to get other people's perspectives on things. Understanding that there is more than one way to view a situation can help defuse anger. As you do a little research, and as you talk to other angry people, and as you take an anger class, you will get more ideas for what you need to be doing to get your own anger in better control, and you can alter your plan accordingly.

Mark

[apple]

i will answer in a day or more .. tried to call a number for a awareness group that helped depression+ got panic put it down.. but i will, i read some of the book u linked to , some of it was hard to understand and some of what u said was to but i know i got enough to think more, it feels safer here for now, i dont go out very much. just to same shops and home in our town, im nervous of going in to somewhere ive never seem before, felt very brave and gorwn up at weekend.. but yes its my problem, told my brother i go numbers and joined a net group.