When/If you guys get really angry, how do you deal with it?

[Forkboy]

I'm a very even tempered person, but I still have a lot of anger inside me (over so many things, personally, politically, life in general-wise). I haven't lost my temper in at least ten years, but I did last night with my landlord.

Some background. I live in a three story place, in an attic room. My landlord lives below me, and below him is my best friend. My landlord is a piece of work, but for the most part harmless. However, he was one bad problem...he does crack. Now, that's his business and I'm not judging him for doing the crack. The problem arises from the people he has over to smoke it with him.

Because the landlord works a second shift his partying starts at around midnight and goes all night. Again, not a big problem, until they start fighting and breaking windows (7 windows gone in one year), plugging guitars into amps at 6 AM, and just generally being all around disrespectful to the fact that other people actually live in the building. If it was just loud music I really wouldn't care (even the guitar wouldn't bother me if he could actually play the fucker). But the house rattling fighting, yelling, screaming on the front lawn, door slamming ways are pretty annoying.

This last weekend he started partying Friday night and didn't stop until Monday afternoon (he skips work every Monday). I didn't care....until last night when he came upstairs after getting home from work to complain about my music. I try to be very respectful of when he gets home and I shut it down or switch to headphones. He's also told me repeatedly that my music didn't bother him regardless of time. Last night he came home about fifteen minutes earlier than usual, so my music was still going, and yes, it was very loud.

So here's the problem. He never cares about the noise he makes at all hours of the night (and trust me, many of you would shit to live here and see what they do sometimes). My best friend downstairs plays his music so loud that MY room shakes on the third floor....no complaints from the landlord on that, because my friend scares him (I'm sure after last night that I do too now). Not that I want him to complain to my friend, I want him to be consistent in his getting bothered by noise. I play music all the time, but I keep it low when he's home, or just use headphones. He hasn't once in the five years I've been here shown any kind of respect back...just the opposite. Both my friend and I have spoken to him about the fighting and slamming doors and shit, and he just says, "Well, I don't ask them to come over." Chickenshit response, or what?

So when he came up last night to complain about noise I lost it, and it took all I had not to beat the fuck out of him right then and there (instead I punched a hole in my door, breaking my right hand....again).

When I was in my late teens I really was pretty cocky and crazy (I guess not much has changed there), and fighting was a big part of my lifestyle. We set up fights for money, anything to get a good scrap going. When I was 21 I almost murdered someone. A guy raped my friend's little sister and I got to him first. I had every intention of killing him, and I came close before pulling myself back from the cliff. While I still feel the guy deserved to die, it bothered me so much that I had decided to be judge, jury and executioner that I had an almost epiphany-like moment. I decided that next day that I wasn't going to be like that ever again (that incident may the biggest single event to shape my politics and ideals for the future...I saw what I didn't want me to be).

So my problem today is realizing that even 20 years later I still have so much anger inside of me that I still apparently can't control myself. I spoke to my counselor today and he said it was a positive that I didn't actually do anything to my landlord, but putting your fist through doors doesn't seem much of a step up.

So now my anger is turning inwards on myself for how I was, and that means depression soon (already feeling it tonight). I don't want to be the person I was last night.

Anyways, this has been an incredibly long-winded way of going about asking how some of you deal with your anger issues, if you have any?

[hunter]

1. We lived next door to some people like that...

... the problem eventually took care of itself, without any gunfire from the police or anyone else so that was a blessing.

Probably not so good if the cops drag your landlord off for a few years because you don't get the house. Or maybe you do have the house for a while in this whacky world. Some of our neighbors stayed in their house for several months when the landlord stopped paying his mortgage, and they stopped paying the rent.

Good luck, and look around for opportunities to either move, or to call down some kind of burly angel to beat some insight into your landlord. But don't be that angel yourself.

My hand has been through a few doors. Usually I've had sense enough not to hit the solid ones. But not always.

[Forkboy]

2. LOL...the cops came here once.

They advised my friend and I to move out because they weren't going to arrest anyone. It didn't go over well and the cops got an earful as they walked away. I love how they expected the ones obeying the law to completely alter their lives because the cops didn't feel like doing their job that night.

As for moving, I have no short term options. I've applied for housing but the waiting list is in the years, not weeks or months. If my friend downstairs moves out I'm screwed because I don't have a bathroom, so I use his. I'm sure new tenants wouldn't want a stranger coming down in the middle of the night to take a squirt. :)

I more mad at myself than the situation here. As bad as the landlord is it really doesn't bother me all that much. I just felt singled out in a house full of noisy people when I'm easily the quietest one here. I think my anger was justified. How I reacted to that anger wasn't. My right hand fully agrees. :)

[EFerrari]

3. Not killing the landlord guy was a good first step.

lol

When I get really angry, I can't stand the feeling so just about instantly I'll telling myself out loud to let it go. Sometimes it sounds more like, "motherfucker, I should kill you and eat you, stop Beth, let it go" -- but, hey, I'm trying. :rofl:

[Forkboy]

4. It just came on so fast I couldn't defuse it.

That's what really scares me. I've always been confrontational anyways (no? really? :) ), but that feeling that I might just snap is terrifying. It keeps me from leaving the house some days. I was walking down the street one day and a guy walked past me and just said, "Fuck you" for no reason. I just laughed, but in the state I was in the other night I would've beat him like red-headed step child

I feel like my own brain is an enemy again, and I had been doing really well for quite awhile.

99% of the time I do what you do. I tell myself it's silly to get that upset and it almost always works. I didn't have time the other night, and I haven't even talked to anyone face to face since then. Not happy with the way I reacted at all.

I will say that I never thought of eating people I don't like though. I'm awaiting food stamps so in the meantime I could kill two birds with one stone. I could get rid of assholes and have a hearty meal! :D

[EFerrari]

5. While you're waiting, I'd really trust that intuition that says slow down

calm down, get your balance back before stirring people back in. People can be such dicks sometimes.

Sometimes I'm really susceptible to other people, too. I don't know why. What really matters is getting level again so I can get back to conquering the world or whatever it is that I usually do. Eating the unlucky. :)

[EFerrari]

6. I just thought of somethin' else.

I learned to avoid the worst violence with Doug by learning to spot out of control just before it was out of control.

That would translate, for myself, to saying "Wait" out loud if I felt like my anger was going to overwhelm me. Just every time that feeling started and as soon as I notice it in the least little bit. And, out loud so the right part of my brain would hear it. The idea is, the one time I didn't notice it, my brain will say "Wait" to me. If the damn thing is going to talk back, it might as well say something useful. :silly:

It works pretty well. And lord knows, I get plenty of practice. :hug: :grouphug:

[Forkboy]

7. "If the damn thing is going to talk back, it might as well say something useful."

:spray:

:hug:

edit - and btw, I caught the Moyers show last night around 3 AM....awesome. Thanks for the heads up on that one. Great episode all around.

[ConcernedCanuk]

8. I rarely ever get "really angry" - but did recently when my landlady cut off heat/hydro at -20

.
.
.

I handled that one badly, banging on her door(we live on the same property) and breaking a window to her porch, all the while yelling to turn on my hydro -

long story short - she called the cops, I spent a few hours in lockup

cops brought me back after she agreed to turn on the hydro, turned on only the 110, not the heat, then turned it back off totally for over a week - I survived on propane and a gas generator.

ANYHOW

HOW I SURVIVE NOW?

don't take it personal, some people are just plain mean and fucked up.

DON'T TAKE IT PERSONAL!

Thats hard to do, but it's IS doable.

Just treat it like the dog that shits where you're gonna walk - he just hadda have a dump -

DON'T TAKE IT PERSONAL . . .

works for me . . .

but it ain't easy

(sigh)

[Forkboy]

10. I'm usually excellent at doing just that.

This time I did take it personally, because I was singled out for something everyone here does, and does a lot more than me. And this time it came on way too fast to even stop and think. That's what scares me the most.

Your advice is still good advice overall, and I try my best to do it. It just didn't work this time. :)

[qb]

9. I think the issue that' s causing problems is rage.

Rage is an irrational response to an event. The thinking mind fades out as the body wildly expends its pent-up energy. I have rage issues. Fortunately I only really express it in private - I smash things when my frustration reaches a certain level. The social pressure not to let people see me acting that way keeps my behavior in check, but it turns my rage inward, and that also sucks. Smashing things of little value in private is sometimes recommended as a temporary outlet for people dealing with rage.

My therapist works with me to analyze the events that trigger my rage, recognize that it is an irrational, destructive, and unnecessary response, and look for ways to express my anger in a healthy way. Confronting the source of my anger is certainly the ideal solution, but when that provides no relief I have to learn to accept unpleasant situations that I can do nothing about. That involves taking a closer look at the situation and realizing that though it may be uncomfortable or annoying or frustrating, it is not causing me any real harm, and I can cope with it effectively without hurting myself or others.

I hope you find a solution.

[Forkboy]

11. Well, it was certainly rage I felt.

Been a long, long time since it hit me like that (I'm talking a good decade, at the least). My therapist and I have tried to pin down the root cause, and we've decided that a lot of my anger isn't over things directly concerning me, just at the world in general. Makes it hard to correct any behavior when it's world issues that cause the anger. I guess it's in the way I process it all. The answer seems to be to ignore world events, and there's no way I can do that. I'm just not a head in the sand kind of guy. Maybe if I had never been interested in the first place, but I know what kind of injustices are happening everyday, and I can't pretend they don't.