If you haven’t learned by now, I have anger issues. Anger is one of those emotions that I truly believed FUELED me. It is the only emotion that is openly accepted in the Army as long as it doesn’t become abusive. Unfortunately, that line between normal anger and abuse is toed all the time.
Growing up 1st generation American in a family of immigrants with traditional patriarchal values and fiery, spanish blood still running through our veins – emotions were not a thing. Except anger. To this day, saying I love you is still weird.
Anger was my superpower. It was my go to emotion for everything. When someone told me I couldn’t do something I would dig into those feelings of anger for motivation to prove them wrong. If someone was angry at me, I’d scare them away by showing them that I could be angrier and that I would hurt them if they pushed me further. If something bad happened to a friend of mine such as a serious illness, getting injured or worse yet dying, I would get pissed off at their situation instead of feeling sympathy for them.
Of all the superheroes I grew up watching, the Hulk resonated with me the most. Bruce Banner was a calm, mild mannered man who never did anyone wrong until someone pissed him off, then it was all over. He would scare the shit out of everyone, kick the bad guy’s asses, save the girl and then become Bruce Banner again. He was superhuman as the hulk and I felt the same way whenever I got mad.
My other emotions were complicated as I was growing up. I never knew how to express them. Being scared wasn’t something boys were supposed to feel unless you were weak. Crying was also a sign of weakness. Being sad, was frowned upon and if there was anything you had to show to the world – it was being happy, even if you weren’t. God forbid you show everyone that something’s wrong. As a family, we just swept that under the rug, never talked about it and hoped it went away.
Anger was a different animal. Whenever I had these other feelings, I somehow managed to bottle them all up and unleash them when I needed to. If I was frustrated with someone, instead of talking about how they made me feel, I would internalize it until there was an incident that really forced me to tell them how I felt. I recall numerous times I exploded in anger as a child and a teenager and now thinking about how crazy I must’ve looked.
Fortunately, I was drawn to sports growing up. I was athletic. I played football, baseball, basketball, track and did martial arts. When I was angry, I could use that energy in a healthy way. When I got to college, I didn’t play sports at the college level, but stayed very active. I grew obsessed with lifting weights, I found Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I played intramural sports and eventually found the Army. In a testosterone filled culture filled with protein powder, caffeine and hate, I didn’t have to bottle up my anger anymore. I didn’t have to just wait to play sports. I lived in it and embraced it regularly. Besides, everyone else did so that had to be normal right?
Fast forward 20+ years and here I am as a 40+ year old truly learning about my emotions for the first time. Of all the things I wanted to improve, controlling my anger became my number one goal. Although anger was my superpower, I knew it was just as much of a handicap. I was having a string of physical issues that were happening, and it wasn’t a coincidence. I was always angry. But in order to understand how to control it, you had to truly understand it first. How you express it, how it manifests itself and how it affects you.
I learned that I wasn’t just showing flashes of anger during arguments, I was living in a state of fight or flight all the time. It was doing a number to my nervous system and anything could set me off.
One of the fun exercises was writing down your ladder to anger. How do I go from 0-100 in a matter of seconds? What was physically happening to my body when I was moving from upset to pissed off and enraged? What was I feeling at each stage of it and how capable was I of thinking and articulating myself? At what point did I move from being calm and reasonable to inarticulate and screaming?
Let’s use the example of getting cut off in traffic. My ladder to anger looked like this:
- Disappointment. It might start off with me just sighing out loud, shaking my head and verbally voicing my disappointment by saying how stupid the driver is for cutting me off for no reason. I’m still reasonably calm, can have a decent conversation and maybe even laugh it off.
- Confusion. The person who cuts me off responds in a negative way by staring or mouthing off as if I were the one at fault. I’m confused and might start verbalizing more under my breath. Usually, it starts with me saying to myself, “What the fuck?”
- Annoyance/Irritation. The driver who cut me off rolls down their window and flips the bird or yells obscenities. My heart starts pumping, temperature rises and breathing becomes shallow. I’m no longer mumbling under my breath, I’m verbalizing out loud. I’m rolling down my window, responding and reminding them that they have no right to be pissed off since they were the ones to cut me off first. I might still be rational and reasonable, but this is changing quickly.
- Frustration. The driver doesn’t care and refuses to see the logic in my argument and continues yelling obscenities. I grow frustrated because this person is no longer listening to reason or logic even though its clear that they are in the wrong. I still try defending my position logically and reasonably but because they are not listening, my frustration grows. At this stage, I start sweating, raising my voice beyond just talking loud. I start to get the same feeling of excitedness in my chest similar to the nervous energy I get before competing. I’ve got a choice – break contact and let it go, or keep arguing until they logically understand what I’m saying. This is nearly the point of no return before my limbic system starts to takes over.
- Anger. No longer listening. I am yelling. I don’t want to hear what they have to say. I’m no longer defending, I’m in attack mode. I am no longer reasonable because they aren’t being reasonable. I am justifying what I’m saying and doing because they weren’t returning the favor by being reasonable. This starts to dig at my core value of respect. I give respect, I expect it back. I’m not getting that and now I’m just pissed. I am probably getting out of the car or fully standing in their face. I can’t think, I’m reacting, yelling and talking over them. I can’t talk clearly and I’m probably inarticulate at this point cursing and my body is flexing and ready to fight. Someone is going to have to back down at this point and right now, its not me.
- Rage. There are very few times in my life have I truly gotten to this point. But when I am, I’m screaming, throwing things, punching or fighting. It’s more than likely gotten physical and I am blind with rage. The only way this is going to end when someone is truly hurt or enough people come in to break it up.
For me, this whole process can take minutes. In some instances I would argue even seconds depending on how on edge you may be. In order to take control of it, you’ve got to study yourself to that level of detail and its not easy. But if you put in the work, what you learn about yourself is amazing. You’re no longer just a participant reacting to your emotions, you’re able to understand them and better control them.
I learned that in order to keep arguments at a civil and reasonable level, I can’t stay too long in a frustrated state. When someone doesn’t listen or understand me in a disagreement, it is naturally frustrating. So I try to explain it again calmly in terms that they understand. This is a two way street now, I can still stay calm if the other person is also in a calm mindset and truly trying to listen and understand. But staying calm shouldn’t be reliant on what the other person is or isn’t doing. Its on you to recognize when you are going down a bad path and calm down. This is where it gets tough. If that person speaks over me or doesn’t even attempt to listen is when I have the choice to just stop and deescalate while I am still reasonable, or push through and risk losing control. To dig even deeper, I need to understand why my feeling of not being listened to or understood is such a trigger.
That shift from the reasonable, logical frontal cortex of the brain to the primal, emotional, limbic system is what I’ve struggled to control forever. For years, I felt that I lived in my limbic system. I didn’t just live in it, I thrived in it. I was jumping out of airplanes, doing combatives, angry or looking for a fight. I trusted no one and everyone was a threat.
Its simply not a healthy way to live. Although I felt the most alive whenever I’m in my limbic system, over time it just wore me out. Think of how you feel after an adrenaline dump. Worn out, fatigued, physically and mentally exhausted. Adrenaline rushes are meant to be quick bursts to support you during a life or death situation – not a 24/7 state of being.
I wish I knew that earlier in life. I’ve probably worn out years of my lifespan as a result. Am I the master of my emotions yet? Hell no. As a matter of fact, I struggle with this quite often. 40+ years of living with a certain mindset is not something that is going to be fixed in a year. But we can try.
What’s your ladder to anger look like? Do you know what physically happens to you at each stage of it? Mastering your emotions is one of the hardest things to do. It takes work, it takes practice, and it takes a different mindset altogther.