Anger is probably the emotion I experience the most. Small annoyances lead to anger. Small slights lead to anger. Being tired leads to anger.
I think I have been this way my entire life. I can recall an early birthday, maybe 9 or 10, being mad that people weren't as excited about it as I was. It led me to kind of hate my birthday, which I still do to this day. I don't really tell people when my birthday is or want to do much of anything special on it. I generally dislike having to come up with ideas for gifts. Let's get pizza and call it a day.
I remember my girlfriend in high school asking me why I was angry all the time. I had no answer then, and I still don't have much of an answer now, other than "that's just how I am."
I started therapy a few years ago. One of the things I wanted to talk about was my anger. I am maybe lucky in that I don't really act out much with my anger. I don't yell or get violent. I seethe quietly. It still effects those around me, but I hope not in as much of a damaging way as yelling or hitting might. Again, I think I'm lucky here. I tend to internalize all my feelings, not just anger. And I think that helps me keep it more to myself than inflict it on others.
Anyway, I was telling my therapist about my anger and how I wanted to just be happy. And why can't I just be happy. And her response was "Why would you expect to be happy?"
I was floored. I had an expectation (something I'll write on some other time too) about how I was supposed to feel.
So I got to a place where, OK, I'm not supposed to be happy. I would like to be happy more often than angry, but I can't expect that to be the case. I had a realization; I was getting angry at myself for being angry and not just happy. Where do you go from there? That's something I'm still working on.
What To Do About Anger
So, if I'm "working on" anger, what do I do? There are some tools I've found to short-circuit my anger a little bit. One of them is realizing my reaction is all that I can really control.
I can't control what small annoyances might happen at any given moment. I can't control what other people will do or say or not do or not say. I can control my reaction.
In any given moment, when I feel that spark of anger I try to take a moment to recognize the anger and know that it's a valid way to feel, but just because it's a valid way to feel doesn't mean it's a productive way to feel. The idea should be to move past it and back to a more neutral mindset.
So, when I start to feel angry, I ask myself a quick question: "Why am I angry? What just happened that led me here?" And the answer is often something out of my control, so if it's out of my control then accept it and move past.
Now, this is all a great idea (and I'm sure nothing new to anyone that has been in some sort of therapy or does this for a living - I don't think I'm doing anything particularly interesting or novel or new here) but it still fails. I still get angry.
I will say I've done better at moving past the anger for things that are externally put upon me, but what about the anger at myself? Ah, see, this is where it gets hard(er).
Anger is addictive. It's easy to slide back to it. It's easy to just seethe and feel it and let it motivate you (and probably not motivate you in a good way). I know this because I live it.
So, the struggle I have now is the anger I feel at myself. I truly think forgiving yourself is the hardest thing to do. I still get mad at myself for getting mad in the first place. If I'm supposed to be able to control my reactions then why get mad at all? And this is where my work falls apart. This is where I struggle. This is where I have to remind myself over and over, you are an angry person. Do not let the anger drive you. Do not let the anger take over. Which is fine, until I get mad at myself again the next time I'm feeling angry about something unimportant. And the cycle repeats itself again and again. It's frustrating. It's challenging. It's life.
I don't have any good advice here. I'm not really trying to help anyone else but myself, to be honest. But I will continue to work on it and work on accepting myself as the way I am, and also on accepting others as the way they are. Anger is my way of reacting to anything and everything that isn't the exact way I want it. And that's ok! I can deal with that. I'm sure I'll get mad about it again, probably even later today. But I can and will move on. I can and will be happy when I can.
Hopefully...