control my temper

I needa find myself again,

yep..definitely getting better. ive learnt to not pick arguments and i can end arguments now by just saying. thats it. no more.

Well I am a little bit better now, and when i do get bad tempered i calm myself down and apologise and then write it in my diary to reflect on how i can improve how i react to things, and what it is that i react to. Once ive got rid of it altogether (will kind of) i’ll mark this as done. any advice would be grateful.

It’s a challenge that I might need to meet again, but for the time being, I feel that I’m in control – or, to be more precise, as my temper doesn’t flare up as much anymore, it’s much easier to control. I haven’t lashed out at anybody for quite some time, or used hurtful words, or broken cups, or thrown things. Furthermore, I didn’t get so angry with myself, either. It’s not really something that requires a deep breath, counting to five, any of that – my anger simply doesn’t seem to build up as fast anymore. I hope that’s a good sign.

Yeah, I want to be my username (an Oasis Of Calm) more often. It’s not that I never am, but sometimes… I get angry. If something or someone upsets me in some way, I react. I don’t know why, and I know it doesn’t help. I do need to control it. Sometimes I just need to ignore negative words, negative actions… respond in a better more rational way, I suppose. Hmm… it has to be a concious effort. Basically, I shouldn’t care what people say/think. Sometimes people just want to get a reaction, and it’s their negative problem. Other times, people don’t think about what they’re saying and how it might affect other people. I suppose if I could just breathe calmly, relax, and just think ‘ignore them’ or ‘ignore it’, and respond better somehow?

I haven’t really had any outbreaks since I added this goal. I think I am pretty close to having this one complete. I added a goal to not stress out so much, which has helped. Even before a huge test, I’m not as stressed out as I feel like I used to be. This helps me not get a bad temper. Things are going good, I think. =)

Recently, whenever I’ve gotten angry, tears followed quickly thereafter. Last week was the week I came home from the hardware store in tears, with such a look on my face that my boyfriend thought I had been mugged. The second night at the hardware store was worse – more anger, same tears. Today at the marathon, again. I feel overwhelmed by my life right now and in any situation that’s out of the ordinary, waves of anger and disappointment wash over me. I’m a mess. It’s kind of losing my temper with myself.

Doing a little better, perhaps? Lately I’ve mostly felt either upbeat or subdued, with little place for anything else. No aggressiveness. (Not a whole lot stamina either – but maybe I shouldn’t mix those two.) If anything, I snapped at someone when I was being snapped at, which only happened twice.

Upon telling the psychologist that it’s often hard to control my anger, I also mentioned that people get intimidated by my pugnacity (or what I like to view as intellectual rigor), especially when discussions heat up. (And when I try to establish harmony by bridging differences, explaining us to each other, which I’m actually good at, the damage is already done.) There must be other, more calmer ways to bring a point across, and it’s high time I learned them. Hopefully therapy sessions can help with that, too.

In the meantime I continue to root for people who, well, show bite. I saw Michel Friedman on t.v. the other night and asked my boyfriend, “and you’re telling me people think he’s being agressive”? Oh, the look he gave me.

One of the things I learned is that I can improve this by takin good care of my general well-being. Getting rest, enough breaks, not running myself down, remember to get ‘release’ where it is safe; like singing/shouting in the car, running 2-3 times a week. Keeping a healthy diet also seems to work. I get more irritable when I eat a lot of sugar.

It’s been over a year since I really lost my temper. I still get angry about things but not in that same explosive way that I was doing, and I haven’t shouted at any strangers or co-workers for a while(!) I suppose that’s an improvement. I’d still like to find the middle ground where I can express my anger without incoherent yelling, but at the moment I think I can say I’ve got my temper under control.