I have always been volatile. Ask my mother, only minutes after being born I threw my first tantrum to the amusement of all the nurses and doctors surrounding who declared my mother was sure to “have a whole world of pain with this one”.
The years saw me calm somewhat and my teen years passed with very little rebellion and only a reasonable amount of angst between my mother and myself.
I passed through my twenties with bouts of depression, some more serious than others, but it wasn’t until I hit my thirties when I realised one day I felt irritable nearly all the time and any small incident was triggering anger responses. The early thirties were bad but this last year I have noticed quite often I am irritable all the time once again and only a small trigger will make me angry. Its a horrible sensation feeling this out of control nearly all the time. After each episode I am plagued with guilt and worry endlessly about the effect my anger has had on the recipient – I am not a violent person but, even as small as I am, can be quite intimidating when my cool is gone and an angry tirade of words is shooting from my mouth like bullets from a gun.
I hate it.
I wish I could control it.
Its not a nice feeling – feeling angry and irritable with no real cause.
It feels at times as though I have stored emotion from every negative life event from the last 2 decades. All this pain and hurt I keep in a bucket which is too full to accept more so, when another problem arises or I hit another obstacle, the lid flies off and causes an emotional outburst.
Respect for opening up here.
I was lucky and lost all my real anger in my teens. I was forever in trouble because of my temper and penchant for being a loveable clown!
Just hit 60 and am at peace with myself although I will get annoyed at injustice and ill mannered dimwits.
David
As a child and teens I was relatively even tempered, strong willed, but no temper to speak of. I had problems with depression on occasion during my teens but rarely known to have a temper – the real issues began in my twenties after, well, some personal issues arose – and even worse after a few incidents around my late twenties / early thirties. This is why I wonder if there is a connection between negative life experiences and anger management in my case :p