Lately I’ve been feeling very angry.I just went through another breakup. I think the cold of winter, combined with a breakup, and combined with how I am yet again single…makes me very frustrated and angry and feeling slighted by the world. It’s never been like this before. Usually I’m sad for awhile, and I recover and regain enthusiasm. Right now I just want to punch a fucking hole in the wall. I also have been very short with people lately, and I generally just want to be alone. I kinda even feel I need to take up some agressive new activity (martial arts, crossfit)…some place where I can release my frustration and anger.
It feels like I’m on the dark side of the force.
Anyone ever go through a prolonged phase of anger?
Sort of.
But I always seek out people and when it comes out about current troubles, angst, etc. I listen to their opinions.
Been there with the smacking of walls, throwing things just to break them, but in the end it did not solve ONE DAMN SINGLE THING.
Frustration manifests itself in many ways. Make that something that is positive for YOU.
Maybe it seems like silly advice and I am sure I am not explaining myself very well, but when that urge come upon you…think “I am better than this, I can get through this.”
Not always easy. Sometimes one needs to kick a football , smack a tree, (done that…it kinda hurts and you realize the tree is a bit smarter than you. Thank you very much),
or just go out and meet new people (without the anger).
Sometimes the best advice is “The past is the past, learn, listen. Your future is now. Go forward in peace.”
When I went through my divorce I was angry at myself. I reflected a lot upon how I fucked up, and as a guy I cried a lot about what I had lost. My wife, my daughters, my home, yada yada.
Just want to say to Quasimodal…channel your anger to better yourself.
If you want to punch a hole through your sheet rock go for it. Do it in private, then be prepared to learn how to patch a wall.
I am jumping off this wagon train, but will catch up with you all over that ridge thar.
PEACE
I still haven’t truly forgiven the man who killed my father. All I want to do is be able to look him in the eye and ask “Well, hoe DO you feel? Huh?” But that’s not going to happen, so I guess I too will have to learn how to deal.
I went to Yoga tonight. It helped a little. I felt a lot of bitterness and resentment towards all the women in class for no good reason other than that I feel like women always hurt me. I know that’s an unfair generalization. It’s just how I felt though. I still want to hit something. I have a lot of restraint though so I doubt I will.
I find push-ups far more relieving than smashing my hands into things. Of course, my hands are generally more delicate than the things I find to smash them into. Once I was so mad I did push-ups until my arms collapsed and my abs seized, so I was stuck on my living room floor for a couple of hours. I got a lot of really good soul searching done that evening.
Word to the wise: Do not get on a rowing machine right now. I really did myself an injury trying to work out some serious anger on one of those.
But yeah, even just taking a walk is good. Anything that builds your body while burning off the toxic chemicals is good. Look at the anger as excess energy, and ask yourself what motion you would like to turn this into. Because otherwise, it will burn through your organs like undirected lava.
As for the irritability, it could be a sign of depression. It might be wise to describe your symptoms to a doctor and see if a short term anti-depressant is in order. There’s no reason to let the incidents accumulate until you’ve got serious wreckage to deal with. The last thing you want to do right now is alienate your support network.
Hope that helps. It’s been about 20 years since I last let anger take me over that way, but every word is based on searingly painful experience.
I’m sorry for your pain and anger, Quasimodal. Breakups suck and breakups around the holidays are the worst. To answer your original question, yes, I’ve been angry for several weeks at a time. What I learned was that the anger lasted longest when I keep seeing myself as a victim. A victim of my shitty ex-husband, a victim of people who took advantage of my kind nature, a victim of crappy circumstances and an unfair world. My friends tried to cheer me up, told me to be grateful for all the good, to look on the bright side . . . Bah! Apparently, I just had to feel that way for awhile, until I was finally ready to stop feeling it. It does pass, it really does.
As others have said, it’s good to have a physical activity to help release the energy. I must have walked a thousand miles during my weeks of anger. Definitely pick up the kettle bells again. And walk, or jog, or run, or do sit-ups.
I’ll be honest with you, the anger hasn’t completely gone away. It always surfaces again this time of year, when it’s dark early and too cold and I’m missing my mother, who made the holidays special. Sometimes, all you can do it put your head down and get through it, one day at a time. I’ll be holding the good thought for you.
I’m really feeling the hurt tonight again. Warning…venting ahead: I feel wronged by the world where I honoured the social contract: Get a job, be fit, have hobbies, be positive, respect others, avoid bad habits, live in a balanced way…etc…and I feel like I’ve been used and abused. I’m always rejected…and I look at women all the time now with contempt. Like they are all out to take advantage of me, ignore me, or to hurt me… It’s horrible. I feel like a bad person. I did a long workout with kettlebells and went to yin yoga. The effects were temporary.
I’m mad at myself…I wish I had never spent so much of my energy in my life pursuing the dream relationship I had wanted ever since I was a kid. I always imagined I would find someone to love, and it never happens. And I always wanted to be a good partner for somebody. I feel like I’m never deemed good enough even though I excel at so many things. It’s makes me feel lost…like there’s nothing else left for me to do or try. And hurt, because my heart keeps getting trampled on.
You’re trying too hard. Seriously. Fuck social contracts, being a good partner, etc, etc. Do what you want. Never mind idealized concepts of romance, no matter how long you’ve had them.
My advice, trade the kettle bells and yoga for barbells and mma (or bjj, or muay thai, or boxing, or judo, pretty much any combat art with aliveness). I promise, work hard enough and long enough that you have a double bodyweight squat and you are reasonably capable of handling yourself in a real physical altercation, and a lot of the stuff that has you down right now will seem petty.
You are grieving and experiencing some situational depression. Several of the things you say are typical of this kind of depression, the good news is it is usually temporary. If it goes on for more than a few weeks though that could mean its turning into a more serious depression and you may need to talk to your doctor. The anger is something you are allowed to to feel and will take some time to work through. Exercising is an excellent response, particularly anything that is really going to wear you out. I find endurance activities like biking, running, XC skiing really good for this sort of thing as it relieves stress as well as giving you lots of time to think. Any physical activity is good though.
I don’t see how being ‘capable of handling yourself in a real physical altercation’ really has anything to do with anything unless you are living in a dangerous place or in fear for some reason, which I personally did not get from your posts, but whatever works.
We have all been where you are in some form. It sucks. Its legitimate to feel wronged, rejected, and let down. Just don’t hang on to it and be a victim longer than you need to. You will have to work through it before you can have another serious relationship, because if you don’t, this will just poison it.
Please consider that relationships are not contracts, in fact. Resentment comes from one single thing: not getting what we think we’ve ‘earned’. I did this, you should now do this, etc. Whenever you’re giving, with expectation of something in return, you’re kind of doing it wrong. You will never meet with success until you learn to truly give WITHOUT expectation of ANYTHING in return. No, it’s not easy. Yes, it takes work, and lots of it. But if you can get there, you may find success and come into all you seek.
From the beginning of time sages have reiterated the goal should never be to seek true love, but to seek to be worthy of true love. Food for thought.
If your anger and resentment is spilling over to innocent women simply populating the world around you, please seek some counselling, it could make a world of difference for your world view, and save you many months of angst. But be prepared that any councillor is unlikely to accept it’s all on your partners and likely to insist YOU take some ownership in these failed relationships too.
And never forget, there is not one single soul upon this earth who has not experienced the pain you are now having. You truly are not alone. We can all feel your pain, and you have our very deepest sympathies. Please don’t give up to bitterness, anger and a hardened heart. You’ve survived it before, this time is no different.
And please do consider a councellor! And don’t hesitate to come hear and talk our ears off, (tyoe your fingers raw?), we care about you and we’re pulling for you. You’re not alone. Not with us right here!
Wishing you some peace, and brighter days! Good Luck!
Look, this ‘social contract’ mentality is setting you up to be miserable. It’s a very American mindset (‘If I do X, I will deserve Y and will therefore be entitled to Y’). It has absolutely no relationship to reality. And it can be hideously destructive to people’s well-being, because people end up thinking - like you are - ‘If I haven’t been given Y, it must be because I’m an inferior human being who doesn’t deserve Y, or else because everyone out there is a bad person refusing to acknowledge my entitlement to Y.’ Which is total bollix.
The world does not owe you anything, no matter what you do. Women do not owe you anything beyond basic courtesy - not attention, not love, not sex - any more than men do. If the world doesn’t give you what you feel you deserve, that doesn’t mean you’ve been wronged. If women don’t give you what you feel you deserve, it doesn’t mean they’ve wronged you; it means that they, like you, are people who get to make choices.
All those things you talked about doing - getting a job, staying fit, being a decent human being - do them because you feel they’re worth doing in themselves. Don’t do them because you think they’ll entitle you to something from other people. They don’t. It doesn’t work that way.
ETA: The only actual contracts are bilateral. If you agree with a woman that she’ll go out with you if you eat your vegetables, and you do it and she turns you down, then you have a grievance. But if you come up with a contract in your own head, you can’t then get snotty at other people for refusing to honour their side of something they never agreed to in the first place.
If you’re thinking I’m wrong, ask yourself how happy the ‘I did X, therefore I’m entitled to be given Y’ mentality has made you so far.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-- I strongly recommend a change of scenery. You’ve been in a rut for a very long time, and IMHO you aren’t going to get out of it by just trying harder at doing the same thing. You need change, and not the kind of change you get by taking a cooking class or buying a new wardrobe. You need to spend some time getting to the core of who you are, outside of this whole story that you’ve had so much time to build up around yourself. You need a real challenge. You strike me as a very controlled person, the kind of person that could train for a marathon with no problem. That’s not the kind of challenge that I’m talking about. you need a challenge that takes you out of your comfort zone, out of your context, out of the narrative that you are living out about yourself. You are so trapped in this cycle that you aren’t going to find a way out of it without creating soem real distance.
This isn’t, of course, the magic cheat code. But I think some big changes (I know I foten advocate travel, and I think it would be good, but I’m open to other ideas) would really help you get some perspective and understand a bit more about what is going on, and would help you shake whatever is bringing you down.
Thank you all for your care and replies. It means alot to me. I’m still feeling angry and some of what you say resonates. I’ll fill in some of the blanks and give some more thoughts:
1: The breakup: I broke up with her… not the other way around. It took all my strength and my support network. I had to really prepare hard for it…as she had abandonment issues and I have extra empathy for people who have been through difficult problems. I knew after I broke up with her she would try and come back to me. It’s been a pattern of ours for many months. Usually she would tell me how she thought we would breakup anyways down the road. I couldn’t take the constant rejection anymore so I put on my man pants and ended it. It was really hard…couldn’t have done it without my family and friends. Honestly I tried to be a good person to her without large expectations…and we saw each other on and off for about 7 months. We talked about sex, but I wasn’t pushy on her and said I would wait until she was ready. She still rejected me. So I know I shouldn’t expect X for doing Y. But I also felt I had desires not being met, and that even as I put those desires aside…I still received rejection. It’s hard because I don’t feel like I’m desired very often. And I really try hard not to be pushy or demanding. I’m not perfect. But I feel like I have much to offer. It’s just not wanted.
Sven: I agree and am looking into options. I might finally have to move away and go to school. Cause everything where I live is feeling heavy and weighty. Like I just don’t belong here anymore. The two things that interest me the most is taking some time this summer to do a Yoga teacher training…I could travel to do this. And then maybe moving to Vancouver and taking a technology course for a couple of years. In terms of the relationship…this has been a “rut”…but the past two years have still been the best two years of my life (Improved fitness…relationship experiences, discovering passions in Yoga, dance, exploring spirituality at the Unitarian Centre…etc). As analogy it’s like I became stronger and learned how to walk rather than crawl…but now that I can walk it’s possible I may have tripped and fallen again…so I now have to get back into my walk. Also you are right. I have run a full marathon.
I agree being fit helps with management of my emotions. I don’t know if I need to become fucking bruce lee…but I’ll agree a physically agressive activity might make me feel better right now. I may look into a martial art after Christmas
I only feel that the “social contract” has not been honoured in retrospect. During the relationship I felt often that I was giving more…but I was happy to just spend time with her. Unfortunately almost every week she would come to me telling me how she didn’t think we were a good fit and wanted me to “talk” her out of the relationship. And of course I didn’t want to. It was hard. It was a constant form of rejection. But you are right, I am not “owed” anything. It makes me wonder If I should just train myself to live without a partner. Then I would be in complete control of my happiness.
My thinks vis-à-vis, being able to handle yourself in a real physical altercation.
I made that comment with reference to the OP’s mention of a social contract, and the overall theme of anger towards women. If your happiness is contingent upon the acceptance and approval of others, you’re doomed to be unhappy.
Making significant self improvements, e.g. double bodyweight squats and competence in a physical altercation, is about making tangible, meaningful advancements with yourself. Those are accomplishments that requires nobody’s approval.
Strength and the ability to defend yourself are fundamental attributes that everybody should posses insofar as he or she is able. If you’re working on self improvement, first things should be first.
Being strong and knowing how to fight will have a great positive impact on one’s confidence and self esteem. OP could do with a little of both.
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