I use to get seriously angry. I’m as harmless as they come through my actions, but I admit that I’ve had some seriously satisfying revenge fantasies. I’m way cooler-headed now than I ever, I think partly due to marijuana, but I can’t know for sure. I still do get very angry sometimes, usually (if not exclusively) over the actions and lies of certain politicians. I can’t deny that I may have wished Trump harm, but I guess I have self control because I’m outwardly very non-confrontational.
This happens much less these days, and not to the extent it once did.
I have fantasies at times about trolling a wide variety of people - not about violence, but about appropriateness. The more elaborate, the better.
For instance, if I had the means, I sometimes fantasize about getting back at sports referees in a way that befits their bad calls. Example: The referee who wrongly said England’s goal against Germany was not in when it was clearly past the line? If I were a corrupt police chief in that ref’s hometown, I’d then make it a mission to ticket that referee for “running a red light” whenever he had stayed behind the red traffic light, saying - “Hey, you said it wasn’t over the line when it was. So now I’m saying you are over the line when you weren’t.” etc. etc.
I don’t feel anger toward politicians with cruel policies, or unkind people - I feel deep disappointment.
There’s also a small amount of feeling sorry for them. It must be awful to go through life as a terrible person who does harm in the world. I get much more “angry” over computers, appliances or tools that don’t work properly.
Not saying you’re wrong, but do you have any evidence of this? I mean, some people have difficult times while being horrible, but is it always connected? Do all horrible people always feel horrible about themselves?
Evidence? No, I think this is completely subjective. I experience a degree of… let’s shorthand it as pity, for unkind or cruel people irrespective of their self-awareness.
Take Thomas Midgley - he caused possibly more negative consequences in the world than any other single individual. I don’t know a great deal about him, maybe he was a nice guy when he wasn’t inventing toxic processes. But he caused a lot of harm, and I feel sorry that that’s his legacy even if he never knew it.
Edit: Maybe Midgley isn’t the best example because he didn’t set out to do harm. But it’s what sprang to mind.
There was an incident in high school in which one guy slammed into me, knocking me over, because he thought he was late for class. I was headed for the same class so I knew he wasn’t late.
Things escalated quickly and it was as if I became a bystander inside my own head, watching myself attempting to push the other guy over the stairwell railing.
I never did anything along those lines. I have/had no desire to litteraly hurt anyone. Not even once… as unhealthy as it may have been to have those thoughts, it FELT therapeutic.
Like, my thoughts were things people had no dominion over, or something.
After 40 years in medicine, I’ve seen what humans can and do inflict on other humans. My dark side has imagined some horrendous retribution being delivered to the perpetrators. I work very hard to defuse those ideations before they go too far. Having those thoughts troubles me. Fortunately I’m fairly successful at shutting them down quick, and they occur less often now too.
I’ve never taken those ideations out on anyone, not even those patients of mine who had inflicted terrible harm on others. But man, those dangerous visions.
Many years ago I lived in an apartment and had a seriously mentally ill neighbor. She lived with her aged mother, whom I’m assuming administered her meds because when the mom was hospitalized the poor thing went off the deep end. We shared a bedroom wall and she would have some religious tv channel on all day and night, cranked up to 11. Impossible to sleep, I would lie there visualizing myself committing the most awful, violent acts against her. I hated myself for having those thoughts but sleep deprivation will mess with your head. One day I came home from work and saw, literally, “men in white coats” walking her to an ambulance
Another time, in that same apartment, I and my then boyfriend got into an argument and he made like he was going to kick my cat. I whipped a huge knife at him, then grabbed another and charged at him. I think that would still be my reaction to anyone who harmed my animals.
We have a neighbor who absolutely has to idle and rev his vehicles for 20 minutes or more every two or three days. He cannot go somewhere in them, but he has to idle them, I guess to keep the engines from atrophying. They are loud engines that I can feel from 100’ away, and every piston stroke stokes my irritation higher and higher. And, of course, the idling fills the air with exhaust: I go to bed and it smells like the walls in my room are coated with motor fuel (I am pretty sensitive to certain smells).
I end up imagining doing violence to his vehicles. Taking a digging pick and pounding it through the hood repeatedly, until the things are hopeless wrecks. Visualizing doing that seems to be enough. Until the next time.
I am almost pathologically happy. It’s really, really hard to make me angry. But when I’m actually angry, I can be a really vicious, vindictive and potentially violent person for a moment. It’s short, and I’ve usually been able to control it well. But that’s the main reason I don’t own a gun.
I don’t know. I’d really have to dislike someone to get to the point where I have “revenge fantasies”, and even then it’s not as if I picture horribly horrendous, and masochistic stuff, but I mostly stick to prominent people who are, at least to me, doing serious harm.
Maybe what you described would have triggered me before, but I think at this point of my life, I’d really feel for this individual. There are a lot of children where I live, and I can’t believe how annoyed some of my neighbors are of their presence… I think they think I’m pretty chill, though. I AM, these days, for the most part. Road rage use to be much worse, too.
Do some people just tend to relax a little more as they age?
I don’t own a gun either, and I hope to never have to own one. Honestly, (and this isn’t an indication of where I am now), I would probably harm myself before being able to harm anyone else.
I don’t say that like it’s a super power, either. There are a lot of times where I WOULD benefit from being more aggressive.
I don’t internalize the problem in my moment of anger. At that point, my tormentor is my problem. I’d probably be the kind of idiot that shoots inanimate objects that displease me. Internalizing the problem happens when I reflect later, after I haven’t killed someone. By then, I’m my normal, non-excitable self.
Yeah. I was going to say that I think I’m a little different, but you specified taking your aggression out on things, and not people. It’s not that I’m not capable of going off the handle, it’s just that I don’t think I’d physically harm anyone. I don’t know if I could in most situations. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, but I think I’m that dude who gets killed by the guy he didn’t have the power to kill earlier, in Saving Private Ryan, if I’m remembering the movie correctly. It’s a film I’m not exactly anxious to see more than once.
