HELP PLEASE How to stop mid split/ blow up?

HI @solf00d

I have a bit of a rubbish answer to this...I used to find myself blowing up at situations when I was younger and even into early 20s. However now I have found that I feel myself going in this direction less and less.

Part of it is because I somehow manage to control it. Part of it is probably because I choose not to get myself into situations that will mean I end up feeling that way.

So for the first part, I guess any time I do find myself getting annoyed at something (that initial boiling), I instantly conjure up the feelings I had when it had gone too far and I felt awful. The memories of the bad experiences tend to instantly cool me down.

Secondly, I tend to take more time now to think about the company I keep and the situations I end up in. For example, I drink less than when I was a teenager/early 20s. I choose to spend time around people who I genuinely respect and trust, rather than simply being around people to feel 'cool' and end up being mutually destructive.

I am not sure if this is helpful at all, but I hope that you feel listened to and find it of some use :)

@solf00d This sounds painful and I can see why feeling like you have a lack of control is so painful and difficult to deal with. It's hard when we really want to have stable relationships with people and then small things build up, contribute to insecurity and we respond in anger in order to try to have some sense of control.

Something that you might already be familiar with is the concept that anger is usually just hiding pain and sadness, it's a defense mechanism in order for you to try to feel less weak and more capable of influencing things to go your way. The reason this is an issue is because as much as your boundaries are important, respecting other people's boundaries is too. It's alright to express your anger and your sadness, because it's extremely difficult to avoid it sometimes anyway, but it's all about how you express these feelings that makes a healthy difference.

What you can try to do is slow things down in order to better deal with them. What I do is try to reassure myself that the people in my life still care about me although I'm paranoid they don't and that the situation will probably be resolved in a more realistic way than whatever overdramatic thought about it I've spiraled to in my head. Then, I try to be self aware enough to pause when I'm having a problem with someone and ask to continue a conversation later and take some space to analyze and get out my feelings. What about whatever they said/did hurt me? What does this hurtful thing remind me of? Why would they do/say this? What did i do wrong? What can i learn from this situation? What do i realistically and reasonably want to happen instead? These can be helpful questions to reflect on. Journaling can help when you're mad so that you say all the things you really want to express but won't feel guilty about after when the situations blown over and you've made up with the person. Drawing, listening to music that fits the mood, venting to a counselor, or watching a movie that you can project your anger onto without anyone real getting hurt can all help.

Of course this is all considering you know your situation much better than I could because sometimes anger is completely justified because it really depends on the situation and people involved.

When you say that your parents gave in when you resorted to anger and that's influenced your behavior now, that felt really familiar to me and I think something that is also tied with that sometimes is feeling like you need to act out in order to get attention and feel like you're actually cared about.

You may not relate to that at all but I want to bring it up for anyone else who does... This is really painful because then it can lead to seeking out a sense of control, craving someone actually giving boundaries to you, and in worst cases being attracted to distant people because it'd repeat the painful patterns you're used to. Self discipline is really challenging and takes a long time to figure out but taking it slow makes it easier to see what to do next.

Sometimes we're so focused in how much we give to our relationships and what we wish we could have more of to compensate for it lacking in childhood that what's healthy isn't considered as much. This can be undone by trying to be aware of the other person's boundaries and researching more about how to preserve yours. Paying attention to what the other person is comfortable with and taking a break when you see yourself getting in the way can help a lot.

One final tactic that helps me when I'm angry is writing someone a letter and then editing it continuously once deciding that I'll only send it after the next day or in ten hours... Because usually I'll have calmed down by then and the edited version will be much more reasonable. Delaying anger responses goes a long way.

All that said, I'm not by any means a mental health professional and I'm only speaking from personal experience. I hope my perspective helps at least a little and you have a good day.