In my ongoing battle with depression and anxiety, I’ve looked back when I lost my cool and realized that anger was just the outlet for what the real problem was.
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I remember many times when I would be losing my mind about something and at the same time in the deep recesses of my mind thinking, “what am I freaking out for?” If you haven’t dealt with depression or anxiety, you probably have no idea about what I am talking about. However, you most definitely have encountered someone who is combating the disease, and this can give you some insight into what might have been happening.
I had been wronged, disrespected, or taken advantage of and someone was going to pay the price.
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I am in no way an expert on depression and anything I talk about isn’t considered medical advice; it is simply my perspective on what was going on with me. Also, not everyone deals with things the same way. Just because someone loses their temper doesn’t mean they are depressed or have a mental health issue. However, for those of us who do, when we lose control, it becomes another moment of failure for us. When I knew I was in one of those moments, I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t slow down, I couldn’t be rationalized with.
At those times, I was angry, and that anger in my mind was justified. I had been wronged, disrespected, or taken advantage of and someone was going to pay the price. All too often it was someone that I cared for, and someone that didn’t deserve the vitriol I was spewing. These aren’t easy things for me to talk about because it’s an admission of being wrong, and not just wrong; I was downright awful at times.
For a lot of men, I think we feel that there are times when anger and conflict are our only options. The problem was that, for me, and what I was dealing with, those times came far too often. What I have realized though is that a lot of times it wasn’t anger–it was something deeper.
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When it was stress— This is probably the easier one for me to identify now, it’s also one that touches just about everyone. For me, however, it flipped my anger switch much easier than most. It could have been bills or other money issues, it could have been a deadline at work or an unpleasant meeting that I didn’t want to take part in, or it could have simply been the drive home. No matter what the stress was in life at that time, my usual response was to lash out at someone for something trivial. Many times I’ve done damage to relationships simply because I was stressed out and not because the person had wronged me in any way.
When it was helplessness— When I was deepest in a moment of depression or anxiety the primary feeling I had about just about anything was helplessness. The times when I wanted nothing more than to go to a cold dark room and crawl under a blanket until the storm passed. The problem is life rarely gives you the opportunity to just hide, and when I couldn’t run away from an issue that I thought I couldn’t deal with, I erupted into fury.
In my mind, it seemed to be the only way I could have any control was when I was in a rage. If I screamed and beat my chest loud enough, I thought I was gaining back some kind of control. All I was doing was pushing away anyone that could have helped. If I couldn’t control a situation or felt as though I couldn’t “fix it,” then I reacted this way, and I certainly lacked control, mainly over myself. It wasn’t anger; it was me trying to get away so I could retreat to the cold dark room.
When it was fear— This was the most common factor for my anger, mainly because it was a product of the first two. As men, we are naturally reluctant to admit when we are afraid of anything. So when I was scared, the only thing I could do was make it seem like I wasn’t. The easiest way to do that was to become angry about the issue at hand. If I acted pissed off enough about it, then whoever I decided was the source of my problem would know to back off and correct their ways. The reality is simply that I was scared to death. I was afraid of failure; I was afraid of losing, I was scared of disappointing someone, I was scared of what others thought. I allowed the fear to wreck my joy and the happiness of many in my path.
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I can’t go back and change anything I’ve done or said in the past. I can only try to make up for it one day at a time. Nothing in the future guarantees I won’t make some of the same mistakes again, and unfortunately, I still do occasionally. What I can do is recognize when they happen and try to figure out where it’s coming from, and try to be better every day.
Of course, I am sorry for all the individual times this did happen, but knowing I could have prevented many of them earlier is the biggest regret of all.
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Photo: Flickr/ Max Boschini