Anger

Anger is one of those words that discomfort most people.  Even though we all get angry, we often want to pretend as if we do not.  Rage, on the other hand, is a word that evokes vivid images of spousal abuse, drunken rages, or wild combat.  It is a word that most civilized people dare not breath.  So, we have euphemisms:  "very angry", "riotously drunk", and "seeing red."  We almost never label rage for what it is; the extreme anger that is accompanied by an unbridled energy that demands action.  Rage is either uncontrollable or almost uncontrollable.  Normal anger is white when rage is red; it is controllable even as it simmers.  Rage is a fire-brand; it demands uncontrolled action.  This is why people in the boxing profession say that rage looses fights; it burns out the fighter with its fury leaving behind a shell of a boxer who cannot box any longer.  In the fighting sports rage is the antithesis of control and success.  And, young fighters are warned never to get angry in the ring.

I write about anger and rage because they have touch my life.  Rage has threatened to consume me over and over.  Anger, on the other hand, is a healthy, not so consuming, experience.  I write about rage and anger, because they are apart of my experience of bipolar.  I wish that all of my experiences with rage could be retroactively converted to experiences of anger.  I wish all my future experiences with rage would be converted to anger.  Through hard work, I have learned to moderate the rage, to convert it to anger, and to prevent it from getting out of control.  I am not always successful, but I will share the tools that I use.

It should be noted that one needs to recognize the difference between anger and rage when it is happening.  This is more sophisticated than your run-of-the-mill recognize-your-anger-feelings that is used in therapy.  One has to distinguish the minor feelings of frustration from the major rage feelings that threaten self-control.  Indeed, the very threat to self-control can be the tip-off that rage is under way.

What goes on physiologically when rage is starting up?  Something activates the stress-response cycle.  The heart rate increases, paling or flushing occurs, constriction of blood vessels every where except the muscles occur, the tear duct constricts, blood vessels for the muscles dilate, pupils dilate, and there is tunnel vision and auditory exclusions.  In the intended circumstance, this all helps one focus on the threat to survival.  However, rage, at some ordinary event, is not the intended circumstance for the stress-response cycle.  Instead, with rage, this all helps one focus on the source of the trigger.  This means that most people with rage can easily recognize their trigger(s), although they may have less success dealing with the stress-response itself.

When I feel myself getting hot-under-the-collar in a rage kind of way, I find intense exercise to be the most useful.  I have literally interrupted conversations to sprint as hard as I can around the block.  Intense exercise has the effect of directly relieving the stress-response through action--through placing a demand on the dilated blood vessels for the muscles.  A sprint, done properly, both is harmless and effective, as sprinting is one of the most strenuous sports in the world.  One should exercise care and warm up properly, as in jog for 5 minutes to prepare the hamstrings for the strenuous effort of sprinting at full speed.  Another type of intense exercise that I like to use is hitting a punching bag.  This is demanding both in terms of accuracy and in terms of the weight of the bag, i.e. a heavy bag.  I cannot count the times that I have mentally pasted the picture of a adversary on the bag and walloped it.  Aside from sprinting and punching bags, I have done other exercises that come in handy: jumping, push-ups, grip work, and kicking.  It is easy to see that my tastes run in the martial direction and having a punching bag handy is useful for me.

The other tool that I have used is deep breathing.  Here the task is to slow down when the rage threatens to strike.  One must have the presence of mind to breath.  One breath, hold it for a 2-count, second breath, hold it for a 2-count, and so on up to a ten breaths.  There is abundant evidence that a deliberate breathing pattern slows down the stress-response cycle.  Slowly the blood vessels to the muscles stop dilating and the tunnel vision and auditory exclusions cease.  Usually this strategy requires stepping outside the triggering circumstance, in order to fully implement the deep breathing.

Since I regularly deal with rage, I cultivate an understanding among my closest relatives that I might take off to sprint at any moment.  I encourage them to be understanding of my exercise and deep breathing, and I ask them just to wait for me if I take off suddenly.  Through experience, they have all come to understand that I will come back better collected and able to handle whatever circumstance triggered the rage.