Temper problems / Photo by Abdillah Studio / Unsplash
“Anger is a symptom, a way of cloaking and expressing feelings too awful to experience directly—hurt, bitterness, grief, and, most of all, fear.” Joan Rivers
My Frankie is like a split personality. Most of the time he is the sweetest guy. He’d give you the shirt off his back. But when he gets mad, look out. Out of the blue he can turn into a monster. It’s like he can’t help himself. He gets red in the face, rants on and on over nothing, and half the time he doesn’t even know why he’s angry. He’s never been violent with me. I wouldn’t let him do that. Oh sometimes he tries to blame me. You know, his coffee is cold, so his whole day is ruined. But I know better. We’ve been through this too many times. I know it’s him not liking himself and trying to blame me. I only wish he knew that. He’d be a lot easier to live with if he didn’t put all this pressure on himself. But that’s Frankie for you!
Anger can be a constructive emotion when it is specific, in control and leads to a positive solution. However, some people express anger in a vague way, are out of control in how they express it and are unclear with what they want. Indeed, some of us have partners, like the woman in the example above, who are generally loving but have real temper problems. Often such partners get furious over seemingly insignificant events, are often inconsolable, and may blame us in some vague way for their turmoil. Having a temper is like being temporarily insane. Nobody knows what caused it, nobody knows what to do about it and nobody wants to be around it. Often people who lose control are apologetic afterwards and realizes they are mostly only hurting themselves. They may promise to not get mad again but they can’t keep such a promise since they have no idea what made them mad in the first place or how to stop it from reoccurring. They and their loved ones get caught in a never-ending cycle of inexplicable outbursts and painful melodramas. Some of the nicest people and their partners get endlessly plagued by anger demons.
The good news is that with competent help people can learn to escape this cycle and learn to control their tempers. However, people with temper problems frequently minimize their impact on themselves and others and see their lack of control as inborn, unchangeable aspects of themselves. In fact, just the opposite is true. As the quote above attests, faulty anger patterns can be stopped by looking at what is driving the anger. Anger issues are the lid on a Pandora’s box of personal insecurity.
What is a temper tantrum?
Anger issues are the lid on a Pandora’s box of personal insecurity.Most of us see displays of temper as expressions of anger. In fact they aren’t. They are expressions of fear and loss of control. When someone has a blowup they get physically aroused—red in the face, clenched fist, rapid shallow breathing, and muscle tension. They show obsessive thinking, distorted persecutory beliefs, and an inability to self-soothe as if they are preparing for war. In fact temper tantrums are trauma reactions—involuntary fighting responses to an invisible inner foe. Such hyperarousal episodes will be out of proportion to current events and may seem foolish to those who don’t see the invisible foe. It may take several hours for a hot head to calm down. But after the storm is over they have lasting negative effects on family relationships even when the irate loved one is apologetic. They cause damage to the person who loses control and to his or her loved ones all in the name of fighting an invisible war.
Costs of “losing it”
Having temper problems has many negative consequences. Significant health problems—heart disease, hypertension and immune system disorders—result from chronic hyperarousal episodes. Bodies that perpetually prepare for war out of the blue are very worn down over time and result in premature death.
Career and social difficulties can result from having temper. When you have a temper you feel ill-equipped to deal with the emotional nuances in relationships because some part of you is always out of control. Although peers may like you they often become on-guard around you and they may avoid you altogether. For this reason many people with hyperarousal underachieve in work and have iffy relationships.
Perhaps the greatest cost of temper tantrums is in our family relationships. When our loved ones know we can “lose it” for no reason they often tiptoe around us so as to not disturb us. They become distrustful of us and may fail to share the most personal aspects of themselves with us for fear of sending us over the top. They may tell us what we want to hear, causing us to have insincere and distant relationships with our children and spouse. When our primary partner has gone through many temper displays with us, he or she often loses trust altogether and feelings of closeness dissolve. Some partners get very discouraged, feel alone and get depressed with all the burdens of keeping us from going off. The love we receive from a significant partner is much less than what we could receive if we didn’t have a temper. Long after the temper tantrums are over, distrust and despair take over since none of us knows when the next episode will occur. People with temper problems cheat themselves out of being more deeply loved.
What causes temper tantrums?
Both men and women can have temper problems, although men who have higher testosterone levels than women are more prone to anger control issues. Many factors can cause temper issues. Drug abuse, unforeseen reactions to medication, sleep deprivation, psychoneurological conditions like ADHD, chronic agitated depression and right brain head injuries can result in people being on short fuse. People with post-traumatic stress disorder are prone to temper displays as a defense against invisible past foes. However, in my experience most temper problems are the result of learned aggression in one’s growing up years. When children are around adults who blow their stack as a coping mechanism for normal life stressors, they may learn to identify with the aggressor and continue such behaviors themselves in adult life. Such people don’t problem-solve when stressed, they become physically over aroused and “blow their stack” since that’s what they learned growing up and they currently lack other resources for handling stress. Although they may dislike the physical experience of “losing it,” they may enjoy the apparent control it gives them over others in handling stressful situations. People with temper tantrums are deathly afraid of abandonment and of feeling it is all their fault for why they are not loved. Oddly enough, temper displays often risk and may result in what they fear the most.
How can I help my partner?
Clearly if your mate is being violent it’s best to separate from him or her until your loved one has completed treatment for violence control. You will need support on protecting yourself and your children from assault and can do so by getting involved in the Domestic Abuse Project (612-874-7063 x232 or firstcall@mndap.org). Violence at home that is untreated only gets more frequent and more deadly. Otherwise, realize that your mate’s outbursts are always about problems inside him or her and actually have little to do with what provoked the crisis. Temper issues can only be solved by your partner getting competent psychological help. Promises for improvement never help. You may find yourself walking on eggshells around temper displays or placating a mate to avoid arguments. It’s best to realize that you are not the cause of arousal.
Oddly enough, temper displays often risk and may result in what they fear the most.All temper displays could always be handled in a calmer way. No matter how critical a part you played in the triggering incident, your partner’s losing it is always about his or her inability to handle stress. Don’t accept even one ounce of blame for the outbursts even if you played a big role. In fact, it’s wise to take a detached stance towards temper displays—an “in one ear out the other”—when your partner overracts.
Walking away from rantings and going about your business is a good idea. Your partner will get over it at some point and he or she will be a totally different person. If your loved one chases after you, leave the house with the children. Don’t ever argue or reason with a person in the midst of a meltdown. That will only throw gasoline on the fire. When the storm is over, you may consider writing him or her a letter saying how you and the children are affected by temper tantrums and ask him or her to get help. Realize that your mate is physically and psychologically wired to go off, something that won’t change unless he or she gets serious psychological help.
How can I tame my temper?
Start with admitting you have an anger problem that is hurting you and your loved ones. Realize your temper is a lot worse than you think. If you have any doubts about that just ask your spouse, children and friends how they are affected by your outbursts. They are affected by your temper more than they even know. They will also feel very sorry for you and wish you could control your anger, not because of how it affects them, but how it affects you. Your health, stress level, relationship with your spouse and children and overall life satisfaction are significantly impaired by your temper. When I talk with children of hotheaded parents their biggest life wish is for their hotheaded parent to get rid of his or her temper. Repeated displays of temper actually wire your children’s brains for overreaction to stress or spacing out reactions in their adult lives. Often that’s how you learned to be a hothead.
Temper control problems are very treatable by practical methods and don’t require extensive digging into the unconscious. You can learn to recognize your physical sensations to arousal, discover what internal and external situations invariably set you off, and learn how to develop your own personal anger control plan that you practice. Practice makes perfect. The more you practice controlling your anger, learning to relax your body under stress and develop emotional competence, the much easier it will be to always stay in control. Eventually your brain gets rewired to respond to stress differently. Instead of winding up, you learn to wind down and handle things. Read The Anger Control Workbook by Mathew McKay and Peter Rogers. Taming your temper not only changes your day, it changes your life and the lives of those who love you.
John H. Driggs, was a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in St. Paul and co-author of Intimacy Between Men.
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