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Being aware of your anger is healthy. Feel free to write about what made you upset and look for other feelings hidden away. Look underneath to see what is hidden there:
- Someone hurt your feelings
- Someone hurt your body
- You didn't get what you wanted
- You did something wrong and got made instead of admitting it
- Someone took something from you
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| Unhealthy Anger |
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Anger can actually help to make you more depressed, feeling like you don't care about things, doing destructive activities and letting your relationships fall apart.
Sometimes anger is expressed in the following (less-direct) ways:
- Hanging on to resentments and gossiping, stealing, conning.
- Trying to make other people angry.
- Self-blame, being critical of yourself and being overly helpful while quietly suffering.
Sometimes anger is aggressive:
- Threatening, frightening people, saying how you will harm them or their property.
- Physical violence or verbal abuse, unfair jokes, ignoring people’s feelings.
- Being unpredictable, being a friend one minute and revengeful or selfish the next
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| Handling Anger |
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Try to both control anger and allow the emotion to come out in a healthy way. For example:
- Being honest and direct with the person you are angry with.
- Being prepared to argue your case—sticking to your issue of concern--without abusing the person.
- Try to be creative, use humor or come up with new ideas and new views on the issue.
- Solve the problem. Work to become calm so you have better ability to solve the real problem—because you are not going to be thinking clearly when angry.
- Forgive. Be willing to hear other’s anger and upsets, but then show an ability to "wipe the slate clean."
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| Other Ideas |
- Deep breathing: Make your breath go down deep into your body as far as you can. Breathing can help you calm and bring you back where you can think more clearly.
- Practice staying clam: Practice paying attention to what is happening, focusing on calmly watching rather than knee-jerk reactions.
- Self-Talk: Talk to yourself when you are upset. Say things to help you chill out, talk yourself down.
If talking to your friends or parents doesn't; help solve your problems, then you may need to get someone trained to help you work things out.
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| Counseling Resources |
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Family Resources - 741-3575
www.angriesout.com
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