Anger control, pls Help!

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This time I would really appreciate some good help from you here. I'm in despair with my ongoing anger control issues, that is, the lack of it. To tell a long story short, this morning I've found myself crying badly after a serious road-rage incident. I was aggressive, I have no valid excuse for it, even though I was the one insulted when I was commuting to work on my bike.

Anger comes and wins, everything else is down deep in the toilet for a couple of minutes, along with my self-esteem in the end. What should I do? Maybe meditation, medication, but how and which? Any idea?

hiya Ojani
i feel where you're coming from. i get insulted on my bike [or when i'm out walking] all the time. the people who would behave in such an undignified manner are not worth fretting over, they are just like obnoxiously noisy barking stinky-assed dogs. you would not be upset or feel insulted by a dog barking at you, would you? i thought not. only decently civil human beings are NOT as dogs. treat the dogs [whether they're furry or clean-shaven in clothing] as dogs [IOW treat them as potentially dangerous lower animals and keep a wide berth around them] until they demonstrate their civilization. if these dogs still get you down, just mentally picture these people with dog collars around their necks, naked and squatting in their filth. also remember, that the human brain cannot hold in working memory more than one discrete complete thought at one time, so when you feel a lousy thought in your head, immediately kick it out by replacing or overwriting it with another different thought. this is a matter of will, you have to know that your willpower can chase out the bad thought and replace it with the better [more appropriate] thought. the more you practice this, the quicker and more automatic the process becomes. soon, when the human dogs start barking at you, you automatically will know that they are just dogs and not worth one iota of your brain's resources.
my advice to you, is that if mental hygiene techniques like what i described above, don't work for you, ask a pdoc for a script for strattera, i can vouch for the fact that this particular pmed helped me to shrug-off the normal nasties other people throw at me.

I have what is known as 'rage attacks' alongside meltdowns. Quite a lot of people with various conditions can have rage attacks. In america it is known as IED (Intermittent explosive disorder). In England it is known as nothing but rage attacks. I lose control completely and don't remember anything I have done until a lot later. It's kind of like what drunk people describe as they slowly start to remember what they did the night before.

Express your anger in a safer way next time it happens.

Obviously in public it's a bit more difficult..

I'm no expert. When I lash out it has rarely caused me any real trouble.

Auntblabby, thanks, I just looked up Strattera. It seems good at first glance. Too bad I would have to pay the full price, there's no subsidy here. I will try the thought-replacing technique, though.

Jellybean, I'm conscious during such an episode of anger attack, I have only different perception temporarily, and I find it extremely difficult to control my behavior. It's like you are watching a TV-show or something.

The_Perfect_Storm, I know, I know, your are right... I'm trying. It's more difficult when I'm going to work than when I'm heading home. At work, I can't afford to pull off a meltdown.

Thanks to you all.

Anyone else? (kick my arse if you want, I deserve it...)

I have been trying the thought replacement technique to fight off obsessive thoughts and some mild anger as part of my cognitive behavioral therapy. It's a subset of cognitive restructuring, I think. All I can say is that, unfortutanely, I find it exteremely hard to achieve. Some thoughts really get hold of you and don't want to let go.

Our brains are massively parallel processors and lots is happening at once. Even though we seem to be able to focus on only one thought at a time, there is a whole lot of thoughts and processes that are happening in the background and affecting how our brain works. But still, obsessive thoughts have a way of sticking around and pushing everything to the backgroung.

Thought replacement works only temporarily for me.

What works for me is :
- putting the energy that disturbs me into sport (running is easy to do for example)
- when I am calm again, saying out loud a thought I want to clarify.
- when I feel no more confusion about this thought, do it with next thought
- If I get again to much energy running into my body, do sport again, etc.

This works 100% for me.

I also do relaxation with hypnosis.

My 16yo DS who also has ADHD has horrible anger issues. Straterra made him much worse. Vyvanse has helped his ADHD immensly and also helped him control the anger much better. His stems from frustration.

I get FURIOUS when I get mad. When something bothers me, especially something I see as being unfair to me or my kids, I will NOT let it go. I try to stay calm, but that doesn't always help. I know to try and think about it rationally, about how whatever my first urge to do (usually nothing violent, I don't get violent except during major meltdowns and then I only throw things) is not the best solution to the problem, but even though I know that and tell myself that, at the time it seems to be the best thing to do. As a result, I have called and cussed people out, reported them to their superiors, wrote scathing letters to the editor, contacted lawyers, etc. Sometimes those were the best solutions, other times they were not.

For me, when I'm that angry, NOT doing anything RIGHT THEN, feels like just letting people walk all over me. I am afraid that the moment to act effectively will pass and I will have done nothing. Most of the time, that's not the case. Most of the time, it's better to wait and then do something.

An example would be if my best friend spread a rumor about me and I found out. I would immediately want to 1) tell all her secrets 2) spread a rumor about her based on those secrets 3) call her and cuss her out loudly 4) post it all on facebook. I can control that though, when I'm very angry by reminding myself that I could get her back worse if I just wait. I tell myself to give myself time to think about it and come up with something really good.

That was an example of someone doing something malicious to me on purpose.

If somebody does something that isn't done to me on purpose, ie; the gas company not being able to make arrangements on my bill so I can pay it before it's cut off, I want to scream and yell into the phone. I want to throw a fit. Sometimes I'll do that if my stress and frustration level is very high. I can't help it. But, I make myself think of options. If I scream on the phone to the gas company, then hang up and come up with another idea, when I call back I will be just thought of as "that crazy lady" and they won't cooperate. So, I try and be nice and sweet and polite, even though I don't feel that way, to make them want to be able to cooperate with me. This has done more for getting things done in those kinds of situations, rules, red tape, etc, than getting mad at them did. I try and relate to them. Be friendly. Be understanding. Make them see me as a person and not just as another customer to deal with. I remind myself that I can't get it resolved by showing my anger.

One thing I have learned about controlling anger is that it's not about controlling the anger itself. You will still get just as angry. It's about controlling your behavior when angry. You have a greater advantage, whatever the situation, if you do not show your anger. What I try to do is remind myself beforehand if I'm going into a situation where I'll likely get angry, to be calm, and not show frustration or anger. I may feel like I want to strangle the person, but I'll have a smile on my face and a polite voice. In my head, I've convinced myself, that at times like those, being nice to her is hurting her worse than yelling at her would be. Because it is. If someone is unreasonable with you while doing their job, if you stay calm and polite, then report them politely, their boss will believe you over them. If the person can't say "Well so and so screamed at me and threw a fit" then you have the upper hand. Try and think of not SHOWING your anger while still allowing yourself to FEEL the anger. Focus on keeping the upper hand. Calm people always have the upper hand. Calm people aren't always calm at all, they just don't show it.

I told you all this, not to make it about me, but to explain how it works for me, and what I try to do about it. It doesn't always work, but the more I try to do it, the more I can actually do it.

Good luck!

A lot of good advice in above posts. I suffer from rage attacks also at times. More PTSD related but AS gives me low frustration tolerance which can also lead to anger outbursts. I am working on forgiving myself for this, rather than being upset at myself. Otherwise it feeds back into a negative cycle. Anger is a natural, important and useful response sometimes. If I have a really bad attack sometimes I give myself permission to go somewhere totally alone and smash something of no value, to release the physical build-up. It is important not to expose others to this, even animals.

I think the same emtyeye.

I identified the following negative cycle :

judging => feeling of guilt => representation of punishment => fear of punishment => reaction => agressiveness or taking flight => judging

At each step, you can exit the circle :

judging => do not judge
feeling of guilt => putting things into perspective
representation of punishment => punishment is pointless
fear of punishment => putting things into perspective
reaction => relaxation, calming down
agressiveness => sport or breaking something with no importance
taking flight => it is ok to a certain extent

sometimes one should say to one's self, "don't just do something, stand there!" i remember a psych prof telling us one of the benefits of smoking [this was decades back in a smokier era] was that it was a prop or crutch that gave him more deliberative space in which to better compose his thoughts before he let them out of his mouth. but one doesn't have to take a drag to do this, one can [with certain truculant people] just make oneself pause for several seconds and think a bit before doing the next thing that would normally happen. the late lawrence welk [band leader of the "a one 'an-a two" style] had a notoriously foul temper, and to keep relations between him and his band at a civil level, he had to learn to count to ten before he spoke sometimes.
the thought substitution technique was never intended to be a permanent fix, it is a tool for the moment, and one will have to keep using it whenever those nasty thoughts pop up. as for the fact that background cognitive processing is chocablock with many discrete elements [maybe thousands?] it is the conscious thought which does the driving in most cases, and just as the background thoughts lead up to the conscious thought, so too can the intentional conscious thought alter the background thoughts as well. sometimes the cart drives the horse. just a thought.

Lawerence Welk had a bad temper? He doesn't seem like butter would melt in his mouth! He seemed like he would be so nice and never get mad or upset. Wow!

from reading his autobiography, one would not have so much as a hint, but from speaking with people who actually worked with him back in the day, i found out that he had a short german temper- i say german because i come from such stock myself, and my relations were all hotheads as well.