Life 2.0 Pt 4

[NH115]

Finally got home from second job, so I wanted to check in on you. You said it's one thing while you are not triggered, it is easy. Absolutely. Sandi brought up a good point with the anger management classes. One of the things they teach you is to be aware of warning signs within yourself. You already know triggers (hot topics in this case). When you start to get angry, what are some of the things that go on with you? Think in terms of physical sensations (jaw clenching, muscle tension, bugs crawling, heart pounds, etc.), thoughts ("I can't believe she's doing this again", "Here is more talk about him", etc.), and feelings.

That's basically what our C suggested when we were discussing a time out. We needed to spot our triggers and call time out before they got out of control. I hadn't thought about anger management classes before, but I am considering IC.

Keep in mind, anger is more like a behavior than an emotion. I use the iceberg analogy a lot. What we see is the tip of the iceberg, which is only about 1/3 of the whole thing. We see that behavior. However, there are more true feelings underneath it: insecurity, frustration, impatience, despair, fury, depression..You name it.

That's an interesting way to describe anger. I always thought of it as an emotion, but you're right. There's definitely all those other emotions that you named under it for me.

I also want to echo what Sandi said about the groveling. Really ask yourself what you mean by that. DB/DR says that we are the first to make the changes. We lead the way. Sometimes you have to agree with them from THEIR perspective, not your's. The biggest tool I use in therapy is called reframing. It allows me to agree with almost anything, because I can see where they are coming from. Think about where she is at in this process.

"Groveling" was the feeling I had at the time, when she was talking to me the morning after our big blowup. My basic thought at the time was, "Why am I doing all the heavy lifting? This has been a journey of profound change for me. What the hell is she doing to change?" I do like the way you put it; that we're "leading the way". When I can think of it that way, I feel more in charge; I know that a feeling of helplessness is one of my anger triggers. I don't feel in control of my fate, so I lash out. I can intellectually see where she's coming from; as I've said before, her issues with me are not all out of left field. I'm just constantly being told that there's no way for me to remedy the issues that drove us apart. The way she talks, it's not enough that I recognize, deal with and learn from the mistakes in the past; I should have prevented the issues from happening in the first place. Yeah, that's going to happen. I know that this is classic WAS rhetoric. You'd think that I'd be used to it by now.