She Said I Had Porridge For Brains — Here Is How You Can Manage Extreme Anger

Yesterday I was attacked by someone who hurled insults at me in public.

“You are a University graduate but your reasoning and intellect are non existent, you lack even the base cognition that aids a child in knowing how to take a shit,.. Then you call yourself an engineer? A phony maybe… All that wasted money, it could have just as well been drained down the toilet…”

That was one of the insults that got to me.

So many toilet references. Yuck!!! Ok, back to the point.

I had to endure a walk of shame with a crowd of about 50 people staring at me probably in agreement with the person that said these things.

I regretted why I offered to help but there was no time to dwell on that. There were more pressing issues to deal with — My social anxiety.

My whole body was itching, I could not think properly and the only feeling I had was anger. Whatever my physiology was doing, I won’t get into that.

When I got home, I was still boiling, or my anger was.

So I started writing bits and pieces of this article to document my recovery from it as I went through the recovery process but most importantly to enter a flow state as if withdrawing inwards to stop me from engaging with the other person while still angry.

There are parts to the process of recovering from anger.

1. The dwelling phase
2. The reconnecting phase.

This is how I refer to them in regards to my experiences.

When I am angry, I find that whatever is making me angry is within me. Let me use a physical example to explain what I mean.

When someone falls down, onlookers won’t be able to feel that person’s physical pain simply because they are not the ones whose pain receptors are being triggered.

Anger works the same way. For it to have a hold on you, something within you must be triggered. What is triggered may be deep insecurity or a fear… But it is always something that you fiercely fight against.

For anger, that fierce fight is projected out and manifests as your rage against someone else. — The person that triggers it.

Another person or event does trigger it but then again, they are just triggers and not the real problem.

Often times when I am angry with someone, I cannot see beyond how horrible they are. This can take a very long time too.

But when I go through the process of taking power away from the anger, the real reason I am angry surfaces and it’s always very clear and always has nothing to do with the person that triggered it.

This helps me abandon the feelings of anger relatively faster than if I were to wait for my relationship with the other person to be repaired.

But the process of dealing with my internal issues when I want to recover from extreme anger happens in 2 phases as I said earlier.

The dwelling phase

This is the phase where your emotions are boiling. You actually have little or no control over this. It is a violent stir of emotions that you can jump into at any time. In fact, this is the default for many and it feels good for all.

In this phase, you still have options. You will either feed the anger or take power away from it and back into your wellbeing.

If you feed the anger, then you go down the path of blame and revenge, and pretty much your work here is done. Hatred, fights, deaths, regrets, traumas, and so on will follow when you feed the anger.

But if you choose to take the power away from the anger, you have to do a lot more work while in the dwelling phase.

It begins with silence.

The first step to taking power back and away from the anger is to be quiet.

Withdraw physically from the thing that is causing you anger and withdraw your attention from the external engagement by keeping quiet.

A few curse words might slip as you get into the silence and that's okay. Let them go and try to arrest the rest.

I was so angry but I tried to remain quiet…After a few curse words of course. I am only human after all.

I quickly retreated to a safe place where I could be alone with my thoughts for some time.

Observe your emotions without judgment

During this time, I actively try to observe all thoughts without judgment.

I just observe them without defending. If I find myself defending some thought, I must try to actively refrain from it.

I do this by simply asking questions about how and why I got myself into this.

Questions such as…

1. Why did this person insult my intellect in Infront of so many people?
2. What did I do that made them think that way about me?
3. Whether it is my fault or not, how could I have done better to avoid this?

You notice that as the question accumulate they become more about what role I had to play in that situation rather than thinking about the other person.

Ask questions in your mind until you get to a point where those questions are about the role you had to play in the angering rather than what other people did to you.

Prepare for the distractions

During this dwelling phase, the anger is still so much and you may find yourself getting into another inconvenience, totally unrelated to the incident.

It is a case of one bad thing leading to another.

For instance in my case, when I got home and was still boiling with all these negative emotions, someone asked me to make them tea, while I was making it, the entire bowl of sugar fell and shattered into pieces.

The sugar was everywhere and had this been like many times before, I would have been even more furious.

But when this happens, you must arrest yourself before you transfer your energy into that other event. Close your eyes and take deep breaths if you must.

Just don’t pay attention to it. Keep dwelling in the feelings from the original event. Observe those thoughts, not the distractions.

This is also why you should not be doing something dangerous or risky when you are extremely angry.

Don’t drive, don’t operate dangerous machinery, don’t cross the road… give yourself time in a safe place to heal first.

This part can take 15–60 minutes. But it’s important.

Get into flow

When you are angry, anything you say will carry anger in it. Requests will become commands, pleas will become ultimatums, innocence will be manipulative, and so on.

Just avoid talking if you can. Stay away from your phone if it also triggers you.

When you are angry, you can easily enter flow provided you are observing your thoughts. By this I mean you can easily enter a state where you can give so much concentrated effort on a single task.

Do this.

For me, that became cleaning up the broken glass and wasted sugar from the flow after which it became documenting thoughts for this article.

Just do something all while still observing your thoughts. Something that can stop you from being consumed by the observations.

Finding what was triggered and why you are triggered

If you move into this flow state, you will soon, find the true reason as to why you are upset.

It jumps out at you clear as day right about the time you mentally take full responsibility for the situation you found yourself in.

For me, the reason I found was that I was so embarrassed for being called less of a man in Infront of so many people who appeared to agree with the person hurling these insults.

I didn’t care that she thought I was stupid. I didn’t care that she thought I was lazy. I didn’t care that she said I couldn’t use a toilet. I didn’t care that she called my degree and intellect phony.

I have massive social anxiety so such embarrassments are some of my worst nightmares.

I know this because I would rather watch a gory horror movie but I can’t watch a person being embarrassed in public. Yes. I cover my eyes. Always.

Even without embarrassing situations, I always try to avoid people. This is probably why I leave for the office at 5:30 am before everyone wakes up.

For different people, the reasons will be different. But you must find what your real reason is.

Once you recognize it, the anger ceases to take so much control over you.

The reconnecting Phase

Use this time to try getting yourself back into your normal routine.

You can do this by connecting with pets for instance.

We have a puppy at home, Pete. So he was the one I went to.

Playing with them can lighten up your mood just enough to where you can reenter human conversations without so much anger.

Another method is listening to the voices of people that make me happy.

It could be one person.

Voice notes from past conversations that make you smile a little, distracting yourself with TikTok videos, watching cats do six-foot vertical jumps on youtube, and so on…

Anything that will bring a smile back on your face is fair game. Use it.

Steer clear of hate and blame

During the reconnecting phase, you may find yourself gravitating towards negative content. Sad songs, violent movies, and all that stuff.

Doing this could feel good but it has an effect of seeding bitterness in you. Remember, use things that make you smile. Not things that match your negative state.

You are dealing with bursts of violent anger, not depression. Therefore you want to take steps that will help you heal from that anger without leaving your spirit dimmer.

Stick to the cat videos for the smiles. We need smiles.

By now you only have to keep your mind away from the hate.

You will also have learned about something that triggers you that badly and you can begin taking steps to improve.

I don’t know how I will conquer my social anxiety yet but I am actively working on it and I know that I will fix it very soon

This is how I approach these situations that anger me and how I use them to regain my sanity without hurting myself or other people.