Frisbees and Fisticuffs

This blog has nothing to do with frisbees.  But I'll see if I can incorporate some kind of comparison.

To preface, this is going to be a more vulnerable blog.  Some people might freak out.  Others will relate.  I think more people would relate than not.  But I'm going to put myself out there.

I remember the first time I broke a wall.  I was mad and stormed down to the basement.  On the way down I smacked the wall/ceiling in front of me and put a big hole in it.  I wasn't mad anymore.  I was scared.  My dad was gonna be pissed.

I'll never forget his response.  It wasn't anger.  Instead he took some fault for my behaviors.  I didn't get in trouble.  Instead he fixed it and we remembered that moment.  I still haven't forgotten it.

because, puppies. 

It was only a few years after that, that I was on the phone with a girlfriend and we had an argument.  I punch a wall in our basement.  I didn't realized that behind the paneling was concrete and I broke my hand.  I wasn't mad after I hit it.

Over the next several years when I would get angry I would hit something.  I wasn't sure why I would get such rage.  I was never mad at people.  Never in my life have I ever been so mad at someone I wanted to inflict a violent act on them.

I've punched walls, doors, personal belongings, my truck, and I've even thrown things like my truck door, vacuums, iPads, iPhones, or remote controls.  I tried punching bags but they rarely worked.  Something had to break.   

What would usually happen afterwards is that I wouldn't be angry anymore.  But anyone around me was scared.  Not only for themselves, but also for me.  It didn't matter how much I said my anger is not towards a person.

I never really learned how to deal with anger properly.  But I did self learn that if I hit something I would feel better.  I knew it wasn't good.  There were other negative consequences to this (scaring others), but it worked.  As much as I've tried to stop this pattern, it always comes back.

Here's the pattern.  Something would trigger me and I'd get angry.  When it wouldn't stop or I couldn't come down, I'd punch something like a door or throw something.  Though, I learned that throwing something didn't work as well as punching something.  Then I would clean up the mess and a sense of guilt and shame would happen.  I know it wasn't good behavior, but it was helping me out of a mess.  And even to this day I feel like when people look at me all they see is a loose cannon with a bad temper that will automatically punch things when he gets angry or stressed.

But that's a lie that I need to stop telling myself.  Well, I guess not since now you all know whether you did before or not.

But it scared my wife.  And I know my kids have seen this behavior, though I tried to hide it from them.  I want this pattern to stop.  To my defense, it has been far less frequent as of the past year or two.

But why?  Why did that work?  What was causing me to do that?  Am I the only one?

I found out why it worked two days ago and it was revolutionary for me.  Have you ever been hiking and see a snake in the middle of the trail?  Or perhaps another frightening event.  Usually when I see a snake I'm already ten feet up a tree when my conscious self even realizes I see a snake.  Adrenaline surges through my body and it usually takes the parasympathetic system a second to figure out what the threat is.  It's your bodies defense/survival mechanism.  Act first, ask questions later.

A similar thing happens when you experience pain.  Your brain focus shifts to the physical pain.  What I believe my brain was doing, was self preservation.  I had learned that physical pain shuts down emotional pain without even realizing I was doing it.  It wasn't that something had to break.  It was that when I would punch a door, it would hurt!  My attention was automatically shifted to my physical pain rather than whatever emotional pain was happening.  And once the physical pain had subsided, a new emotion crept in.  Shame.

But good news!  I wasn't angry anymore.  And now I know what the mechanism that is involved is.  All I need to do so engage my physical senses when I start to get angry.  Think about my hands.  Maybe how warm I am.  Focus on my breath for a minute.  ANYTHING except the emotional brain.

Perhaps this is why exercise often helps when someones mood is low.  The physical work takes over the emotional brain space.

Anyway.  I just thought I'd share this helpful tidbit of knowledge.

Someone piss me off.  I want to try this theory out and think about my physical self when I start to get angry.

Actually don't. I'd rather let that happen on it's own.

Oh yeah, frisbees.  If you don't do it right from the beginning, the path will be askew.   Learn good patterns and behaviors early, so that you will be on the straight and narrow later in life.