Flew Into a Rage? Some Better Ways to Engage.

I write a lot about women whose coping mechanisms involve people-pleasing,

and lack of personal boundaries where boundaries are clearly necessary.

I tend to discuss the kinds of women who lack the ability to advocate for and

protect themselves.

Women who lack the capacity to handle criticism or blame, and they’ll do so much

to avoid both of those things.

These are all learned coping skills, which people usually pick up during their

childhood, and continue to use and develop as they age.

Those patterns I described above often involve low self-esteem, even

self-loathing, and a low level of differentiation.

However, there is another coping pattern that may not receive as much attention

in my articles. It is no less of a survival mechanism, and it stems from the same

place.

Women exhibit these patterns no less than the ‘people-pleasing’ and ‘victimhood’

patterns.

I’m talking about Rage Episodes.

Outbursts of explosive anger usually happen when we are with the people closest

to us: our husbands and children. They are selective, other people may not be

able to picture us having an outburst of any kind…!

These explosive emotional outbursts stem from deep emotional distress.

The outbursts can manifest with behaviors of hitting, throwing, cursing, breaking

objects, roaring, uncontrollable weeping, escalating rage and a stubborn

resistance to all efforts of people around us to regulate us.

Rage outbursts are caused by loss of control.

Even when the person who bursts out in anger gets what they (say they) want,

they still have trouble settling down emotionally.

People who have rage episodes have an incredible burden of guilt to carry after

the outburst is over.

They promise themselves they will never again let themselves lose control of their

emotions or their behavior, but…

When the trigger that sets them off comes up again, they find themselves having

another outburst.

They keep swinging from anger to guilt and feelings of worthlessness.

The outbursts are unlikely to disappear on their own.

Beating yourself up will not help you create positive change- (you probably figured

out that much by now.)

Here’s the steps I recommend to get to a more positive way of coping:

(The work on emotional outbursts and rage episodes is actually the same work

we all do to change any other behavior pattern.)

You need to be able to look at yourself with grace, judge favorably, be gentle with

yourself.

You need to recognize, and have sympathy for the level of distress you are in

when the outburst takes place.

Simultaneously, you must identify what the exact trigger that sets you off every

time is.

Did your husband/children hurt your core sense of self worth and make you feel

unworthy?

Did you feel unseen and invisible?

Were you reacting to overwhelming fears or panic?

Did you feel degraded, overlooked, waved aside, not meaningful, useless?

What exactly was the core pain that triggered this survival mechanism of flying

into a rage?

What caused you to start fighting back and attacking whatever was

nearest to you in a way that was not proportional to the inciting incident, almost as

if you were fighting for your life?

After you learn to slowly, slowly, identify your biggest triggers, you can slowly,

slowly learn to recognize them even when you are actively being triggered.

You can notice what is happening to you, you can give your sensations and

feelings recognition: “Oh… right now, I feel like I am going to explode… it’s

because I feel like everything I do is invisible and I have no purpose here.”

The next step is learning and practicing techniques for self-soothing, so you can

get yourself down from the tree you are unconsciously climbing before the fuse

blows and the branch breaks.

You can learn to be aware of your internal temperature and get off the battlefield,

avoiding the triggers much earlier, and give yourself the support that you require,

whether it’s a prayer, writing, meditation, breathing, mindfulness, speaking to the

child within, taking a warm bath, getting a hug, chocolate or whatever other tools

work for you.

Each of us has the things that work for us.

If you feel that the ways you react to things around you and your behaviors are

creating a certain level of suffering for you, I encourage you to learn to identify

your specific coping patterns and how they are triggered, so you can learn to

avoid playing out the same patterns over and over again.

I invite you to seek out ways to soothe yourself when you get triggered, so that

with time you can shift your patterns to create healthier coping mechanisms that

you feel a lot more comfortable and confident with.

These patterns are not actually set in stone. You can manage and control the

ways you get triggered and decrease the intensity of your reactions, no matter

what the specific behaviors are.

You can look at yourself in the mirror and see someone that you are beginning to

like, maybe even admire.

Good luck.