Surviving the Anger at Christmas and the Holidays

There is a lot of talk about reflection at Christmas, but I think that in reality, the brain is likely making room for thinking about unfinished business, and that likely means thinking about hurts and anger of the past year and of your life as far back as you are caring to remember. 

The busyness of the season is winding down prior to the actual holiday in four days.  Most of the parties are over.   School is generally out.  People are winding down from the holiday celebrations and settling in for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  The majority of people pretty much know what is going to be happening for Christmas by now.   There may be some scurrying around stores after work to look for gifts and preparing for travel, but otherwise, there is time and place for thinking.

As I discussed yesterday, many of us have been victims.  We have been hurt when we were vulnerable by insensitive and abusive people.  Bosses and supervisors and companies have overplayed the “take it for the team” mentality now and after two years when they are getting bonuses and employees got a chintzy cost of living raise but had the price of benefits increased—it ain’t flying.    The result is our feelings of  anger and guardedness.

Many of us have had our disappointments. Things that we were expecting to have happened during 2011 did not happen.   Of course, the economy has continued to be terrible and jobs have been slow to become available.    We were expecting better and we are frustrated, which is a form of anger.

Some of us continue to have the ongoing saga of anger towards the insensitive and uncaring family members who seem to be self-absorbed, elusive and patronizing.   We spend a few hours with them and then we remember why we do not see them very often—they are total jerks.  They make condescending comments and they act like they are perfect.

The anger can come on quickly like a flood as we are thinking about a number of issues we are angry about.  Before you know it, we are feeling our adrenalin, we are tense and we are more than ready to swear and kick something. 

The problem with anger in this case—no easy solution

As mentioned elsewhere in earlier posts, anger is a powerful emotion that is supposed to help us defend ourselves.  It gives us an adrenalin rush to get up and move quickly to defend ourselves. 

However, for the average adult, there are no easy solutions to the problems with work and family and our other disappointments.  With the anger response in these cases, we also tend to feel hopelessness because we cannot easily think of any black and white solutions to address the situations.  If we dwell on it for several minutes we make mountains from molehills and we lose perspective on what the reality really is. 

Because it is so easy, anger almost becomes like an addiction as someone’s life can become unmanageable.  I think that with the free time a lot of people are going to have over the next few days at least in the United States and Canada, it can become a consuming chemical fire that flashes and burns bright and hot with toxic smoke that chases away others. I think that this is where many with borderline personality have thought and do think about suicide or self-harm because they must have a solution—and one is not going to be found.

Combine that with the holiday themes of peace, good will towards others and joy, and you have a true hot mess on your hands.  You are supposed to be joyful, happy, and at peace.   Why not be alone because no one wants to be with you?

A not-so holiday anger management metaphor: Reeling yourself in

For many of us with anger issues, I have to admit that we will all get carried away with thoughts of anger.  It is what humans do. 

It is a learned skill to be reeling yourself back in.  We chase those imaginary fish that represent all of the evil and abusive people we have been victimized by.  We get snagged on the bottom of memories past when there was a conflict where we may have had some fault in the matter too.  We may feel a bite only to reel the line in to find that the memory of the bait we put out got taken by that slick shyster and we felt taken again all over again.

Dwelling on anger almost seems like a natural impulse for people.  It just seems to come too naturally for people.  It is just too easy and we can get lost in it like a daydream and we chase another fish.  

It is a choice as to what we are going to do in the privacy of our own thoughts. I cannot minimize any person’s past pain from the past.  It is real for me, and it is real for you—we are all likely going to dwell on painful memories and chase another fish through the lakes, ponds and streams of our memories and current situations. 

Most of us either need a confrontation or revelation that while dwelling on the anger of the past recurs more than we would like to admit, it has little practical use to anyone.  It does not make us a better person or a happy person.

How do we reel ourselves in?  It is a commitment to several different strategies. 

• It is a conversation with have with ourselves on a regular basis.
• We remind ourselves that it is not doing us any good to keep thinking about the pain of the past.
• We distract ourselves with other activities and thoughts.
• We watch a show on TV or get on the Internet and play a Facebook game, or put a movie in the DVD. 
• We get outside—weather permitting and go for a walk--maybe down to the open convenience store for one of those fake cappucinos.
• We talk to someone we get along with now.

I have to say that there is no one perfect and 100-percent effective strategy.  If you are dealing with a whole lot of anger, then I would recommend a number of little strategies.  When the thoughts of anger comeback, you will then move to the next little strategy with the understanding more than one strategy will be required during the days off at Christmas.