Anxiety is experienced by forty million American adults. It can be overwhelming and effect mood, confidence, relationships, appetite, and sleep. It may be part of your being that exists in the background of your life. It steps forward and takes over when triggered by an external event such as being disrespected, ignored or rejected.

Anxiety can quickly transform into anger when you may raise your voice and scream at loved ones.

You may make nasty, insulting remarks that are abusive, hurtful and long lasting.

You feel powerless to control this reactive part of your inner world. You say you want to change this behavior because you have lost friends and lovers who tired of this act.

You feel like an addict in a constant state of relapse. You tell your partner that you will work on this phenomenon, but don’t have a clue how to begin to change up on this.

Why does this happen? The amygdala part of your brain (the fight or flight function) gets set off by sensing there is danger immediately lurking. The amygdala acts this way because you have been traumatized earlier in your life and your anxiety is sending signals that catastrophe is going to come pay an immediate visit.

What are the triggering steps:

A person close to you makes a comment that you perceive as insulting. It usually isn’t demeaning. However, at that moment you are triggered by any words that make you feel inadequate. Those words may be: “Why didn’t you clean the kitchen this morning?”

You feel this powerful sense of anxiety that overwhelms.
Instantly you begin to scream at her.

You expect her to understand and comfort you in this moment.

Your actions push her away, but inside you feel like an abandoned child.

Towards the end of this horror show, you feel hopeless, powerless, guilty and ashamed.

After the episode you realize that the actual trigger is feeling abandoned. During these triggering moments you feel that your partner is leaving you. Your anxiety is fueled by the memory of your mother walking out on your family when you were five years old. It is difficult to turn this train around when the locomotive is going full speed ahead.

To change this destructive behavior, you need to have a strong commitment to stop this from ever occurring again. Previously you have told your partner that you are going to work on it, but you soon lose interest in this task because it hasn’t happened in a couple of days. You may also say that you will try not to explode, but don’t have any concrete plan to prevent abusive outbursts.

You also find yourself unable to change direction once the amygdala senses danger. When this occurs, adrenaline flows through your body like hot lava. Danger is in the air and striking out at your partner happens before considering not raising your voice occurs to you. Therefore, you are always baffled and feel powerless to change this. However, this refusal to change it is a cop out and it is avoiding your responsibility to yourself and your partner.

Anticipating what situations will cause you to go off is an essential step in stopping this madness. Think back on the times you have been triggered. Does it happen after work? At home? On the Smart phone?

Does it happen in the morning after a sleepless night? Does it happen after you skip meals?

Steps to prevent anxiety from turning to anger:

Make a commitment to stopping this madness. You have only given this issue lip service before. You have to treat this issue like it is the most important issue in your life(it probably is).

Create a catch phrase for yourself like “I cannot express over the top anger towards my partner because my words devastate her. She will eventually leave me if I keep this up. I hate myself when I act this way. I will feel so much better if I can make this huge change.” If you say these statements to yourself several times per day, you will be prepared to not blow up when your partner says something that will usually set you off. You are retraining your brain to stay calm during this usual trigger time.

This change from being triggered then expressing rage to calmness will not be easy. It will not happen at all if you don’t work at it.

Lowering your anxiety overall will help as well. That includes eating and sleeping well, exercise, having strong connections with others.

Psychotherapy maybe helpful here to understand the triggering process and how trauma has affected you.

The positive news is that there is a very good chance of you being able to change this destructive and self-destructive part of your life. Keep working at it.

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