Asklemmy

Happened to me too. Best thing is going to therapy.

This might be caused by bigger problems with your family or work. Or it might just be accumulated stress unrelated to anything in particular.

Therapy helps either way

You kinda just have to stop giving a shit, which I guess is technically Mindfulness.

But I think I achieved it after a bad shroom trip when I had an epiphany that nothing in life matters, but it really doesn't have to matter.

Some good advice I heard once is that you can’t change what happens to you but you can change how you react to it. Bad things will happen but how you react to those things makes such an impact. Reacting positively to negative things happening affects not only your mood, but also how you deal with those things. It takes time to shift to this style of thinking but it will definitely improve your way of life.

12 Practical Steps for Learning to Go With the Flow

1. Realize that you can’t control everything
2. Become aware.
3. Breathe.
4. Get perspective.
5. Practice.
6. Baby steps.
7. Laugh.
8. Keep a journal.
9. Meditate.
10. Realize that you can’t control others.
11. Accept change and imperfection.
12. Enjoy life as a flow of change, chaos and beauty.

I trained myself over years after realizing stress was killing me, I was unpredictable to be around, and struggled to eat with any regularity which led to really bad eating habits.

What ended up working is when something would happen that upset me I would close my eyes, take a deep breath, go to a room by myself and just sit down with my eyes closed and do box breathing until my nerves settled. Then when I opened my eyes I would say to myself, ok let’s go get this mud cleaned up.

Admittedly it doesn’t work in a car, crowded location, or even work necessarily. Over years my impulse control and roll with the punches attitude really developed. Maybe too much, when my ex wife said she wanted a divorce it was kind of just an “ok, do you want me to move out or did you plan to? I’ll see what paperwork we need to fill out “.

I enjoy life so much more though. My dog peed in the laundry room shortly after coming inside and I remember a time when I would have been incredulous about it. My response was to chuckle and say “oh buddy you know not to pee inside”, grap a swiffer and throw the pad in the load of wash I was starting.

Maybe I just got older, life experience and all that. I do think the separation from what happened and box breathing exercise really helped me in being able to put things into context and just let life be life though.

For me, it was pure philosophy. When I came to terms with how totally insignificant I and my world is in the grand scheme of the universe, something as simple as the dog tracking mud across the floor became less then inconsequential.

As an aside:

Meanwhile I'll get pissed that I didn't wipe their feet and be mad the entire time I'm cleaning it up.

This reads like someone who takes everything upon themselves and doesn't cut themselves enough slack. I don't know you and this is the tiniest snippet of your life experiences, so take my statement with a massive heaping of salt, but give yourself a break. You aren't super human, you aren't responsible for everyone and everything, and you will make mistakes. Holding yourself to an impossible standard is a common source of anger and unhappiness.

Subjectively speaking, every person I've met who I would describe as "angry" when discussing their personality (I'm a believer that some things are worth being mad about and choosing to be appropriately angry does not make you an angry person) is deeply unhappy with themselves. This is usually because, thanks to a combination of external influences like narcissistic friends/family, they never measure up to their distorted beliefs of how they "should" be. "Should" is a bad word. Thinking in terms of "should" is self-abusive and rarely helpful. "Will" and "next time" are fine. They're about learning. "Should" is nothing more than a way to internalize the things you've done wrong without focusing on how you'll learn from them.

Anyway, I could be way off, cause man I don't know you. But, some food for thought, anyway.

in my experience, the sooner you accept that life is terrible and full of pain and misery, the sooner you cease to be surprised by it being terrible and full of pain and misery.

tl;dr "this might as well happen, I guess"

Proper sleep and exercise, yoga in particular, is what helps me. When I'm dead tired and my back hurts I'll get mad at everything too.

I'm on antidepressants and I smoke a shit ton of weed

Age. After 40 years I realised it's not worth getting wound up about things. Every year I drop more and more 'baggage'. Life is a lot easier when you let things go.

Similarly, experience. I've survived suicide attempts, close calls, addictions, fights, sickness and death. My meds being lost by the pharmacy is pretty minor compared to the epic time travel battle I had against God last year during a meth psychosis that resulted in my arrest and court. Experience adds perspective.

Meditation and noticing emotions don't have to be acted upon. It's on top feel something. It's pointless trying to stop that feeling. What you can do is not act on that feeling. Raging at the idiot who pulled in front of you solves nothing.

Hanlon's Razor: "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance". The majority of times people 'wrong' you is due to ignorance. Not malice. One of the reasons why I find the obsession with labelling people "narcissist" a bit silly. They aren't, they're just wrapped up in their own bubble of problems. We all are.

Stoicism has many great lessons and quotes that are worth reflecting on over your lifetime. Let them percolate your soul and after many years you just become more stoic.

I pretend I’m in a zoo observing people, which I guess is called disassociation.

This sounds like you are stressed. In the particular example you give (I am a generally even tempered person, and having trouble with irritability today) I find exercise helps. Exhausting my body calms my mind.

If it's a situation where the irritability is telling you something, like you are stressed because you are doing too much and the rest of your family doing too little, you may need to communicate that to them, to be able to fix it.

The secret isn't not getting mad. The secret is going with the flow despite being mad. If you're constantly triggered by small things (like your dog getting some mud inside) then there's proooooobably something a bit deeper that needs to be addressed. But either way, do the things, mad or not. Emotions happen, they're never "wrong" but you can also determine what to do with them, or what to do despite them.

I have this marvelous quote saved in my phone:

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

• Marcus Aurelius

For me: get enough sleep and/or do exercise. Getting 9 hours is my ideal but I settle for 7 more often than I should. As for exercise: running, hitting the heavy bag, jump rope, rowing, weight lifting, swimming, walking, VR boxing (got too sweaty for it to be a long term thing), rock climbing; all these things have been good over the years or whatever you want. Cortisol builds up in your system and exercise breaks it down. You can't be stressed if you're exhausted. I think of the two as shielding and loading. Sleep increases my shielding from stressors and exercise decreases my baseline stress load. The two together are the actual answer, in my opinion.

I’ve found having a good psychotherapist to talk about all the things that are actually bothering me (that makes others uncomfortable) is the key. Usually it’s work or family related stress. All the little stuff isn’t really a bother, it’s just the ongoing last straw when there’s a pile of much more significant stuff underneath it being ignored.

edit: to clarify

psychotherapist = no drugs (in my experience) psychiatrist = may prescribe drugs

Both are valuable when appropriate. Sometimes you just need to talk things out with a neutral confidential 3rd party who recognizes the issues. Sometimes brain chemistry is a bitch.

The way you've phrased this sounds like this isn't just your default state throughout your life. Is there maybe a much larger stressor that's sapping your emotional energy and making your trigger shorter? If that's the case, resolving your feelings around that stressor would probably be most effective.

You could also just be exhausted or burnt out, at which point the only way you can actually make things better is by getting a proper break. Obviously some people's life circumstances don't really allow for that, so any small changes of getting help where you can is recommended.

Ask yourself if getting mad actually helps the situation. Is it going to get the problem solved any quicker? Does it make you feel any better? No? Then what's the point of it?

I look at those things that annoy me, and think would you rather be in Palestine right now and it becomes less of an issue. This general strategy has worked for me since the Vietnam War era.

Are you getting enough sleep and nutritious food? It's critical to have the basics covered.

We have zero control over the first thought that comes to mind, so don't sweat it if it's an angry one. A few deep breaths really helps, even if the head (which wants to get angry and rage) says it won't do anything.

While reading Epectitus definitely helped (externals - out of your control; reactions - your choice, things don't bother you, you bother yourself), and telling myself that I gain nothing out of anger (mostly lose from it), I ran out of fucks to give. Someone's blocking the way? Just wait until I can pass them. My delivery is running late? Whatever, it'll get there. I left the window open during heavy rain and everything is wet? Close the window and mop it.

In a world where nothing really matters, giving your undying attention to stupid things like these is just absurd. Who's watching your reactions so that you have to put on a show?

But as someone said, it takes practice. Being mindful, present, realizing that you're getting angry, and then consciously thinking "ah whatever" and accepting it. Difficult at first, but as with any skill, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

practice.

you have to intentionally practice.

metta is one exercise.

I have noticed my ability to take things in stride definitely goes down when I don’t feel well. I would check in with yourself physically- is there a non-obvious physical ailment that might be putting you on edge? Perhaps there’s pain or headaches that you don’t consciously consider that’s diminishing your ability to deal with stuff. Otherwise I would suggest what others have suggested- looking into whether you might have some level of anxiety disorder. This may mean medication and/or something like cognitive behavioral therapy

Being mad sucks. If something bad happens it sucks. If I'm mad about the bad thing that happened then I already got two things that suck. I like to minimize the suck.

Wasn't really allowed to harbor or express anger as a kid. Now I can't summon an ounce of rage, even when it's appropriate and helpful. It's not ideal, so I spend a lot of time meditating, dropping away other emotions in hopes of finding a spark of something in there. Nothing yet, but I've found a number of other useful things in the process.

Mindfulness is a great skill to build to debug issues like this. It's slow, painful sometimes, and doesn't always feel worthwhile, but it's definitely worth taking the time to try meditating to get closer to your base emotions and how they appear.

Worth remembering too that what you're looking for probably isn't a huge shift in thinking, at least in the short term. Incremental progress over time is all it takes. Some people are shades of tightly wound and that's okay. You're who you are for a reason and it's worth being kind to yourself when unhelpful thoughts appear. Not to excuse yourself of behavior you don't want to maintain, but to care for and guide yourself toward a simple step in the right direction.

"Don't sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff".

It's about adjusting your perspective. Some things can be looked at as new challenges and opportunities for creativity. Some things can feel very important and weigh on you but given a day or two can be irrelevant. Other things like death, finances, or relationships are difficult to get past, but you will eventually. Taking a breath to step outside the situation or looking at it from someone else's perspective can really help.

I absolutely have these little moments every day. I get mad, say some 'what the fucks' out loud, call myself an asshole, etc, then move on seconds later. Giving your emotions a reasonable amount of time to smack you up is a good thing. Allowing them to take over isn't helping anyone.

Edit: Come to think of it, I was just around my mother for the holidays. She is agent of chaos. She has a short temper, she yells, she's erratic, she very much exerts her irrational stress upon others. Without getting into my entire childhood, I'll share that it took me many years to figure out why I was so short tempered and angry at everything. The quote I started this post with was what sparked the change for me.

I went on anxiety meds. Changed my life

Drink more water! Whenever I find myself grumpy, the culprit is usually dehydration... It makes everything harder IMO. Ymmv etc etc anecdata

I allow myself to feel the rage. Every bit of it, for a count of three, then I have to stop. Because now it's time to take action. And proper action requires a calm response. I used to try to breathe and relax but that usually just left me fuming for an hour. Instead I just get unfathomably angry for 2 seconds then move on. I don't know how healthy it is but it works for me. Sort of the emotional equivalent of yelling out an expletive.

Im exactly like you only I've learned to recognise and stomp on the reaction.

I still get needlessly pissed about things, to an unreasonable degree. But then I recognise that my reaction is out of proportion to the problem and that wether I stomp on it or not, I'm still going to have the problem the only thing I have control over is if I'm stomping around like an asshole while I fix it.

You just have to take your Ego and set it aside when you catch yourself, you cant defend the reaction because its irrational. So recognise it, stomp on it and then work the problem like a normal person.

Everything that Salman said.

This sounds exactly like me and my partner: a small thing can ruin his day and it ruins my day because then I have to put up with his bad mood. What's helped him was some intense solution-based therapy to address his shitty childhood as well as an awareness that several 'bad' things in a row is just a coincidence and not the world (his family) out to get him.

With our kids, I'm making sure to say 'oh well' and not fix it immediately everytime a mild frustration happens. They see their dad getting upset and have started to copy his behaviours so we're trying to encourage them to just brush things off before they get stuck in the mindset.

Personally, I think it's about managing expectations. You can blame the dogs, or you could laugh it off and blame yourself for not handling the situation... I find it easier to manage self-blame than to try to suppress my anger at others

Buddha said, when you're angry, count to ten. When you're still angry, count another ten.

Seriously though, most of the time getting mad isn't worth it. It makes you look bad, makes you inefficient and at the same time makes you and other people feel bad. It's overall, if we are thinking logically, a negative condition/ situation to be in. Getting angry/ mad brings nothing to the table.

Try to think like this, every time you're about to get mad: is getting mad brings anything? Would it change the situation? Can the things already happened be undone? Do I have other choices other than accepting it and fixing the situation? What should I do next? Once you can think like that, calmly, I am sure that you can stop getting mad.

The problem is, most of the time/ very often, you're not even aware that you're angry/ getting angry, and you let your emotions take control of you. That's why you have to train yourself to be aware of your thoughts/ feelings most of the time, and in that way you can react accordingly, consciously, doing what would be your best action/ most logical action. Some people can achieve this through practicing meditation. I'm sure, once you are more aware on what and how you feel most of the time, you would be able to control your actions/ emotions much better.

A silver lining in having a bunch of mental disorders.

I played Overwatch until my mind realigned. Not joking. I was frustrated that running into irrational people in that game would in turn make me irrational. I figured, the opposite should be true too. Rationality should be able to calm and blunt irrationality. And once I realized that, it kind of became an academic exercise to me. I was nice and friendly on purpose and the quality of all my matches went through the roof. Even games that were loses were agreed to be excellent matches by both teams. Which sounds like ridiculous fiction, but it's the truth.

There's a really good book that helped me put my own realizations into more concrete terms.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25898044

And this book literally changed how I view behavior and how to permanently change behavior: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22544758-triggers

I know it's not a good advice, but having something very serious happen in your life might shift your perspective. In my case, getting (through) cancer made me realize it's not worth stressing for stupid little things and greatly deepened my stoicism.

Buddhism, meditation, and generally knowing that everything is temporary. Gratitude / "counting your blessings" helps increase general happiness, as it's easy to forget what's going right

I'm going to be echoing a lot of these comments, but it really is a matter of perspective. In a day, a week, or a month after the anger inducing event, will you really be proud of yourself if you got angry and died on that hill? Once I realized that it really helps with a lot of other negative emotions like doubt, anxiety, and sadness.

Learning, studying, and embracing Stoicism has really helped me. I find The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday helps keep it top of mind for me. It’s a bit of a pop philosophy book, but it works for me.