The Worst Night Of My Life

by Jeremy
(Mesa AZ)

Well, me and my girlfriend have been getting in more and more fights over the last few months, and it usually starts with something very small such as her remarking on a choice I'm making. For instance, in the last fight we were walking up to the store and I had a bag of corn nuts that I had bought a few days ago.

I was eating them as we went in, and she said its a stupid idea to bring them into a store without a receipt. So this is where the anger first started. At first I was somewhat calm. I asked her "Why?" and then I said "It's fine to take them in." Then she said, "No its not." I threw the corn nuts on the ground and she walked away.

This made me more mad. I started my rant, and she said she was just going to go home and I got even more mad. I tried to stop her from leaving and went out to her car. All in all I got really upset, started yelling and saying all kinds of hurtful things that I did not mean, and ended up breaking up with her.

But during this yelling, I sat in the bed of her truck so she couldn't leave, and yelled through her glass. I screamed a little bit to the point where she was crying.

The above article describes perfectly the steps I feel while this is going on. I tell her I'm done with this s*** and walk away and come back like 5 or 6 times. when I realized what I had just said, I immediately started crying myself. I did not want to end our relationship. I love her to death.

This morning we talked about it and I told her I am going to seek help because I need it.

P.S. On the anger test, I had a score of 21 out of 28, so I'm guessing I need immediate help. I hope I can use these resources as a stepping stone in controlling my anger.

Response from Dr. DeFoore

Hello Jeremy, and thanks for reaching out for help here. You're smart to get help, and every step you take gets you closer to where you want to be. You're a good person inside, and that's why you want to get better, and of course you don't want to push your girlfriend away.

You have good reasons for your anger, and we need to figure out where it's coming from. The everyday things like you described with your girlfriend at the store can "trigger" your anger, but they don't cause it. So, we need to deal with the causes of your anger, and that's what we're going to do.

Let's take a look at your past experience, which is where we find the causes of anger in the present.

Here's what I want you to do for yourself:

1) Write a detailed account of any abuse, abandonment or neglect you received as a child. Don't hold back or leave anything out. Describe every detail. Also write about anything that has ever hurt you, frightened you or made you angry. This is for no one's eyes but yours, so don't worry about that. The benefit is how it will help you to revisit these memories from your present position. What's the point of this? It's where your anger comes from--all anger comes from some kind of emotional pain and/or fear.

2) Now that you have brought up those memories, use the guided imagery healing processes you will find on this page to heal emotionally from the abuse. Use these techniques, and keep trying until you get some relief. They are powerful tools, that work very well if you use them.

When you deal with your past experiences this way, it will make the following techniques work much better for you. So be sure and do the above exercises before moving on to the following ones.

1) Use the journaling processes you will find described on this page to begin managing your anger more effectively on a daily basis. This will include a daily journaling process of writing from your anger and then shifting to positive journaling about the good things in yourself, your life and other people.

2) Moment by moment, day by day, shift your focus from what you don't like to what you do like. The things that trigger your anger are all things you don't like or don't want. Train your mind to look at the things you do want and like. Use this to extend the benefit of the positive journaling process above.

3) Practice these anger management techniques over and over again, until you have mastered them.

4) Sign up for our Healing Anger newsletter, and you'll get a free copy of the Anger Management Techniques Ebook, which gives a detailed description of anger release methods that will also help you.

Believe in yourself, Jeremy. You can do this, if you set your mind to it. You get to choose, moment by moment, what kind of person you're going to be, and these exercises will help you make the right choices.

Never, ever give up on yourself.

My very best to you,

Dr. DeFoore

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