I will not attempt to deny that I am a very angry person. My fuse is very short. I am a walking time bomb. I suffer, therefore everyone else will suffer too. Excuse me while I cackle evilly.
7am
Alarm clock goes off. I open my eyes and peer through a thick glaze at the offending thing that woke me from my slumber. As the clock sails past the window and into the wall, I crawl to a cat stretch position and.collapse. Too tired and cranky to stretch. Rolling off the bed, I stop pick the pieces of clock off the floor before I get ready for the day. Showered and full of caffeine(I can’t live without my double shot latte), I see that my sister has parked her junker right behind me in the driveway. Vein starts pulsating in my eyeball as it takes her forever to move it, the dog gets out, and I dumped my coffee all over my sandled feet. Vein starts bulging as I suppress this rage.
8am until 4pm
The trip to work was eventful. Left and right, people cutting me off, tailgating, and going so slow that I missed every freaking green light between my house and my office. Someone parked in my spot. Suppress the rage. Vein is pulsing faster, this time also in the forehead. The phones are ringing off the hook, and my coworkers are each trying to have the biggest piece of my time. Rhea, do this. Rhea, do that. I need it in one hour. I need it now! Heartburn rising, and I haven’t even eaten lunch yet.
I don’t go out for lunch. I sit in my office, ignore the phones, and savour my lunch. If I leave the office, I have to go back into traffic. I can visualize it. Old people driving too slow. Pedestrians ignoring the’don’t walk’ sign and yelling at me when they get in the way of my shiny grill. Heat rising in my car and in my face. I get angry just thinking about it.
Post-lunch time is worse than the morning. Now I am more awake, and have ingested entire pots of coffee. The phones are still ringing, but the co-workers have ceased asking me stupid questions. Now it is time for me to do my actual work. Trying to concentrate on doing my projects while thinking of how to finish my day without freaking out and going postal. I watch the clock, my heart beating faster as the minute hand approaches the’12’ and the hour hand flips to’4’. I make a mad dash for the door and run like an Olympian sprinter towards my car, just in case anybody had any last minute projects for me to do.
4pm until 6pm
Upon reaching my safe haven, my car, I see that some callous individual has dented my door and hasn’t left a note. Vein is bulging in my forehead, and my cheek has an annoying tic that won’t stop. Ok, no big deal. I suppress that rage and drive towards my home. What is supposed to be a 10 minute drive(it is in the middle of the night!), is turned into a 2 hour ordeal. I hit the brick wall, otherwise known as rush hour traffic. My car is hot, and I curse myself for not opting to spend a paltry$1500 for air conditioning. The other drivers are just as cranky as I am, and people start showing it. Horns start honking, fingers are flying, words are exchanged. And that’s just between me and the guy who just wormed his way in front of me. The vein that was pulsing is now bulging in my neck. The horns emerge through my once perfectly coiffed hair, now ruined and matted from sweat and heat. Within minutes, my skin turns green, my muscles enlarge, and I bust out of my clothes like the Hulk(the old, cool Hulk; not this new pathetic man on the big screen today).
Who Will Save Us From Rhea?
What can I possibly do to calm myself down? Believe it or not, I have ways of taming the big evil she-Hulk inside of me. These are ways to tame the beast from my own personal experiences:
Stop and Identify
What is causing your blood to boil, your veins to pop, your rage to emerge? For me, it is the every day stress of family, work, and driving. I suffer from road rage, as do thousands of other Vancouver-ites. It makes me angry when things don’t go my way. Make a list of what makes you angry and learn to recognize the reasons you’re flippin’ when it’s happening. When you can do this, it makes it easier to stop and follow my steps to anger management.
Breathe, 1-2-3.
The first thing I do to suppress my rage is take a deep breath, then slowly count to ten. If I still feel angry, I count to ten again. If I still feel angry, I count in another language. I count backwards. I count backwards in another language. As long as you are breathing deeply, you can count how you like. Imagine that you are breathing out the anger and breathing in the calmness. Breathing like this will slow your heartbeat, and eventually you will not feel like busting the person’s head because they accidentally bumped into you while standing in a crowded subway train.
SCREAM
A healthy person is one who expresses, not represses. I’m not sure that doctor’s would agree to this, but when I am really angry, I like to scream. I do it wherever I am, whatever I am doing. Take a deep breath, open your yelling pipes, and just let’er rip! Scream low, scream high, scream bloody murder. I like to scream in words, whatever is bothering me. If there are no old people or children nearby, feel free to let a few curse words go. That always makes me feel better as well.
Sing
If your head can’t take any full-bodied screaming, I also suggest turning up the music and singing loudly to the music. That works just as well. Pretty soon, you realize that you look pretty funny singing like the symbol formerly known as Prince, in that Kiss song, that you just laugh at yourself. A personal favorite of mine is to roll down the windows, and mock the movie’Anger Management’. ’I feel Pretty’ is perfect to sing to, even if you don’t know the right words. After that, you’re thinking about how funny the movie was and you’re not angry anymore. You’re on the road to recovery.
Beat, Whip, Pummel
It is never good to respond to anger with violence, but in this next situation, I think it is perfectly okay. I suggest joining a martial arts class, or a kickboxing class at the gym. You get to punch and kick the air, or the bag, as hard as you want and it won’t fight back. You get to scream. You get to learn some new moves, just in case someone who can’t suppress their rage attacks you.
Break Something
As much as I’d like to tell you that it’s ok to break another person’s leg or arm, you’ll regret it after you do. So if all else fails, take something valuable or sentimental to you, go to your backyard and smash it. When you are finally calm, you will see this valuable thing and regret that you got mad. So the next time you get angry, you will remember this smashed valuable thing and think twice about getting mad.