"Yep, but
these will need to be tailored to the
individual. I need to see or feel things break,
or the rage isn't satisfied. (I've got a big
brush pile behind my house that I break up for
kindling. Works GREAT!) The speed bag idea works
as a preventative measure for me (I used a
full-sized punching bag when I was studying
martial arts), but it never seemed to help in
the middle of a rage.
Here's one of
the Jedi mind tricks I use on myself: When I
feel one start, I ask myself, "Is this a big
thing or a little thing?" If it's a little thing
(e.g. finding only lotion soap in a public
restroom), it's not worth my energy. If it's a
big thing (e.g. someone's hacked into my
systems), I need to use that energy wisely, and
not burn it out on a rage.
(And
about half the time this works. The other half
the answer is, "It's not big, it's not little,
it's BUGGING THE CRAP OUTTA ME!!!) ;)
"I think
the single most enlightening thing that happened
to me for this is that I realized they were
chemical in nature, not emotional. Before I
realized that, I might well be driving and
suddenly think, "MUST KILL that pig-dog
so-called excuse for a driver! How DARE they
share the road with me!!" Scary part is, it
would make perfect sense. It would also freak
out everyone else in the car with me.
But once I knew
roughly where the rages came from, I might still
get that thought, but it would be followed by,
"This is a test of the emergency rage system...
It is only a test... If this had been a real
emotion, you'd have a good reason why you want
to run that person off the road..." That bought
me enough time to get a grip on it, and just
keep driving the car.
Will this work
in all cases? No. To go back to that earlier
example of "your mileage may vary", I told the
person I was talking to about this technique.
They tried it, and it didn't work. No warnings,
no clues, and even thinking, "This isn't really
me wanting to do this!" didn't stop them from
punching a hole in their wall."
.........
One of the things we talked about was the whole
idea of "Why don't you just hit a pillow?" My
answer was, "A pillow doesn't BREAK!" Amazingly,
the person I was talking to said the same
thing.
So one way I
"deal with it" is to feel things break. When I'm
in a rage, that's often the only thing that'll
satisfy the need. Amazingly (or maybe not so
amazingly) it's a great way to vent, too. One of
the best times I ever had was when I worked in a
frame store during high school. Every day
someone had to go through the glass scraps, cut
them down to regular sizes, and clean out the
shard bucket. It involves a lot of breaking
glass, and it's something I *always* volunteered
for. GREAT way to vent. Spend 20 minutes
smashing glass, and you feel like a new
person.
Not terribly
productive unless you work in a frame shop or
hardware store. ;)
---
"Mmmm... I
don't think I've ever stopped one, really. Not
once it got going. If I can see I'm in a
situation likely to set one off, certainly I've
learned how to get myself out of it. But once
it's going, it's going.
That's not to
say I haven't learned to DO something about it,
but stopping it isn't something I've been able
to do. Here's a f'rinstance: If I start going
into a rage and someone (myself included) tries
to calm me down, it's like pouring gasoline on a
fire. BAD idea. But if I or someone else tells
me, "Hey! Take it outside! Kick down a
tree-stump or something!" that's something I can
do.
The degree of
controllability seems to vary across children
and adults, but the message seems to be that :
(1) to the extent that we can help prevent
things from getting to a certain point, we may
reduce the number of outbursts, and (2) if there
is an outburst or rage attack, it is probably
not a useful (and may be counterproductive) to
try to get the individual to "cut it
short."
