First, don’t tell me that the answer is just to “not bottle things up”, because that’s objectively incorrect too. Society doesn’t want you to have any negative emotions. I need to know how to not express negative emotions at all whatsoever unless I’m alone. I know it can be done because it is done in many other people on the planet.
Edit: Ok so I think one of the things I want to try doing next is ask for a med change from my psych provider.
- You need to voice your concerns when they actually come up. The idea that showing emotions is objectively bad is completely false.
- You need to learn how to phrase negative comments with a neutral tone. You should not be describing anyone as mean, rude, bitch. Especially not your coworkers. Do you mean straightforward? Concerned? Talkative? Direct? Extroverted? Confident?
No, my supervisor is actually literally mean. She is mean to everyone and it causes a lot of struggles with everyone. I just have a harder time handling a bully than other people, and she bullies me more often than the rest of my coworkers.
How much of the situation is within your control?
Perhaps you can’t change the supervisor. You can still leave.
Or perhaps you can change the supervisor (e.g. talk to someone else in the org and get help).
Or perhaps the way you’re reacting is part of the problem, and that is amplifying the problem, and perhaps you can change something about how you’re acting, to reduce the problem.
There are always multiple ways to change a situation, but you have to actively seek them out yourself. People on the internet might give you useful ideas (there are lots in this thread), but they don’t have the full context, so they can’t give you off-the-shelf answers.
At the moment I have lodged a complaint within the company and asked for a request that I think would help me out. So that is an ongoing process right now. But I am not hopeful because there have been complaints lodged about my supervisor in the past without any helpful resolution.
Yes, I can leave the position. But I work a small field and everything else about the position is amazing and hard to come by. But my sanity is constantly being pushed over the edge by that person.
That sounds fucked, dude. Best of luck with your complaint.
TBH now that you say this, it sounds like might be in a similar situation to me at my last job, which I persevered with for 3 years of riding burn-out (because the work was almost ideal for me, and the people were mostly amazing), and then quit.
There’s already lots of other good suggestions here, but one point that might be worth noting: I think there are two different purposes types of therapy: psychological help (e.g. understanding your own brain, and figuring out ways to change it), and counselling (listening to your problems, and probably offering some professional guidance).
It sounds to me that given the circumstances you describe above, counselling is probably more immediately valuable - what you really need to do is to get some clear external perspective on your situation, from someone with whom you can share details privately. A good counsellor should be able to help you find multiple paths out of your predicament (you might also benefit from seeing multiple different counsellors, since they will all provide different perspectives). In my experience this really helps to ground your understanding, and helps answer the “Is it me, or them, or something else that’s the problem?” question.
IF that process provides more indication that your angry outburst are because of what’s going on in your head, and not just a fairly justified response to a shit situation, THEN maybe it’s a good indication that you should look in to psychology or anger management approaches, or similar. If your angry outburst have existed prior to this work situation, then perhaps you could skip the counselling step, but it still might be worth it.
At my last job I was having angry reactive outbursts (which I had had in the past, but to a much lesser degree, and they were now spilling over onto family and friends), and getting anxiety (which had never happened before). I saw a few psychs and counsellors, and the last one I saw while at work said something like “If you anxiety is about a real work problem, and not an imagined/exaggerated/catastrophised problem, then it’s not anxiety, it’s stress”. That really tripped a switch in my mind, and made the decision to quit super clear. Immediately after handing in my resignation my anxiety levels dropped off a cliff, and my anger slowly dropped back to tolerable levels over the following months.
Thank you for your lengthy message. Many others on here are quick to shun and judge me.
I actually didn’t realize that there was a difference between counselling and therapy. I’m sure I could use both, but that is a good thing to be made aware of. I have both stress and anxiety haha!
The vast majority of my outbursts are with my supervisor. I do on occasion have it with someone else if I feel they are treating others inappropriately.
From the internet, a lot of people ask me why I don’t just quit. In some scenarios it’s not really that simple and really not what I want to do. I don’t entirely feel comfortable as to stating all the reasons why, but you just have to trust me on this.
For sure. Quitting is not an option for many… Job security is hard to come by in a lot of places. I don’t think you need to state reasons for it not doing it, it’s enough to know you’ve considered it and it doesn’t seem viable to you.
I would say therapy and find a healthy way to offload steam such as exercise or meditation or walking your dog or hitting a few balls at the driving range…etc you get the idea.
Regarding therapy, if you want to explore that it may take a few tries to find someone you click with but I have many friends who swear by it and say it was one of the best things they have done.
Got to therapy. Seriously
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You are not your thoughts, nor are you your emotions. You are the observer of those things. Somebody presses your buttons, but it is your choice whether or not those buttons fire. For example if a child said some hurtful things to you, would it have the same impact as an adult? I should hope not. What is stopping you from viewing somebody as a child, especially if they are acting like one?
In addition to cardio, try breathing and cold water. Always breathe through your nose, even when running. Try to breathe through your nose as a cold shower takes your breath away. Or go for the full ice bath. An ice bath tells your body (the producer of anger emotions and chemicals), “hey, I’m in control here, you are not good at assessing threats”. The mind follows the breath, or the breath follows the mind.
But if I’m being honest I’ve always had a hot temper, and what is really helping me is Lithium. It allows me to observe anger without being overwhelmed by it.
The people commenting on here are unhinged. Clearly a lot of “I was treated poorly by my boss so you should deal with it too” energy.
I saw someone imply it couldn’t be bad unless you were being physically threatened with a knife at work. Ive seen people say you should just say how you feel when you feel it, but that won’t change the main problem here which is that its not okay for a supervisor to treat people poorly.
Nothing you change about yourself will change your supervisor. People quit managers not jobs, in most cases. It wouldnt be unreasonable to look for other work or to request a change in supervisor/team.
I recently took an anger management class. That might be a good place to start for you. One of the takeaways I got was that it’s ok to have anger, but you need to learn and use different techniques for managing it.
Don’t take advice from neutrotypicals.
What is this ‘society’ nonsense? You can express your desires and feelings without having to explode, that’s the solution. And when you eventually do, because you’re human and mistakes will happen, apologise profusely and understand “the work” is not yet done. Also whatever you propose is not only a denial of your own humanity, in vain and for your own detriment (and immature too, which is not a good look!), but also the kind of things dudes try before they shoot up churches and festivals.
You are human, after all, a social animal. You’re gonna have to open up as calmly as you can when the situation calls for it, instead of not saying anything because you don’t feel brave enough to be vulnerable (maybe you feel like the people around you will only misunderstand you and make it worse?), so resentment doesn’t add up in the background and you don’t end up exploding. And I’m not just preaching here, I’m speaking from experience!
Don’t worry, the anger would never be directed at innocent people like that. It is directed at the self. So the end result you speak of may occur one day, but to the self and not others.
It’s not that I don’t feel brave enough…I know that I’m not supposed to say anything in response. I get in trouble when I do so. The person I have trouble with is not understanding in differences of opinion.
I’m sorry to hear about this, it sounds more serious than what I thought. I think you should talk about it with the kindest/most understanding person you know. You might not be able to talk to this person because you might “get in trouble” but you can talk about them/the situation to get a clearer picture. Take care, dingus, and don’t lose hope.
So you harbor resentment.
Clear the air, don’t take things personally, realize other people’s emotions are out of your control and move on with life.
Easier said than done, though.
I think it’s more of finding ways to express negative emotions in a healthier/safer way, and not necessarily just suppressing it.
Which, incidentally, is what not bottling it up means.
It’s gotta go somewhere, the tough part is finding an appropriate place that isn’t back at yourself.
Have you tried just not exploding? Like, maybe turn your emotions off so that instead of exploding in rage you just feel a vague annoyance? It’s called alexythymia, and I highly recommend it; it makes shitty things much easier to deal with.
Dude I would love to be able to induce that rn
Coping skills. It’s fine to get pissed and you may have a strong sense of justice and need to keep things even and explosions bring things back into equilibrium. A lot of “not exploding” on people can be addressed by what you do ahead of time, giving yourself escape routes, and learning new behaviors to replace explosive ones. These can be alternative activities that are incompatible or functionally just better ways to address situations.
-Identify what happens before you explode. How do you feel, what are you thinking, is it the location, people, etc?
-Time out from that moment until you come down from wanting to take people’s heads off.
-Use strategies that you find to calm you down. Some people go for walks, use stress balls, fidgets, chew gum, color, play a game. I know this will vary wildly depending on your location and what’s acceptable. The point is to find some alternative for a few minutes or even during higher stress that you can do.
-Increase activities that bring you joy. Again these don’t have to cost money and may vary depending on your interests.
First, don’t tell me that the answer is just to “not bottle things up”, because that’s objectively incorrect too. Society doesn’t want you to have any negative emotions.
I’m guessing you’re a man. Society imposes this upon men in particular.
Tell society to fuck off. Have emotions, experience emotions, and process them like a human being.
Then take it a step further, and learn how to handle them like an emotionally intelligent human being.
I need to know how to not express negative emotions at all whatsoever unless I’m alone.
This is part of the problem. This is not what you need to know. You need to know how to express negative emotions without losing control of yourself or your reaction to your emotions.
I know it can be done because it is done in many other people on the planet.
People bottling things up and exploding when in a safe space is part of the problem.
I’ll echo the idea of anger management, or even therapy in general.
Nobody who is healthy hides away their emotions. You’re not alone in feeling the way you do. Society is sending you signals that you need to do something unhealthy, but that won’t actually fix the problem.
I’m actually not a man, believe it or not. The other women in my life have taught me to be that way as well.
Yeah everyone is suggesting therapy, but unfortunately I won’t be able to plan out something for the next month or so as my work schedule is a bit in flux. I started on SSRIs about 4 months ago, but have not really noticed any effects on them… positive or negative.
I’m actually not a man, believe it or not. The other women in my life have taught me to be that way as well.
Damn. I wonder if it’s a cultural thing. Sometimes women are told to keep it inside, too. It’s never exclusive to one gender.
Later is better than never. So keep looking towards the future.
You might find some helpful resources online in the meanwhile. Mindfulness and, in particular, emotional intelligence might be two key phrases to look into.
Oh yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to imply it was exclusive to one gender! Just staying my own experience. My mom was a victim of domestic violence so I think I was raised with unfortunately that kind of in mind…she always had a passive role in conflict so I was supposed to as well. And then some of my close friends seem to have similar responses to conflict.
