Oh Fred, it's up to my head!
June 20, 2010 11:50 PM   Subscribe

Updating Mr. Rodgers for the grownups: "What do you do with the mad that you feel?"

In looking for solace from a previous ask, I rewatched Mr. Rodger's defense of PBS to the senate from 1969 wherein he quoted his own song lyrics. Those lyrics now resonate even more deeply with me:

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong...
And nothing you do seems very right?

What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you go?

It's great to be able to stop
When you've planned a thing that's wrong,
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish.
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.


That someday is now, and games of tag and punching dough are inadequate to the disappointment and occasional rage at factors beyond my control. Assuming that I can't do anything to correct these factors, only mitigate my own disappointment and adverse reaction to them, how, or can you even, force yourself into being more equitable/less obsessive/possibly even productive with this feeling? Mr. Rodger's advice works well up to a point, but then adulthood is not suited to stop stop stop-ing. I'm left feeling silly and pollyanna-ish about not being able to stop stop stop everyone else. Therefore I have to deal.

I've substituted punching dough and bags and tag with exercise, piano and micro-vacations... but i'm not currently able to vent all these choleric humours sufficiently. I need, therefore, some coping mechanism with which to house them internally and still keep my mental wheels unclogged. Are there any tricks, oh wise, even-tempered sages of Mefi, that you use to keep yourself afloat? (catchy songs are optional.)
posted by Cold Lurkey to Human Relations (14 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Talk it out with someone? Not complain, but actually explore the roots of your irritation.
posted by hjo3 at 12:07 AM on June 21, 2010




I go for a long fast motorcycle ride.

Also, I bake. It forces me to calm down and focus on something, which allows my subconscious to work things out.

A dear friend throws tools at the roll up door of his shop. (There's no one between him and the door, and he feels much better. But then we (the assorted shop bitches, a title for which I barely qualify) have to go find his tools amongst a bunch of random motorcycles and random other crap.)
posted by mollymayhem at 12:24 AM on June 21, 2010


Spend part of every day writing. Just write/type as fast as you can, stream of consciousness, so that you have someplace to put all of the thoughts that make you angry. Articulating the things that bother you sometimes helps to get to the root of problem. At the very least, it will make you feel a bit better.
posted by corey flood at 12:37 AM on June 21, 2010


Best answer: Scroll for tl;dr.

As a student I used to work cleaning pots and pans in the dining hall, and the clang clang clang of the dishes around me would drive me insane. Then I realized that I was part of the noise too - a fairly significant part of what I could hear - yet the noise of my own work did not bother me at all. It was because I knew what I was doing, and where the noise was coming from - and because it made total sense, I didn't even consider it noise.

So sometimes when a particularly loud or grating noise behind me bothered me, I would close my eyes and try to isolate it and visualize how it was happening. Most of the time I was sensible about it (okay, that's someone opening and closing the freezer door - again; that was a dish being set on the counter a little too hard) but sometimes when there was just too much of it, I'd imagine my own scenario... e.g, I'd arrange the various noises on an assembly line and imagine an end product that made me feel better.

I mean to say... I am a low-bandwidth person and am easily bugged. This can make life difficult. My strategy for dealing with things that are beyond my control is to try to figure out if they're based on (or at least open to) rationality or not. If they are, or seem to be, I try to understand them as much as I need to in order to get some kind of grip on them. (Eg: why the fuck can't I go out at night when I want to? The immediate answer to that is that I live in an unsafe place, but I try to trace it all the way back to something I can understand - ie, the repressive, educational, regulatory, disciplinary and social processes at work in my society - all of which make someone think that harassing or attacking a woman is a good idea.) I don't need to have an answer... I just need to get to the point where things make some kind of sense and fit in what I know about the world. Then, even if I don't like the way things are - I find them much easier to deal with in a sensible way - say, talking to someone who's bugging me, or volunteering, or writing about this stuff... as opposed to, say, just going out alone at night because the hell with it (although sometimes I do that too).

Obviously I cannot do that with everything, but I have invested (and continue to) as much time as possible to develop a sense for what is reasonable and what isn't, especially when it comes to things and people that affect me personally. What I have come to believe, truly, is that things make a lot more sense than I was ever led or allowed to believe, growing up. In that sense I am grateful for the internet, because it's much easier today to access the work of people trying to do the same (make sense) all over the world, and even though the sense things make is usually sad (too many things can be traced back to people being selfish and shortsighted), I find a lot of relief in the fact that we do have the capability to process what's going on and coming up with sensible theories that fit together somehow. That belief gives me some kind of grounding.

Then there's stuff that affects me which is beyond reason, at least beyond ours/mine. The origin of life, death, time, accidents, certain people / institutions that have power over me but are not open to reason - and my strategy for that is just to try to detach and be as kind as possible. It's much easier to do that with others than with myself. For instance, my dog is a little crazy and sometimes he barks a lot for no good reason. Even though I'm trying to train him, I get exhausted by the slow progress. I can't expect him to be reasonable, and sometimes I can't help but yell at him to Shut the Fuck Up. After that my first instinct is to realize I was getting angry at something irrational, which itself is irrational. Then I tend to get upset at myself for getting angry, which usually lasts a lot longer than the anger itself. And then, I remind myself that I can only detach and be kind as much as possible - not all the time. Also I try to remember that getting angry doesn't make me feel better. So I just try to put it behind me and move on with things, and with trying to make sense of things.

tl;dr: Anger can be irrational and counterproductive, but you're getting angry for a reason. Understand what you can about what's causing it, so you can see what, if anything, you can do to improve things. Detach from what you can't understand and do happier things instead. And mostly, just try to kindly own what you're doing and how you feel - in the greater self-interest of not wasting too much time on being angry. From what I hear about good therapists, this is much of what they try to do.
posted by mondaygreens at 12:48 AM on June 21, 2010 [8 favorites]


So - basically, no tricks (sorry) but I try to remember that most things make sense. Also to condense, over time, the whole process of understanding / detachment, and make it as quick and productive as possible without making it stupid.
posted by mondaygreens at 12:55 AM on June 21, 2010


Learn to forgive. Realize that we are all just trying to figure things out and get along, and sometimes we piss other people off. Recognize that you are doing no better or worse than any other person and find a way to let it go.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:28 AM on June 21, 2010 [2 favorites]


1) reflect on the fundamental attribution error;

2) lecture people who aren't there, imagine their responses;

3) play with foster kittens (downside: have to find homes for them; also, can't risk playing with them when in rage);

4) garden (something I can control which also gives pleasant surprises; no other people; mind can be blank; vitamin D from the sun makes me feel better);

5) bake something (similar to 4, but no vitamin D -- fortunately, we have supplements for that, too);

6) escape into a story. Story must not be depressing or angering. Maybe it will give me insight into the lovely part of humanity;
posted by amtho at 3:46 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]


The only way through, for me, is through. I have to feel that way til I don't feel that way, I mean, and I just try to control my actions so I don't hurt others or irreplaceable things in dealing with the emotions til they're gone. I take care of the basics that might be intensifying them (eat drink sleep poop) and I remind myself to breathe in, breathe out. And humor helps - a silly sitcom or movie. Unconditional affection too, even if it's just one of my cats curling up as close to me as they can get and butting my hand to demand petting.

(and I only say this because I adore Mr. Rogers and in fact bought a dvd of the original episode where he used that song to use his techniques to try to help my son deal with his anger... there is no "d" in his last name :) )
posted by lemniskate at 5:51 AM on June 21, 2010


When I am angry and having trouble coping, I have long, and I mean looooong, imaginary conversations with someone else, usually in the shower, which is where I do my best thinking. The imaginary person you're talking to may not actually be the object of your rage, in fact, I'd say if you are really and truly out of control angry at them, this may be a bad idea. Instead, talk to the ultimate sympathetic listener- a friend who would understand the situation, a coworker, a relative. My poor mother bears the brunt of my venting, both real and imaginary. Talk and talk and talk until you literally have nothing else to say, get everything out, no matter how petty. This technique actually came about for me because I would try to plan out real conversations that I intended to have with people who I was angry with. I began to find that at the end of thinking them out, I no longer needed to have the conversation, or had at least worked it down to one manageable and concrete point that I could rationally discuss. Good luck!

And one pro-tip: I really think being in the shower helps.
posted by Polyhymnia at 7:44 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Oh hell and death. lemniskate, that it daft of me...but at least I'm consistent. (thank you for a gentle correction)

mondaygreens, there's some mighty good stuff in there, and in keeping with the spirit of the advice, i'm going to contemplate on it before responding in commensurate depth.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 8:05 AM on June 21, 2010


I pour my anger into exercise (lifting, sprinting, long bike rides), home improvement/DIY stuff, and other physical tasks. Every time someone pisses me off they improve me.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 8:24 AM on June 21, 2010


On the exercise front, nothing has helped with anger as much as regular boxing training - speed bag, heavy bag, trainer with mitts. There is something about about punching that I Never would have realized could feel great, and be so cathartic (as someone who has always been a peacenik).

An extra bonus to the heavy bag is that you can try to get at some of the roots of the anger as you go, getting in to a meditative state. Anything with "flow" like that can help, though - which is why the baking, DIY stuff, etc. recommended above can really do it for people.
posted by ldthomps at 10:19 AM on June 21, 2010


Response by poster: As a long delayed thank you to those who had posted here I will encapsulate what I've taken away and internalized from this question.
1. Other and externalization: It's not you, it's them and they are what's screaming inside your head all the time so just remove yourself, via physical (showering exercise bikerides motercyclerides gardening baking boxing) means until their voices are dimmed by your inner monologue again.
2. You and the other: you may very well be part of the problem, in the immediate circumstances, so be forgiving, and somewhat innocent with the face they are presenting you. If rage occurs upon further consideration, see 1.
Thank you guys, and may we all abide.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 9:20 PM on March 2, 2011


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