After the diagnosis of ALS, it is not strange or wrong if feelings of anger or rage surface sooner or later. The disease brings difficulties, challenges and frustrations, and everyone’s bucket overflows from time to time.
Although it is often not pleasant for yourself en/or your surroundings, it is not a bad thing to show your feelings. Bottling up emotions even often leads to a bigger outburst later on.
Below, we list some tips on how dealing with anger:
- try to determine what triggers your anger. If you know what frustrates or angers you, you can try to avoid what triggers your anger or you can learn to deal with it in a focused way.
- pay attention to the emotional signals you feel when your anger is developing, such as the realization that you just can’t express what you want, physical reactions…;
- practice simple steps to relax when you feel your anger is developing:
- breathe slowly and as deeply as you can from your belly;
- find a word or short sentence that can calm you and repeat it to yourself, try something like: “it’s OK,” or “relax,” or “stay cool”;
- remind yourself that getting angry makes you feel worse;
- try to point out what exactly is making you angry;
- be gentle with yourself and with others.
- train in solving practical problems: admit to yourself that some problems are almost unavoidable and that much of your anger is a natural reaction to frustrating circumstances for you. Trying to look at these problems with an attitude of “we’ll just have to deal with this as best as we can” will help reduce your anger, especially if you are trying to find a practical solution (using a tool, enlist the help of a relative or a third part…) that meets the problem. Learning to deal with dependency is a process of trial and error;
- try to avoid jumping to hasty conclusions, a common cause of anger and try to place the problem in its context;
- avoid dealing with (extra) problems when you are tired or already frustrated.
Sources
- Anger Management For Dummies (Voor Dummies (Psychologie & Zelfhulp)) door W. Doyle Gentry PhD (2006)
- The Anger Trap: Free Yourself from the Frustrations that Sabotage Your Life door Les Carter (2004)