Angry, Frustrated, and Poorly Differentiated
In 2019, I was seeing a therapist for my anger control issues. One day I was doing a filling and it would not set in place right no matter what I did. My fists balled up, blood rushed to my face, I thought my appointments are taking too long and my boss would fire me. I got so mad I slammed a fist on the counter. The patient was a kid. He had headphones on and didn’t hear it. I realized I had a problem.
I was seeing a therapist at the time, but this was the first time I had ever had anger issues. I would say “…then the filling didn’t go the way I wanted and I got angry.”
“Hmm, were you angry or frustrated?”
“What’s the difference? I was angry, I was frustrated. Seems like we’re splitting hairs here.”
“Well, frustration and anger have some subtleties and we may want to look into the differences. Are you able to look up the definitions?”
Look up the definitions? With all due respect, how does this change anything? Every time I said I was angry, he’d harp on these definitions. Why did he keep asking this? I felt like my own anger was now up for debate and I couldn't even express my opinions anymore. Just thinking about it got me so mad I’d slam doors at home and want to throw things. Sounds like anger to me.
Around this time, I was listening to the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People audiobook (I like it because author Steven Covey kind of sounds like George Carlin). Near the beginning of the book, Covey recounts the story of Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who was also a psychologist. Prior to his encampment and torture, Frankl believed humans were like animals: give them a stimulus and they will respond a certain way. The response was dictated by our genetics, our upbringing, or our environment. Everything was predetermined.
In the camps, however, Frankl realized that humans have a special endowment: Between stimulus and response, was the ability to choose. A conscious human being could decide, in advance, how they want to respond to a given situation.
This was a big deal for me. Was I deciding how I wanted to behave, or was I letting the situation affect me automatically, based on how I was raised or genetically inclined?
I looked up frustration as defined on Wikipedia: “a common emotional response to opposition, related to anger, annoyance and disappointment. Frustration arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual's will or goal...” Anger is “an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.” When I experienced frustration, (annoyance when I don’t achieve my goal) I chose to respond with anger (intense emotional responses). My anger was not a direct result of the situation, but my go-to reaction for the situation.
I decided, in advance, that I would take a step back when things didn't go well. Over time, and it did take time, my reaction would change to, “Here’s a problem, what needs to be done to fix it?” I’ll still get flustered or surprised, but it’s much easier to react with measure and less emotion.
My therapist explained that this introspection and work to change our behavior is the hard work of therapy.
