I generally consider myself pretty laid-back. But realistically I’m probably borderline OCD and way more uptight than I think I am.

Huge things like the ex wanted a divorce I could take pretty well. Something stupid like her going to the beach with my son on my weekend while she knows I’m on my way to come pick him up would set me off.

Something at work goes horribly wrong and now I’ve gotta work either extra hours or have do some crazy stuff to get it fixed that takes 3 days, stressful but not a problem. Tech-support guy sending an email to a VP saying that he emailed me three times saying fix a problem and I never responded when we had actually talked on the phone for hours and shared emails back-and-forth that ended with him agreeing his proposed fix wouldn’t work set me off. He didn’t know, but to me that was lying about me and I was royally pissed for a while.

Even today I had a bad response to a tiny issue on a different firearms forum, I rarely go to other gun forums. I’m here daily, though I rarely post. Usually the questions others have are answered before I get off work. I asked a question asking for tips on filing square and my reasoning. First response set me off, second which was much like some of the normal Sigforum snark that doesn’t bother me didn’t help today. Then getting told I should apologize, nope. I may have responded badly but I honestly am not sure I belong there based on the responses I got.

Either way I need to find a way to work on not getting tweaked over things that don’t matter as much as my response.

It sounds like you have anger issues. At least that’s the way your post comes across.

Maybe I do.

Sorry you get upset over things. Maybe you’re taking it personally? I have found some things do tend to irritate me more than I think they used to. I just have to remind myself not to take it to heart, and let it go. Tone of voice, the manner of the reply, whether spoken or written can cause it to feel like an attack. Take a deep breath, and try not to let it get to you. Good luck.

Let me opine.

1. The divorce, by the time it got to you is like a surface to air missile up the tailpipe.
Getting pissed and shaking your fist at it while your helmet is on fire, does you no good, you know it, so you punch out. Good/Right call.

1b. Now this is a horse of a different rose. You have an agreement, and expectations, and when said expectations and your plans get beach sand kicked all in your face, then, yeah, the old anger monster can rear up.

The first 1. is not anything you really can do to "fix". It is likely a think you knew was (going to) happen, and you had likely been somewhat preparing your mind for a while.

1b. Is a sucker punch, you are wronged by it, and it should well evoke anger. It is how you deal with it that is most important. (A whole 'nother thread of words...)


2. and 2b. are much the same pattern. You have an issue that simply "happens", and you believe you an the IT guy have been "working together to solve the problem, so you "coast on it", but the other party puts a heaping pile of crap on the VP's steak, using your spoon, and it leaves that nasty taste in his mouth, with your face as the reason. Yeah, anger is justified. Again, how you deal with it matters.

Two passive aggressive folks have added insult to your injuries, if you did not get angry, I'd call you a schmuck. Learning how to understand what is going on and how to effectively deal with it, is key to less stress over it. (Stress is the unresolved...)

#3 sorta similar, but this is enough for now.


Society has gotten to a place where people are often expected to "take it in the ass" or fear an "Unsatisfactory" on their Social Score Card.

I strongly disagree. But with such standing against that greater accepted POV, your going to have to learn how to "fight back better", choose to let the really petty shit go, and go after the things where people are causing you long term or far reaching damage.

Both, 1 and 2 are such things. 3 is a petty thing.

I'll fight to fight a fight worth fighting, and I don't care so much about blood and tears.

But, I will also choose to let some things go, that simply bring me nothing of value.

I won't fight a fight not worth fighting, even if it is an easy win.


(you have to figure those values for you)

Hope that helps.

I can't say it better than Sigmonkey's post.

Me, either^^^^. As monkey said, in the cases where you were lied to/wronged, I’d be angry, too.
I absolutely hate being lied to, or having useful/valuable information deliberately withheld from me (same as lying, imho).
I always thought I was a kind of “grey” type personality, but it seems to be turning out that I’m more “black and white”. That’s a hard kind of personality to have in this world.
Good luck working this through.

It happens a lot at work of being lied to and taken credit for your work.

One person I worked for took all my reports, memos, and solutions to other projects and put his name on the article to get credit. He even put down on his time card extra hours that he never worked.

Recently, he tried to kill his wife with a candlestick holder. I wonder if Bubba will go easy on him.

Old dogs, new tricks. I'm not saying you shouldn't strive to improve a deficiency but the habits of a lifetime cling to a person.

Of course we change as we go through life, but those changes are subtle. When you try telling yourself "I want to be this" or "I don't want to be that" it can be discouraging because it goes against our nature.

Just be honest with yourself and stay close to the people that matter to you.

Just taking a wild stab, buddy357, but have you ever had a brain injury, or any type of meningitis or encephalitis?

quote:

Originally posted by buddy357:
Maybe I do.

Well admitting that is a good start…

Have you ever talked to someone about it?

No need to dive into deep psycho evaluation but a good solid counselor to bounce things off of? Maybe they can be outside looking in and give you a perspective into your issues?

See a psychologist. These problems are generally lifelong and start in the family of origin. Your work health insurance should cover the bulk of the cost.

A good counselor or therapist can teach you some strategies to keep your thinking and temper under control. This isn't even "real" psychotherapy, and may help.

Good luck.

Have a drink.

^^^^^^^^^
Great idea. Smoke some weed with that and maybe have several more. Then you will have a bigger problem.

Many years ago (15-16)there was a similar post here

Then and there on another members advice I started asking myself

How much time and energy do I want to waste on someone I don't know and will never see again.

Not sweating the small stuff is very cliche.
But
It works for me

For some reason I’ve mostly been the opposite of don’t sweat the small stuff. I had an odd upbringing full of mental and physical abuse from my father, and sexual abuse from members of a nut-job religious group in southern VA. I’m sure none of that helped my development, but it toughened me up to survive life. That was followed by a couple decades in The Navy. I tend to not sweat the big stuff so much. If the car blows up today or we go to war, nothing I can do. But I can make sure I made my bed, did whatever repairs I’m doing the right way, not the quick way, that kind of stuff. I see it as I can’t control the big stuff and I realistically can only affect the small stuff,so that’s what I tend to worry about way more than necessary.

The anger thing has gotten better and worse over the years. When I was 17 I was perpetually angry and untrusting after running away from my dad. No one really knew because while I had a short fuse and got angry a lot, it was mostly internal. I was known for being exceptionally polite with the occasional refusal to let something go that was actually pretty petty. After I went in the service I felt I was in a real family more than I ever had. I was much better for years. Then I got married. I trusted the woman, let her in and told her things about my life I’d told no one. And she used it to mess with my head during the marriage and since the divorce. To the point that while I will be friendly with a woman, I doubt I’ll ever trust one again.

Thing is I started being internally angry again though. When the wife physically attacked me on our anniversary when I laughed at some of her bs, all I did was take it and then walk outside and take a walk around the block a few times. I was livid, but didn’t say or do anything, even though I knew the marriage had been over for a while by then, I just couldn’t accept it.

Since the divorce and getting out of the service I’ve moved to a state I don’t really belong in and really don’t enjoy being in, taken a solitary job as a field service guy that I like, and lived alone for 7 years. My mental health breaks and vacations were every second or third weekend with my son. Between Covid issues and him being a teenager I’ve seen him 3 times this year, and one of those was driving 2/3 of the way to his house to have Father’s Day lunch. The last couple years have been about the same. I have noticed I am more grumpy since he doesn’t want to be around me. His choice though.

I reconnected with my real mom when my little sister died a couple years ago. She had named her pit bull rescue, which had been a very abused fighting dog Buddy. She kind of weirded out when I found out. But eventually she admitted she sees me as the human equivalent of that dog. She thinks I have ptsd from my childhood and maybe even my marriage. My thought was everyone has shit going on, so I let it go. Still not sure what to think of her naming the dog that though.

When I was active duty I saw a counselor a few times during my divorce. It was mostly talking about the past and journaling how I felt which I didn’t see the point of. I already knew the past and a lot of my flaws. They were no help with how to fix them so what good was the counselor. And I could clearly see my journal entries were pretty much the same (I work, I love my kid, I’m confused and angry about the wife/ex) Then they wanted to put me on anti-depressants, which would disqualify me for the job I was doing while on them so I stopped going.

I am very task oriented, I can work like nobodies business. I quit drinking and going to bars because that was a task..if I had one I had to drink it. Once that one was gone, nothing else to do but drink another. Not worth the career and I had no actual urge to drink, only to complete the task, so I quit. I don’t do much of anything when I’m not working. I read and work around the house, occasionally go shooting, another task that I enjoy. I am around people every day for work without issue, but I can’t bring myself to intentionally be around groups of people when I’m off.

Man I sound like a sad-sack of soup sandwich. But most of the time I’m just too busy surviving life to feel bad about it. Unless I get stubborn or irritated about something and have to force myself to calm down. Or the black hole of loneliness hits, but that hits everyone at times.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: buddy357,

quote:

Originally posted by buddy357:
I see it as I can’t control the big stuff and I realistically can only affect the small stuff, so that’s what I tend to worry about way more than necessary.

That was an interesting post, buddy357, that attracted my attention much more than the usual fare that surfaces in threads like these. My life hasn’t been anything like yours other than our military service, but I too worry much more about the little things than the big stuff. That is also because I have virtually no influence about anything very big even if it affects me directly. A telling example was the recent fraudulent access of my credit union account and the theft of a large sum of money. Although I ultimately got the money back, that was far from certain when it happened. And yet it didn’t upset me as much as getting a defective staple gun from eBay and having to go to the trouble of sending it back, and not having the stapler I wanted.

I’m not criticizing people who want to worry about the truly big stuff that captures so much of their waking moments, and it’s not to say that some big things don’t bother me, but my reaction to such things is seldom to run to my Crusader keyboard and challenge the world via the Internet to make things right.

quote:

When I was active duty I saw a counselor a few times during my divorce. It was mostly talking about the past and journaling how I felt which I didn’t see the point of. I already knew the past and a lot of my flaws. They were no help with how to fix them so what good was the counselor. And I could clearly see my journal entries were pretty much the same (I work, I love my kid, I’m confused and angry about the wife/ex) Then they wanted to put me on anti-depressants, which would disqualify me for the job I was doing while on them so I stopped going.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah that is pretty much what counselors do. I suggested a Clinical Psychologist who would take a more in depth less cookbook approach. Nine years worth of training versus a couple. Putting someone on antidepressants without a comprehensive evaluation is crazy.