Types of violence
| Reactive Violence: | Involves an angry and impulsive violent reaction to frustration or something that we have mistaken as an insult. “I get into fights more than the average person.” “When angry, I tend to react without thinking.” |
Internal triggers
Feelings
Thoughts
Behaviors
External triggers
Annoyances
Abuse
Anger log
Where were you?
I was at the mall
Who was around you?
I was with two of my classmates with my three neighbors.
What happened?
One of my neighbors, a childhood friend, saw a piece of sweater similar to the one I had as a child. He took it and started mimicking how I used to look like, leaving me embarrassed.
How angry were you?
My angry levels were at 8
For how long were you mad?
I was mad for about fifteen minutes.
What physical sensations did you feel?
In anger, my heart beat first, and my head felt light-headed. I could feel my muscles tensed up while shaking profusely.
What emotions did you feel?
Above all, embarrassment took control of my emotions.
When you noticed you were angry, how did you respond?
I grabbed my friend who was making fun of me, by the collar, raised my voice at him, asking him to stop then pushed him away.
Do you feel you responded well?
My actions were a wrong response, having them channeled by anger.
How do you feel you could have improved your response?
They are my friends and I should not have responded with hos. tility. Instead, I should have joined in the good laugh since it was something that had happened a while back. Or rather, I could have turned the embarrassment to being a session of exposing each other’s embarrassing moments.
Changing Your Thinking
- Identify your trigger.
I tend to spend most of my time at home in my room playing video games or on my phone all day long. However, my mother always gets between my time alone, being against my habits and likes. She always prevents me from enjoying the time of my life to what I love doing by urging me to leave the house and do constructive things.
- Identify your automatic thoughts
- “She never lets me do the things I like, always bossing me around.”
- “why would I want to leave the house when I got what I need here, she is so inconsiderate.”
- Why would she always be on my case. I don’t harm anybody in staying in my room, I want to be left alone.
- Identify your emotions
I am always upset
Anger takes over me
In a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 unbothered and 10 very angry, I always have my anger level at 7
- Challenge your thoughts
- “Maybe she is going through a hard time paying for electricity bills that I see to an increment in playing video games all day long.”
- “Perhaps I put my health at risk staying indoors and she might be having my best interests in mind.”
- “can it be that she wants me to be responsible instead of wasting my life indoors playing video games?”
- “Does she hate me sitting in my room or she just needs me to have a social life rather than wasting away in the house?
- Replace and practice positive thoughts
- “Well, I should take things easy. Maybe it is time that I catch up with my friends and get out of the house.”
- “I shouldn’t worry, let this be an induction to the professional world after graduation. I need to prepare myself to get out of the house more.
- “mum has been guiding me all through without failing me, kept me keep on trusting that she has the best of interest.”
Aggression management
The symptoms of anger that I usually experience include:
- Muscle tension
- Clenching fists
- Goose bumps
- Changes in my voice
- Tears in my eyes
- Glaring
Managing your Anger
Step 1. When you know what makes you angry, you’ll be better able to develop better ways for dealing with those situations when they come up. What events/things trigger your anger?
The events that trigger my anger have an inclusion of getting put in embarrassing situations as well as situations that prevent me from undertaking my tasks at ease. Also, compromising situations such as being held up in traffic gets me angry, especially since they see to lateness. Situations that have me love mu\y focus and attention are also contributing factors to my anger.
Step 2 You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. Consider whether or not you have anger problem, and then Check one of the boxes below.
- “I acknowledge that I have an anger ”
Step 3 Other people in your life can be a great support network while you are trying to change. They can also be a source of motivation when you are tempted to return to your old ways. Who is in your support network?
In my support, I have my mother advocating for my change as well as my siblings. Since they know of my anger problem, my closest friends always see to it that I try to change.
Step 4. Use the techniques that you’ve learned to help you calm down and to avoid acting aggressively. List the techniques you’ve learned; you can go back through the booklet if you have to.
- Taking a deep breath tends to help me calm my anger
- Tensioning my hands, holding them for a short while and exhaling slowly tends to work in helping me calm down and cool from my anger.
- Thinking positively also helps me cool my anger, having the positive thoughts suppress the negative one.
Step 5. Forgive others and have empathy. Holding on to past anger can delay the change process. This is why it’s important to forgive others for past wrongs, and also to forgive yourself – to start fresh. Having empathy means you put yourself in the other person’s shoes to understand how they feel in a situation. This can help you figure out why they acted the way they did, and you might realize that you would have acted the same way.